Better red than dead

SO PRINCE Harry has been forced to come home and every carrot-topped, strawberry blond squaddie from here to Baghdad can breathe a sigh of relief.

Personally, it made me proud to see our gallant prince go off to fight the wily Pathan. Apparently Prince Michael of Kent offered to go along to play Chung to Harry’s Wolf of Kabul, but unfortunately they wouldn’t let him take his old bat.

I must say it would be nice to see a return to the days of yore when the monarch actually led our troops into battle. I can just see Her Madge, clad in Kevlar headscarf, sitting on top of a tank yelling “Chaaarge!” as Terry Taliban and his mates flee in terror across the wadis.

Meanwhile Princess Anne is clearing trenches armed only with a pearl-topped hat-pin and look, there’s Prince Philip alongside her, shouting “Let’s get the slanty-eyed buggers!” until a lackey tactfully whispers into his ear the fact that the Gurkhas are actually on our side.

Charles, meanwhile, would be talking to the poppy fields.

DID YOU see the picture of that vicious polar bear at Berlin Zoo trying to eat a small child through six inches of armoured glass? Surprisingly, that bear was not so long ago the cute little Knut, hand-reared by keepers after his mother died and the inspiration for millions of marks worth of merchandise.

Now, aged 14 months, he’s rather gone and given the game away. Remember those pictures of the allegedly drowning polar bears on rapidly diminishing ice floes? Shame, wasn’t it? Well save your pity. These ‘cute’ animals are nothing more than wild beasts that would tear your head off and spit down the hole given half a chance. Don’t waste your pity on them.

In fact, we probably ought to drown a few more, just to be on the safe side. Fire up the Quattro and let’s burn some ozone!

A WOMAN who made hoax 999 calls for 24 years has escaped yet another jail term because shock treatment to break her addiction has failed. Thelma Dennis, 50, from Mountain Ash, Cynon Valley – that’s in Wales, if you hadn’t guessed - has been prosecuted 60 times and agreed to electrode therapy which left her screaming in pain every time she dialled the third ‘9’ of 999.

(For some reason I’m laughing uncontrollably as I type this. Can you apply for a job like that? Electrocuting Welsh loonies at state expense? I’ll even do it for free.)

But a court heard that the treatment failed and Thelma cracked and rang the police claiming a bomb had been planted in her local supermarket. There’s nothing left to do with her except bang her up for life. So the judge let her go, without even a pot of black gloss and an order to paint an old lady’s gate.

Now I can see several options here if the emergency services of Mountain Ash (and I’m imagining Trumpton here) aren’t going to spend every evening racing to false alarms while innocent punters are mugged, burnet and drop dead of heart attacks in the street.

Firstly, why not just take Thelma’s phone away from her? Or even connect it up to a tape loop that just says: “Emergency services - fire, police or ambulance?”

Or how about this for a leap of imagination? Warn all the emergency operators that calls from Thelma’s number are to be simply ignored. Yes love, of course your house is on fire. I can smell the smoke. Now clear off.

It’s hardly rocket science, is it?

WHILE WE’RE on nutters, a man who planned to walk from Bristol to India without any money has quit after only getting as far as Calais.

Mark Boyle, 28, who set out four weeks ago with only T-shirts, a bandage and sandals, hoped to rely on the kindness of strangers for food and lodging.

But, because he could not speak French, people thought he was free-loading or an asylum seeker. Having seen a photograph of this feckless soap-dodger, I think their judgement generous.

Mr Boyle, a former organic food company boss, belongs to the Freeconomy movement which wants to get rid of money altogether. (Except for other people’s money, obviously.)
He now plans to walk around the coast of Britain instead, learning French as he goes, so he can try again next year. Because French is widely spoken in Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the other Francophile countries he’d have to pass through en route to his destination, Gandhi’s birthplace.

SPEAKING OF which, morons in Leicester have objected to a council plan to erect a statue of Gandhi in a mainly Indian area of the city. Now they’ve set up a petition to have local football hero Gary Lineker honoured instead.

Now let’s see – sandal-wearing spiritual leader and man of peace versus jug-eared TV host and crisp salesman? Which one do you think is more worthy?

I KNOW we have to be alert in these difficult times, but a mate’s mother might be taking the War on Terror a little too far.

She phoned him last week and said: “I'm a bit worried about those Muslims next door.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I saw them going in the other day and they had a computer.”“And then what?”“Well, you never know what they'll be getting up to with it.”“Erm … what about email, shopping … the kids will probably use it for their homework …”“Ah,” she said, “but you can’t be too careful, so I’ve phoned MI5.”

Bless.