Ginger nuts in top secret mission to Africa

So our Spare Heir is off to Africa instead of Iraq (or is he? He could already be in Iraq for all we know. Or in Brazil) and his ginger nut is going to be a tougher one for Iraqi insurgents to crack.

The poor lad is said to be "well gutted" at being unable to take a pop at the old towel-heads; he is reported to have said it would have been a "ripping time" and that he had been looking forward to smoking the odd wad of hashish courtesy of the Marrakesh Smoke Train that chuntles through the desert every now and then.

But our very own Hardy Boy was considered too high a risk to be sent to the front line. Excuse me? The chap is a soldier, trained in the arts of war and street-brawling. A prince should be on the front line, leading his chaps into battle with a rousing cry: "God for England, Lizzie and the St. George - best pub in Kensington."

But instead he's being sent to Africa. What a disappointment for the young prince, let alone the Pakistani snipers being shipped into Iraq for the sport. He was the best target they had - they've been trained to recognise a ginger barnet at 1000 paces. Now they've only got Chris Evans to take pot shots at in London, which will be fun but hardly as satisfying.

The rationale is that Harry, being potentially our King Henry IX (no, it's NOT short for Harold) is too high profile, putting his life and the life of his fellow-soldiers in jeopardy by his presence in Iraq-land. So he's going to a quieter area - West Africa.

This is a completely irrational argument put forward by the Mod - the Moderately Obtuse Department. Firstly, Iraq is a war-torn area. Soldiers have been killed and wounded there for years. Harry's arrival there is hardly likely to intensify the probability of mortar attacks. The very fact that these young men and women are in British Uniform is putting their lives in danger. They're soldiers. That's what they've been trained to do. A soldier goes into battle to fight the fight for his country, and is prepared to lay down his life for his land.

Incidentally, this is what irritates me about the media hype every time a soldier is killed or captured. They portray it as a tragedy. It is not a tragedy. Tragic, perhaps, but not a tragedy in the dictionary definition of the word. These men and women are trained to kill or be killed. They are putting their lives on the line deliberately and selflessly so that their families and friends back home can live their lives in peace. And that is what really angered me about those muppets who strayed into Iranian waters and blubbed like babies to the media. Medically they were all treated far better than we could have imagined. And yet they readily told their Iranian capturers heaps of information. What? If these idiots had been parachuted into France pre- D-Day, and been captured by the Vichy or SS, we'd have lost the war. And the SS had much more evil ways of torturing information out of people, but the heros of WWII had far more self-respect, love for country and honour to open their mouths. They died for their ideals and went to their graves in silence. I tell you, if I ever meet any of those rat-faced weasels who were captured by the Iranians, I'll ship them back to Iran with the words: "Ahmadinejad is a gayboy" tatooed to their foreheads.

Where was I?

Oh, secondly, they tell us Harry is going off to Africa. It's TOP SECRET. That's why every paper in the country knows about it. Secret Service, my ass. About as secret as Flasher John's genitals on a hot summer day on Clapham Common. Africa offers Harry the Red far less security than he would have were he to be posted to Baghdad! It would be far easier to capture a prince in a less-defended, less high-military-profiled area like Africa than it would in Iraq. Hell, my mum could capture Harry in Africa, and she's a as subtle as as earthquake. I could capture Harry easily. Just sneak in a bottle of Jack Daniel's into the compound, with a note: "Hey, prince dude, there's more of this by the Forest entrance, and lots of beautiful dancing girls. Come along at midnight. Alone."

Of course, my motives for kidnapping the Ginger Windsor would not be quite the same as the motives purported by the tribe of Saladin. After all, he is of legal age and far cuter than his balding brother.