Ship the X-boxes home - Harry won't be heading back to Afghanistan.

Although Harry 28, said he would love to return to the front line, he has likely seen his last spell of active service.

His Apache squadron is not due to return to Helmand before the  pull-out of combat troops at the end of 2014, and, according to The Telegraph, that pretty much rules out a return to the front line as there is no way he would be allowed to serve as a regular foot soldier.

A military source told the Telegraph: “There are five Apache squadrons and because Prince Harry’s squadron has just returned, it would not be due to go back for another 20 months, by which time combat troops will have pulled out. It’s highly unlikely that he will return for any other reason, though it is theoretically possible that he could be asked to go back if another co-pilot falls ill or due to other unforeseen circumstances. You can never say never."

Harry is ready for action, and ices, any time...

Prince Charles has never shied away from getting down with the kids, and he was up to his old tricks on the streets of South London yesterday, when he was accosted by a group of local kids armed with cell phones and Dre headphones who co-erced the champion of the double-breasted suit into an impromptu photo shoot.

Charles was was visiting the Oval cricket ground and the youths were all working with his charity, The Prince’s Trust.

The royal family are in fact German, so maybe this should come as no surprise. But still...

British PM David Cameron has stirred up a hornets' nest by saying the people of Britain are to be offered a referendum on whether or not they want to stay in the European Union.

German tabloid newspaper Bild has now had its say - and urges the UK not to leave, in part because they love the royal family.

The Bild says: "Some even speak of expulsion and want the friends of mint sauce and those who drive on the left completely out of the EU. But dear Britons, please stay! You are so crazy. We need your opposition, your obstinacy rather than a united Europe. And above all, we love your quirky Royals! Your punk! Your sense of humor!" (Translation via the Telegraph)

Camilla Parker-Bowles has clearly not given up on her dream to be Queen Camilla, saying, "You never know" when asked if she would one day bear the title.

Camilla was responding to a question not from a seasoned royal reporter (cough, cough) but to a question form a six year-old.

The Evening Standard reported that she made the comment on a trip to a London school.

The remark came just three months after Charles published information on his website specifying that Camila would be known as 'Princess Consort' instead of 'Queen Consort' - usually abbreviated to Queen when he accedes to the throne. But privately Prince Charles has for many years made no secret of the fact to his trusted inner circle that he wants her to be crowned Queen of England when he finally ascends to the throne.

This, as Charles has pointed out to allies and senior courtiers, would have been entirely in accordance with tradition - and British constitutional law. But Camilla has always been a special case, owing not so much to the fact that she is a divorcee as to public affection for Princess Diana, whom, despite her own love affairs, the British public for the most part still perceive as grossly and tragically wronged by the continuance of Charles and Camilla’s relationship after the Royal wedding in 1981. Diana famously described Camilla as the third person in her marriage.

Queen Elizabeth and her husband Philip were encouraged in no small part to sanction the marriage of Charles and Camilla because at the time of their wedding, Charles’s office announced that when Charles ascended to the throne, Camilla would be known as “HRH Princess Consort”.

But, in recent years, Charles had appeared to be quietly looking to row back on that understanding and for Camilla’s position to be completely regularised upon his ascension, and for her to be crowned Queen.

In November 2010, the gossip reached the ears of NBC’s Brian Williams, who had been lined up for an interview with Charles to mark the engagement of William and Kate.
He guilelessly ask Charles: Would the Duchess of Cornwall become Queen if and when he came to the throne?

Charles looked utterly flabbergasted to be confronted with what is likely to be the very first controversy of his reign and stammered a reply: “Er, that’s, that’s, we’ll see, won’t we? But, er, that could be.”

“That could be.” Those three words confirmed what many had suspected all along, that the “Princess Consort” formulation was just a ruse to soften up the British public and get them used to Camilla, and to get the wedding past his parents, but that when the crunch came, Charles would simply go ahead as he had always planned and annoint Camila as his Queen.

These latest unguraded comments only confirm that Charles and Camilla continue to harbour hopes that she will one day be Queen, despite the public denials.

Prince Harry finally arrived back in London late last night after four months away, and although he insisted he would be having a quiet reunion with his brother and Kate behind closed doors, we just know it won't be long till the playboy Playstation prince is out on the town again.

So where is he likely to go? And, given that the 28-year-old Prince has once again been lamenting the difficulty of finding a suitable bird—“I don’t think you can ever be urged to settle down. If you find the right person and everything feels right, it  takes time. Me and my brother, ain’t ever going to find someone that would jump into the position,” he said in his BBC interview—who will be on his arm?

Yes here it is folks, the Prince Harry video mash-up, with thanks to those fine tech-heads toiling away in the Royalist's IT wing...

Prince Harry landed back in the UK tonight and appeared to confirm he had killed during his tour of duty, and added that he was 'longing' to catch up with William and Kate 'behind closed doors' in a reunion to which the media 'aren't invited'.

His loathing of the press was obvious when he openly scoffed at a reporter who asked him whether the impending birth had caused him to 'reflect on his own destiny' by bumping him down the order of succession.

During a five minute interview at RAF Brize Norton he also gave a far more diplomatic answer when asked if he had 'killed Taliban' on duty, saying he was just doing his job. There was no repetition of the crass comments made in a BBC documentary earlier this week which was filmed in Afghanistan when he compared warfare to computer games. and twice said he operated around the principle, "Take a life to save a life."

After landing at the RAF base in Oxfordshire, he was told that headlines had quoted him saying he killed Taliban insurgents and was asked: "Is that what happened?"

You can say that again, pal!

The artist who painted the much-mocked first official portrait of Kate Middleton has defended his work, saying that one of the reasons it has received so much abuse is because it doesn't photograph well.

Paul Emsley told Hello magazine: "At first the attacks were so vicious that there was a point where I myself doubted that the portrait of the Duchess was any good. But now I've had time to reflect, I am still happy with it and am getting on with my life. There is nothing I would have changed…I believe half the problem is the portrait doesn't photograph well and I would encourage people to go and see it [at the National Portrait Gallery]."

The Royalist discusses Harry's ill-advised musings on the similarities between war and Playstation.

A perceptible hardening of attitudes against Prince Harry following his ill-advised remarks yesterday in which he compared modern warfare to a computer game.

Harry Mount in the usually blithely patriotic Telegraph is  the pick of the bunch. In a terse and cogent piece of writing he argues that 'the loose-tongued Spencer emotion will, sometimes, have to give way to the stiff Windsor upper lip."

He accuses Harry of the crime indiscretion: "Never in her 86 years has the Queen been a fraction as indiscreet as Prince Harry was in his interview to mark the end of his tour of duty in Helmand Province this week… once the TV cameras turn up, it’s time to stop the officers’ mess banter, and draw a veil over the bloody facts of military life…"
Mount also criticises Harry's immaturity: "He is still young – only 28 – and the roistering Prince Hal days can, in theory, go on for ever: succession disasters notwithstanding, he will never become King Henry IX. But it’ll soon be time to put away childish things. What now looks like hot blood and instinctive reactions will be petulant oafishness in 10 years’ time."

The left-wing, republican Guardian surprises with a piece drawing somewhat favourable comparisons between Harry and former fighting Kings and princes.

Prince Harry is in Cyprus where he has been given the regulation four cans of lager and has a 24-36 hour "decompression" period after completing his tour of duty in Afghanistan.

The Prince arrived late last night, according to local paper the Famagusta Gazette.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense revealed last night that the 28-year-old prince had completed a five-month deployment in Afghanistan, where he served as an Apache helicopter pilot with the Army Air Corps.

The British base at Akrotiri is the halfway point between RAF Brize Norton in the UK and Camp Bastion and used for troops returning from combat to adjust to normal life.

Prince Harry has been accused of demeaning himself by comparing his role in the Afghan war to playing Xbox by Taliban commanders.

The Taliban leaders, who were speaking to a reporter from the Daily Telegraph from an undisclosed location, were angered by the way Prince Harry described his role as co-pilot of an Apache helicopter, in charge of its weapons systems as being like playing a computer game.

“It’s a joy for me because I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful,” he said in an interview broadcast on the BBC last night.

The Telegraph says that the Prince's typically unguarded comments "could prove a headache for President Hamid Karzai, who has staked his reputation on working closely with Nato-led forces and wants the US to station troops in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014."

The Telegraph spoke to Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, who said Prince Harry was a “coward” for speaking only after he was out of harm’s way.

From The Telegraph:

“This statement is not even worth condemning. It is worse than that,” he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“To describe the war in Afghanistan as a game demeans anyone – especially a prince, who is supposed to be made of better things.”

He added that it exposed the calibre of forces that Nato was able deploy.

“It shows the lack of understanding, of knowledge,” he said. “It shows they are unfamiliar with the situation and shows why they are losing.”

A commander in Helmand, where Prince Harry was based, said soldiers from dozens of countries were fighting in Afghanistan. To describe their efforts – and deaths – as part of a game was to show a lack of respect, he said.

“It’s not a game. It’s very, very real,” he said.

Prince Harry has confirmed that he did fire on and kill insurgents in Afghanistan, twice saying he had to "take a life to save a life" in an interview with the BBC.

Harry went on to compare warfare to a video game, leading a Taliban commander to brand him a 'coward' who had 'demeaned' himself with the comments and didn't understand the nature of the war in Afghanistan.  The 28-year-old Prince’s remarks, which have been met with a combination of jingoistic approval and shocked dismay by observers today, were made to journalists in Afghanistan but were not broadcast until last night after he had left the country for a 'decompression' stop in Cyprus where he will be given four cans of lager.

The interview came after a four-month tour of duty flying Apache helicopters, with news media agreeing not to publish Captain Wales’s comments until today, now he has left the country, under the terms of a media agreement.

The Royalist reported at Christmas that Pippa's publishers had passed on the opportunity to publish another book by the "Turkeys-are-perfect-for-feeding-larger-gatherings" author, and the Mail has a big page lead on the story today.

It goes into some detail with a friend of Pippa telling the paper that Kate's sister feels like 'a caged animal' due to the restrictions placed on her by her connections to the royals.

The friend says: "Pippa left a good job as Event Manager at party planning business Table Talk to focus on launching her writing career. She was counting on [the book] working. She is becoming increasingly frustrated and angry that her reputation and livelihood is being affected by the constraints of royal life - especially as she is not a royal herself. In truth, she has had enough of it. She’s not a member of the royal family and is completely fed-up with having nearly every aspect of her life controlled just because her sister happened to marry into the royal family. She feels trapped like a caged animal and it really is getting her down."

The Royalist has heard that Pippa's publishers at Penguin have found working with the royals a nightmare experience that none of them are anxious to repeat. Pippa, meanwhile, is stuck in limbo with the terrifying prospect of becoming the next Fergie looming ever closer.