Was Prince Harry being deliberately racist? More importantly, do we care?

I wasn't sure anything could top the moral outrage that followed the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand recording that bizarrely swallowed up the headlines in October of 2008. It wasn't so much the moral outrage I had a problem with, I mean I can understand why you could be insulted by what those two did and yet I just thought it got blown spectacularly out of proportion. Maybe it's a side-effect of the generation I'm part of. After all, we young 'uns are meant to idolise Russell while our parents and grandparents sigh and tut and complain how Andrew Sachs was victimised by two overrated, overpaid prats who the BBC were previously afraid to discipline. Or, maybe it's that it actually did get blown spectacularly out of proportion. By that I mean that only two people were meant to have heard the actual, dreaded broadcast when it went out over the airwaves; it was only when The Mail on Sunday brought it to everyone else's attention a week later that the complaints rolled in. Most of these people were complaining much later about a broadcast they didn't even hear firsthand.
As I said at the beginning, I wasn't sure anything could top that. Until Prince Harry.

The story is quite similar. Prince Harry made remarks he shouldn't have made, it was filmed and then a tabloid newspaper leaked it. In this case, he called a fellow cadet in his Sandhurst training regiment 'our Paki friend' then went on to use the derogatory term 'raghead'.
What does this mean? In short, Prince Harry is an idiot. This isn't the first time he's been seen or heard doing or saying something inappropriate. It isn't the first time he's embarrassed the Royal Family. But, you can dismiss it each time by saying, very simply 'He's an idiot'. He's not the case for Why Britain should be a republic, nor is he a thug, nor does he hate the Islamic community. He's just an idiot. Prince Harry reminds me of people I went to school with and by that I mean people who had more money than sense. If anything, you feel sorry for the guy, as his tour of duty in the British Army seems to have taught him nothing about tact or, more importantly, tolerance.
Which brings me rather neatly on to my next point and the reason why the people baying for his blood have managed to trump His Royal Highness in the Idiocy stakes. You see, this tape was recorded three years ago. That's Christmas 2005 for anyone who can't do the maths. In that time, Harry has done a tour of duty in Afghanistan, taken up his mother's charity mantle and passed out of Sandhurst. He has changed as a person. Three years is a long time for anyone, but between the age of about 18 and 25, people tend to change a lot, be it at university or in the armed forces.
This, however, doesn't seem to be enough for The News of the World who, in another tabloid act of leaking something which is either really sensitive or really irrelevant, decided to take their readers on a step by step guide of every gaffe that Harry made. The bandwagon was then jumped on by the likes of the Ramadhan Foundation, whose spokeperson Mohammed Shafiq said he was 'deeply shocked and saddened' by the Prince's racism. While I can see Mr Shafiq's point of view, I again scream 'He's an idiot' and go on to mention that this kind of rhetorical nonsense is what blows such incidents out of proportion in the first place. You are deeply shocked and saddened when you hear news of a person serving in Afghanistan dying. Prince Harry was probably deeply shocked and saddened (we can imagine) at some point in his ten week tour of duty. After all, he is prone to making mistakes but he has demonstrated that he is not unfeeling.
The explanation is much simpler. Prince Harry was three years younger and apparently stupider than he is now and he recorded a video for amusement to pass the time. The video is representative of the somewhat stupid in-jokes amongst a group of friends in the Army. The boy about whom the comment was made, Ahmed Raza Khan, has wisely brushed it off as such and, three years later, got on with his life. So should a lot of other people.

Welcome to 2009. Here's Fiona Bruce with why we're doomed

Recently, both the television and print media have come to remind me of two things. It's either Private Frazer from 'Dad's Army' (you know, the one who goes "we're all dooomed") or it's the Yorkshiremen from the Monty Python sketch, who are constantly trying to outdo one another with stories of how rough their upbringings were - 'You were lucky...'. There seems to be a daily game between all the papers and the four major news channels to see who can deliver the best analysis, the best forecast of just how bad things are going to get in light of this new recession. I'm glad it's a proper recession now. The term 'credit crunch' was starting to grate me, mainly because it sounded like a breakfast cereal that was really bland and had needed another flavour which children could enjoy; you know, like Choco-Credit Crunch, or Credit Crunch N Nuts.
I am not for one moment suggesting that the news should stop reporting on the economy. I for one like to know what is going on in the world around me. But I would like it if I could hear a bit of good news, or at least good news which isn't tainted with the institutionalised pessimism that has been rampant of late. For example, this past Saturday I read an article in The Times which said that John Lewis had seen a record turnover during their Christmas sale on the 27th December. The article then went onto warn, however that this would make no difference, that January and February would represent grim times for the whole High Street. Today, Marks and Spencers announced 1,000 job cuts. Not good news. Then the BBC news website hammered it home with, 'this will be seen as a sign of weakness on the High Street'. I'm sure it will, if only by the 1,000 people who will lose their jobs. And if the managers and shareholders of John Lewis wanted their parade rained on, they could just pop in their time travel machines and go back to last summer. Thirdly, Anne Robinson appeared on The Andrew Marr Show to re-iterate this, and to say, in her clipped Weakest Link tones, that this year, we all leave with nothing.

The depressed amongst us needn't worry however. Because the newspapers have anticipated the fact that we're all reaching into our drawers and pulled out our old service revolvers, or crushing some pills into a sale-bought Ikea tumbler filled with vodka. They've published some survival guides for 2009. The newspapers sell by first telling us how the recession will affect every aspect of life and then by giving things to make us feel better. The Daily Mail is the best at this; complaining about how Britain has gone to hell under the control of Labour and the Guardianistas then offering to help you shop cheaply in the new economic climate.
The economic climate also gives one a renewed appreciation of the skewed priorities of said newspapers i.e. covering pages with tales of economic woe alongside gripes over how Matt Smith's eleventh Doctor is too young for the part. Many of the articles written about the recession have been exercises in time travel - opinion columns have been tripping over themselves to compare this to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and impart wisdom to Gordon Brown and Barack Obama about how they can or can't learn from Franklin Roosevelt.
The depression of the Thirties lasted for most of that decade. Current projections put this one at two years in length - the worst apparently since 1992. Oh dear God. I was expecting something more drastic, like 'since records began'.
Yes the global banking system nearly collapsed and yes 2009 will be a tough year. All I'm saying is, you might save a bit of money and possibly your own sanity if you stop reading about the recession and just concentrate on living through it.