3am

[GHA EFM]

I'm no great fan of the monarchy, but it was good to hear about Prince Harry larging it up last night...

 

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/taz.gif" alt="" />

[GHA EFM]

LONDON (Reuters) - Prince Harry has scuffled with photographers outside a London nightclub, denting attempts to shrug off his image as the royal family's "wild child."

 

Royal aides said the prince was hit on the nose and a photographer's lip was cut after Harry, 20, the younger son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, tried to push a camera away early on Thursday morning.

 

Pictures aired on television showed the red-haired prince, third in line to the throne, scuffling with a group of photographers after partying at Pangaea nightclub in Piccadilly.

 

One, Chris Uncle, told the London Evening Standard Harry had been getting in his car when he "deliberately lashed out".

 

"Suddenly he burst out of the car and lunged towards me. He was saying 'why don't you just leave me alone,'" Uncle said.

 

Another photographer who witnessed the altercation supported Uncle's version of events.

 

"He (Harry) just went for him for no apparent reason. He was at least a metre away from him," Charlie Pyecraft told Sky TV.

 

A police source said charges were unlikely.

 

PLAYBOY PRINCE

 

Although the media largely left Harry and his elder brother William alone after Diana's death in 1997, he has lately attracted unwanted attention after admitting smoking cannabis and under-age drinking.

 

Earlier this month, one of Harry's former teachers at elite Eton College said she helped prepare material that her royal pupil submitted as his own work for an art exam.

 

Although Eton and the prince denied he cheated, the story still made the front pages.

 

In a bid to shake-off his playboy image, a documentary of the prince working with AIDS victims in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho was shown on television in September.

 

In the programme Harry, set to join the army, said he wanted to carry on the charity work closely identified with his mother, who was also dogged by paparazzi during her lifetime.

 

While Harry's antics have attracted criticism, there are many who are sympathetic, conscious he was just 12 when his mother was killed in a Paris road accident and that he has since endured countless revelations about her private life.

 

Robert Lacey, royal commentator and biographer, believes Harry has had a tough time.

 

"It would be extraordinary if at the age of 20, he didn't sow some wild oats, indulge in indiscretions," he told Reuters.

 

"In the eyes of both princes, it was paparazzi who chased their mother into the tunnel in which she died. If he feels anger with paparazzi, you can understand his feelings."

[Mark (Flag) Braintree]

Quote:

LONDON ( and the late Princess Diana, tried to push a camera away early on Thursday morning.

and still she gets a mention. What 10 years. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

[Dan Sampford]

just over 7

[Mark (Flag) Braintree]

Just feels like 10 then.

[Big J R]

Good on Harry. If some snotty-nosed parka wearing chav journo stuck a 35mm lens up MY hooter at 3:00am as I left a private party, I would have done exactly the same !