...said Prince Harry, at the end of a tour of duty in Afghanistan where he has been co-piloting an Apache chopper and shooting at Taleban. Should he have said he had killed some Taleban? Should he have been interviewed at all? How different was this very ordinary seeming young(ish) soldier from the man who was trapped on camera playing strip billiards or something? Who cares?

Clearly, a lot of people care, not least him. He doesn't like the popular press - and who would? But really, I can't help but pity him. He didn't ask to be a prince. He doesn't seem to want to be a prince. He thinks his brother envies him his army role, and he may be right. Do any of the royals truly enjoy what they have to do? Any of it? Is it possible?

The five (six?) accused of the rape/kidnap/murder in Delhi have already been tried - it would seem. A representative of the Bar Association said on TV that none of their members would represent the men because they had committed such heinous crimes. But they haven't been tried yet - have they?

Suppose, just suppose the wrong men had been arrested for some reason. Could they ever be acquitted?

The gun that killed the children and teachers in Connecticut was an AR15 rifle. The company that makes it is called Bushmaster. The company that acquired Bushmaster (but is now hurriedly selling it) is called Cerberus. After it bought Bushmaster in 2006, Cerberus acquired other gun manufacturers and called the conglommerate Freedom Group. Okay, then.

The other dank night I watched a film on TV, Die Hard, because it apparently plummeted Bruce Willis to fame. New York cop visiting California single handedly vanquishes Euro band of thieves posing as political terrorists. Outside the the sky scraper where Bruce is doing his brave bit the local cops, then the FBI, then the military hamper him incompetently. Only a local (black) patrolman is on his side - a policeman who has forsworn guns since he accidentally killed a 13 year-old kid.

Essentially the film goes bang bang until the baddies are dead, and Bruce the hero emerges, exhausted and bloodstained to assembled acclaim and to collect a hug from the black patrolman who had been rooting for him. But at this moment a villain, lying in the rubble presumed deceased, comes to life and raises a weapon on Bruce Willis. Final bang and villain falls dead. His executioner? The policeman who had sworn never to take up a gun again. Redemption...US style: redeemed to be able to kill once more.

With this nonsense as the background noise, gun laws will not change. Too many Americans believe (wrongly) that the Constitution from the outset assured them the right to bear arms, when in fact all it said was that they had the right to bear arms as part of a militia (to ensure continued national independence). But people believe whatever suits them. It is no good telling us, as the NRA insists on doing, that it is not guns that kill  but people. Young men, or old, however crazed, could not slaughter en masse without guns. And illegally procured weapons are harder to get hold of. They really are.

Let’s go for a circular walk. There’s a lot of brouhaha (spelling?) going on here in the UK about whether or not a law should be introduced that would allow gay people to be married in church.

On TV this week (Channel 4) an Anglican woman vicar did a ‘thought piece’, in which she said that legalising gay marriage would contravene the law as set down in the Bible. And if one is a Christian, she said, it is one’s duty to obey one’s conscience and disobey the law. She was confused: no one has suggested  that clerics will be compelled to marry gays in church, only that they should be able to if they wish. No matter. The point is not what is the case but what she thought was the case, which impelled her to conclude: where an unjust law comes into force we are obliged to obey a higher law. (Hold onto that idea for a moment – but not too tight.)

Meanwhile, a little earlier, there was annoyance and embarrassment that the synod of the Church of England, the State church if you like, had managed to come up with a vote against ordaining women bishops, even though the existing bishops in the synod had been in favour of them. It was the lay members, the non-priests, who didn’t want the women. Some arcane rule to do with voting quotas or something apparently explains the anomalous result.

What is to be done? Well, fiddle with the rules so that at the next synod, the topic can be voted on again – this time (with luck) producing the outcome it was ‘meant’ to. (Hold onto that idea too.)

Isn’t it odd that a woman vicar (forbidden to preach by the Bible, but who is wearing her dog collar on TV) leans on the Bible to support the proscription of gay marriage?

Isn’t it odd that people are allowed to hold elections, but only so long as the result conforms to what you wanted in the first place? Examples: If the ‘people’ don’t vote as they are supposed to, you either punish them (Palestinians voting for Hamas), or make them keep voting until they get the answer right (the Irish referendum on the EU, the synod on women bishops).

And isn’t it odd that when some Muslims (and I wish they wouldn’t) stand on street corners yelling that God’s law is higher than man’s law, that the laws of the land they live in are nothing to them, we get annoyed, nay scared. But when a woman vicar says the same thing on a national TV channel no one seems to notice? Perhaps no one was watching. Or they all thought she was just a fruit loop.

I wonder where she stands on women bishops.