UK: Prince William, who is second in line to the British throne, has marked the near end to his university career with an interview in which he expresses a strong desire to join the British army and serve in conflicts if necessary.
"The last thing I want to do is be mollycoddled or wrapped up in cotton wool because if I was to join the army, I'd want to go where my men went and I'd want to do what they did. I would not want to be kept back for being precious, or whatever. That's the last thing I'd want," he said.
Prince William's younger brother Prince Harry enrolled recently in the Royal Military Training Academy at Sandhurst, the British army's officer training college. Prince William said he would like to follow him and participate fully in army life.
"It's the most humiliating thing and it would be something I'd find very awkward to live with being told I couldn't go out there when these guys have got to go out there and do a bad job," he told the BBC and the Press Association.
He spoke of troops in Iraq "fighting their hearts out" and his pride at being British as he attended the "very moving" Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph for the first time.
"I just thought what with the Iraq war and troops being abroad and particularly the Black Watch going through a very tough time - I thought it was just the right time for me probably to make an entrance and be there for the youth, and make a point that the young still haven't forgotten and still very much appreciate what's been done for everyone."
He added: "The army is obviously a lot more in the spotlight at the moment . . . The remembrance service really does bring it home when you're there, and there's actually a war going on somewhere at the time and the guys are fighting their hearts out."
William said the sacrifices made by the war veterans should "never be forgotten". He said Sandhurst would be a "great place to learn how to lead and to earn respect".
The 22-year-old royal has been studying geography at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and is due to graduate with a 2:1 if he finishes writing a 10,000 dissertation on the coral reefs of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean.
During the interview he stressed the importance of being able to control his own life and insisted that the prospect of one day being King did not keep him awake at night. However, the "slipping away" of normality would be "very hard".
Confident, animated and chatty, the final year student said few people apart from his family understood what it was like to be in the spotlight, but life was too short to worry about things.
He said he shops at Tesco, still has 8,500 words of his dissertation to write by next month and once drank vodka shots at 9.30 in the morning as part of annual Raisin Weekend antics at St Andrews.
Student life has been "brilliant"; no one at the Scottish university notices that he is there any more.
Frequently breaking into his broad trademark smile, the Prince told anecdotes about his life in the quiet windswept town on the north-east coast of Fife: how he was proposed to in the street by a young girl and how one old lady, not knowing who he was, stopped to ask if he knew a good place to buy underwear.
On the subject of being King one day, he denied that the prospect kept him awake at night. "It's not like that. The thing is with me I look on the brighter side of everything. There's no point being pessimistic or being worried about too many things because frankly life's too short.
"At the moment it's about having fun in the right places, enjoying myself as much as I can. I'm trying to do that."
He insisted he would not be a reluctant King.
"I don't think I am. I have reservations about everything. The fortunate thing is I have had such a normal childhood in certain extents and it would be very hard to see that slip away."
On his father, Prince Charles, in the news again this week over assertions aired at an employment appeals tribunal that people no longer knew their place in society, Prince William said: "He's had a difficult time, and you know it's just sad," the 22-year-old said.
"I said this the last time, I'm sure I used the same words, but I just wish more of his charitable work was concentrated on because he does do a hell of a lot of work."