The makeover of the wild man of Windsor has hit a bump in the road, writes Karen Kissane in London.

First prize must go to the British newspaper The Sun for the earthy brilliance of its headline about a naked Prince Harry covering his genitals with his hands: “Harry grabs the crown jewels.”
But the left-wing paper The Guardian wins the silver. Referring to the small red star that draws attention to the central point of the royal rear in another photograph, columnist Hadley Freeman muses that she is not sure “if the red star on the royal bare backside is a coy editorial choice … or that’s just how royal arses come”.
This week, everyone’s wild about Harry – except, perhaps, his nanna, who must have choked on her breakfast toast at the news that the third in line to the throne had been photographed in a Las Vegas hotel room playing naked with girls and that the pictures had swept right across the world via the internet.
Suddenly, the Queen has been sucked back into the kind of ghastly maelstrom last visited upon her when Fergie was photographed having her toes kissed beside a pool. Or, worse, the brouhaha when Charles was taped talking about how he longed to be his mistress’s tampon.
A suddenly circumspect Harry is lying low. His Dad has unleashed his hounds on the British press. Several reportedly paid tens of thousands of pounds to buy the images but Prince Charles’s lawyers, Harbottle and Lewis, sent a letter to Leveson-cowed newspapers via the Press Complaints Commission warning that under the editors’ code of practice, “It is unacceptable to photograph individuals in private places without their consent.”
That did not stop some British editors from publishing links to the celebrity-gossip site tmz.com, which originally published the images, and yesterday the Sun splashed one of the pictures over its front page.
It is thought one of the girls had taken the images on a camera phone and later sold them for up to ¬£200,000 ($303,000). They show the birthday-suited prince getting up close and personal with a naked woman while playing a game of “strip billiards”.
Almost as entertaining are the legitimate photographs taken of Harry the next morning, after news of the pictures broke. He might be 27 but his facial expressions would be recognised by any parent of an errant teenager: sheepishness and dread.
Harry had pretty much recovered from his image-denting attendance at a party while wearing a swastika armband in 2005. On an official trip to the Caribbean earlier this year, he charmed leaders and paraded his blue suede shoes.
Harry’s makeover was said to be partly the work of a new team of spin doctors who are refashioning the monarchy’s image for a modern age. But Harry, bless him, will long remain the spin doctors’ greatest challenge.
Life and times
Prince Harry is an Apache helicopter pilot who has served in Afghanistan and is expected to return later this year.
At 12, walked behind the coffin at the funeral of his mother, Princess Diana.
Reportedly had engaged in underage drinking; has admitted smoking marijuana.
In 2005, was photographed wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party and later apologised.
In 2009, made a derogatory remark about a Pakistani soldier. Sent to army sensitivity training.First published in The Sydney Morning Herald.