THEY call themselves urban explorers. Actually they're trespassers, a bunch of hare-brained pests with a limited mental age and unlimited arrogance.

They weasel their way into boarded-up and derelict buildings such as the old Locarno, the Mechanics' Institute, the college in Regent Circus; in fact, it seems, almost any old ruin they have no business to be in.

Dressed up in black clothes, they do it mostly at night. Then they post pictures and reports on a website named after a science fiction horror movie, just to prove they were there.

It seems they even prowled around the Fleming Way police station building while it was being demolished And now safety experts from Swindon Council, Wiltshire police and other worthy public bodies are getting worked up in case these morons endanger their own life and limb negotiating bricks, planks, heights and tottering along walls and rafters.

"If they injure themselves it could be hours or even days before help arrives," said police spokesman Graham Chivers.

Well, hard luck! Why should paramedics, members of the fire service, police officers or other hard-pressed rescue workers have to put themselves at risk to haul nuisances in black balaclavas who are suffering from concussion or broken bones out of dangerous, fenced-off buildings which they have deliberately chosen to invade?

They indulge in this totally useless activity at their own risk.

They don't merit the portentous warning given last week by council spokeswoman Liz Richmond: "People should be discouraged from engaging in the acts that are portrayed on this website... if a building is fenced off it is usually for a reason."

Precisely! Anybody who has to seek kicks by burrowing into dank, dangerous old buildings, taking snapshots of his mates and then writing a turgid account of the excursion needs to be pitied.

What is the point of it? The activity benefits nobody and they and the people who apparently have nothing better to do than visit their silly website should get a life.

The princely problem of Hal

PRINCE Harry, we are told, wants to go to Iraq with his unit of the Blues and Royals when it starts a six-month tour of duty there, probably in April.

In fact, he's so keen to be a real soldier that he has threatened to quit the Army if they won't let him.

Unsurprisingly those responsible for protecting this tender Royal shoot aren't keen on the idea.

They will obviously be less than popular with his dad if the insurgents put a bullet in him, which for obvious reasons the insurgents will be pretty keen to do. There is, of course, also the even more important question of whether young Wales's presence as a target will aggravate the dangers faced by other lads in the unit.

All of which should prompt what seems to me like an obvious question. Since soldiers join the Army knowing they could be called on to fight and perhaps die, why did they ever let young Harry inside the gates of Sandhurst?

I suppose the answer's equally obvious. What else could they do with him?