Simple mod rewrite with PHP?

[MrApples]

That's nice of you, thank you, I was looking for a PHP version though. I kind of don't want to turn 'RewriteEngine' on for something small. Unless I'm being stupid?

If I am being stupid, would that work as if both versions were input, the same location would come up, and the url would say the simpler one either way?

Also, would this make area a variable as well?

RewriteRule ^([^/]*)/([^/]*).html$ /index.php?$1=$2