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Prince Philip
– Duke of Edinburgh
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The Wit and Wisdom of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
On
the occasion of his 85th. Birthday we celebrate some of the Duke’s
Gaffes, Faux Pas and Howlers:
1.
When visiting China
in 1986, he told a group of British students, "If you stay here much longer,
you'll all be slitty-eyed".
2. After accepting a gift from a Kenyan native he
replied, "You ARE a woman, aren't you?"
3. "If it has four legs and is not a chair, has
wings and is not an aeroplane, or swims and is
not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it." (At a 1986 World Wildlife
Fund meeting)
4. "British women can't cook." (1966)
5. To a British student in Papua New Guinea: "You
managed not to get eaten then?"
6.
Asked of a Scottish driving instructor, "How do you keep the natives
off the booze long enough for them to pass the driving test?"
7.
On a visit to the new Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, he told a group of deaf children
standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band, "Deaf? No wonder you are
deaf standing so close to that racket.”
8.
Asked of an Australian Aborigine, "Still throwing spears?" (March
2002)
9.
To a Briton in Budapest,
"You can't have been here that long – you haven't got a pot
belly." (1993)
10.
To the President of Nigeria (dressed in traditional Muslim robes),
"You look like you're ready for bed!"
11.
On seeing a shoddily installed fuse box in a high-tech Edinburgh factory, he remarked "It
looks as if it was put in by an Indian".
12.
A twelve year-old boy told the Prince that he wanted to be an astronaut,
Prince Philip replied, "You could do with losing a bit
of weight."."
13.
On an ‘extended’ tour of the Royal Navy ship HMS Boxer, was
quoted to have said, "Not another fucking chamber".
14.
After meeting San Francisco mayor, of the time, Dianne Feinstein and
several female supervisors, he remarked, "Aren't there any male
officials?... This is a nanny city." (1983)
15.
"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" (in 1994, to an
islander in the Cayman Islands)
16.
"Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining
they are unemployed." (during the 1981 recession)
17.
"We didn't have counsellors rushing around
every time somebody let off a gun, asking 'Are you all right? Are you sure
you don't have a ghastly problem?' You just got on with it."
(commenting in 1995 on modern stress counselling
for servicemen)
18.
"If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school
and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do
very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?" (in 1996,
amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane
shooting)
19.
"They must be out of their minds." (in
1982, in the Solomon
Islands, after being told that the
annual population growth was only 5%)
20.
"Your country is one of the most notorious centres
of trading in endangered species in the world." (in
1991, in Thailand,
after accepting a conservation award).
21.
"Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease." (in 1992 in Australia,
when asked to stroke a Koala bear)
22.
"Bloody silly fool!" (in 1997, referring
to a Cambridge
University car park
attendant who failed to recognise him).
23. In 1998, to pupils at Queen
Anne's School in Berkshire, who wear
blood-red uniforms: "It makes you all look like Dracula's
daughters."
24.
Reputed to have said, after being informed of Tony Blair’s
re-election in May 2005, “Well bugger me with a Ragman’s
Trumpet”.
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