good to see that there are still people out there who haven't lost their sense of humour in these over-political-correct times.
Not sure this has been posted yet:
Philip's Top 15 Gaffes:
1. China State Visit, 1986
If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.
2. To a blind women with a guide
“Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?”
3. To an Aborigine in Australia
“Do you still throw spears at each other?”
4. To his wife, the Queen, after her coronation
“Where did you get the hat?”
5. When asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union
“The bastards murdered half my family”
6. To a Briton in Budapest
“You can’t have been here that long – you haven’t got a pot belly.”
7. To a driving instructor in Scotland
“How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?”
8. After the Dunblane shooting
“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?”
9. To a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea
“You managed not to get eaten, then?”
10. To Elton John after hearing Elton had sold his Gold Aston Martin
“Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car – we often see it when driving to Windsor Castle.”
11. On the London Traffic Debate
“The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop tourism, we could stop the congestion.”
12. To the President of Nigeria, dressed in traditional robes
“You look like you’re ready for bed!”
13. Unknown
“If you see a man opening a car door for a woman, it means one of two things: it’s either a new woman or a new car!”
14. On key problems facing Brazil
“Brazilians live there”
15. To the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean
“You have mosquitos. I have the Press”
My favourite, not listed:
If it has got four legs and is not a chair, if it has two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.
(Prince Philip commenting on Chinese eating habits to World Wildlife Fund conference in 1986)
Some more:
Are you Indian or Pakistani? I can never tell the difference between you chaps.
(Prince Philip at Washington Embassy reception for Commonwealth members)
British women can't cook. They are very good at decorating food and making it attractive. But they have an inability to cook.
(Prince Philip sddressing mainly female audience at Scottish Rural Women's Institute Display in 1966)
If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate how much more aircraft have become. Unless you travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.
(Prince Philip during Royal Jubilee tour in 2002)
I don't think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.
(Prince Philip speech in December 1988, dismissing claims who sell slaughtered meat have greater moral authority than those who participate in blood sports)
Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.
(Prince Philip to group of deaf children standing next to Jamaican steel drum band, on visit to new National Assembly for Wales, 1999)
Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practiced for a good many years.
(Prince Philip address to General Dental Council, quoted in Time November 21, 1960)
Tolerance is the one essential ingredient … You can take it from me that the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.
(Prince Philip on his recipe for a successful marriage, during celebrations for their golden wedding anniversary, November 1997)
I can only assume that it is largely due to the accumulation of toasts to my health over the years that I am still enjoying a fairly satisfactory state of health and have reached such an unexpectedly great age.
(Prince Philip speech to Corporation of the City of London, June 2001)