November
2003
Prince Philip: King of Gaffes |
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| The
Duke of Edinburgh |
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As
parents, staff and pupils from Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in
Ashbourne await a visit from the Duke of Edinburgh, many will be hoping
that he doesn't come out with one of his trademark 'gaffes'. |
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Over
the years, Prince Philip has built up a reputation for putting his
foot in it during Royal duties and offending nations all across
the world.
During
a state visit to China in 1986, he famously told a group of British
students: "If you stay here much longer, you'll be all slitty-eyed!"
In 2001
he told a 13-year-old schoolboy he was 'too fat' to become an astronaut.
More
recently he joked that the answer to London's traffic congestion
was to 'ban tourists'.
Here
are some more of Prince Philip's most famous gaffes - let's just
hope he doesn't add to the list during his morning in Ashbourne!
Speaking
to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland: "How
do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them
through the test?"
To an Australian Aborigine during a visit in March 2002:
"Still throwing spears?"
On cuisine in 1966: "British
women can't cook."
During the 1981 recession:
"Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they
are complaining they are unemployed."
Sharing a joke with a blind, wheelchair-bound
girl with a guide-dog: "Do you know they have
eating dogs for the anorexic now?"
Commenting on modern stress counselling
for servicemen in 1995: "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?'
"
Responding to calls for a firearm ban
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?"
Referring to an old-fashioned fusebox
in a factory near Edinburgh in 1999: "It looks
as if it was put in by an Indian."
Referring to a Cambridge University
car park attendant who failed to recognise him in 1997:
"Bloody silly fool!"
Talking to young deaf people in Cardiff about the school's steel
band: "Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder
you are deaf."
During a 1984 visit to Kenya, he's
presented with a small gift from a native woman:
"You are a woman, aren't you?"
Accepting a conservation award in Thailand
in 1991: "Your country is one of the most notorious
centres of trading in endangered species in the world."
When asked to stroke a Koala bear in
Australia in 1992: "Oh no, I might catch some
ghastly disease."
Speaking to a Briton in Budapest in
1993: "You can't have been here long, you haven't
got a pot belly!"
Speaking to an islander in the Cayman
Islands in 1994: "Aren't most of you descended
from pirates?"
Speaking to a student who had been
trekking in Papua New Guinea: "You managed
not to get eaten then?"
At a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting:
"If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has
got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it
swims and is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."
Pointing
at 14-year-old Shahin Ullah during a visit to a London youth
club: "He looks as if he is on drugs!"
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