Prince Philipp Duke of Edinburgh turns 85 today. His relations with the media are mixed. However, one thing he is certainly not, is daft. If one googles for "Prince Philipp" and "quotes", one finds the latter almost invariably labelled as "gaffes", "blunders", "mistakes" or "stupid". They are neither.
They are non-politically correct, sometimes (intentionally?) hurting, mostly funny and often true. Stupid is none.
Do you still throw spears at each other?
On meeting Aborigines in Australia.
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 it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.
At a 1986 World Wildlife Fund meeting.
How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them to pass test?
Asking a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland.
Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they're complaining they're unemployed.
Said during the recession in 1981.
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?
Amid calls of banning firearms after the Dunblane school shooting in 1996.
If you travel as much as we do you appreciate how much more comfortable aircraft have become. Unless you travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.
Linguistically-savvy comment during the Jubilee Tour 2002.
The introduction of the grey squirrel has done more harm to the environment than genetically manipulated crops ever could.
Apocryphal, but too good to be missed.
The bastards murdered half my family.
When someone suggested in 1967 that a trip to Russia might improve diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the Soviets.
Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?
Said to a blind woman with a guide dog. (Always having been somebody who rather loses a friend than misses a point, the Prince is clearly hitting genius level here.)
Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. I've been practising it for years.
Address to Britain's General Dental Council.
I don't think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.
Quoted December 1988 in The Daily Mail, discussing the "morality" of hunting.
Are you sure you want to go through with this?
Asking Kenyan independence leader Jomo Kenyatta when the Union Jack was about to be hauled down.
If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.
Which sums up the Prince's attitude quite nicely.
I would like to finish this on an unequivocally positive note and add some quotes by others that really speak FOR the Prince:
I'd rather hear the Royal Family's views on topical matters than be told which part of David Beckham's anatomy has just been tattooed.
John S, UK, follower of BBC News
(He has) nothing to do with the country, imported from Germany, half-Russian, grew up with the Hitler people, his aunt was married to Hitler's general.
Mohammed Fayed who STILL hasn't got a British passport!
Thanks to Spirit of Entebbe, from whom I stole the idea.
First posted June 2006
