Prince Philip's gaffes ... what a plank!

• After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: “Are we going to need ear plugs?”
• To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception: “What are you doing here?” “I was invited, sir.” Philip: “Well, you didn’t have to come.”
• To female sea cadet last year: “Do you work in a strip club?”
•  To expats in Abu Dhabi last year: “Are you running away from something?”
• After accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: “Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.”
• At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?’”
• To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”
• To deaf children by steel band, 2000: “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf.”
• To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”
• To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”
• Peering at a fuse box in a Scottish factory, he said: “It looks as though it was put in by an Indian.” He later backtracked: “I meant to say cowboys.”
• On the Duke of York’s house, 1986: “It looks like a tart’s bedroom.”
• To a woman solicitor, 1987: “I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.”
• On the new £18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: “It’s a vast waste of space.”
• On Tom Jones, 1969: “It’s difficult to see how it’s possible to become immensely valuable by singing what are the most hideous songs.”
• To the Scottish WI in 1961: “British women can’t cook.”
• To Cayman Islanders: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?”
• To Scottish driving instructor, 1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”
• At a WF meeting in 1986: “If it has four legs and it’s not a chair, if it’s got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it’s not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”
• You ARE a woman, aren’t you?” Kenya, 1984.
• A VIP at a local airport asked HRH: “What was your flight, like, Your Royal Highness? Philip: “Have you ever flown in a plane?” VIP: “Oh yes, sir, many times.” “Well,” said Philip, “it was just like that.”
• On Ethiopian art, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.”
• When offered wine in Rome in 2000, he snapped: “I don’t care what kind it is, just get me a beer!”
• I’d like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.” 1967.
• At City Hall in 2002: “If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.”
• At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002:“So who’s on drugs here?... he looks as if he’s on drugs.”
• To a children’s band in Australia in 2002: “You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?”
• On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: “What about Tom Jones? He’s made a million and he’s a bloody awful singer.”
• To Aboriginal leader William Brin, Queensland, 2002: “Do you still throw spears at each other?”
• At a Scottish fish farm: “Oh! You’re the people ruining the rivers.”
• After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat – from Gallic chef Regis Crépy, 2002: “The French don’t know how to cook breakfast.”
• To schoolboy who invited the Queen to Romford, Essex, 2003: “Ah, you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then?”
• To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, 1999: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?”
• To parents at a previously struggling Sheffield school, 2003: “Were you here in the bad old days? ... That’s why you can’t read and write then!”
• People think there’s a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans.” 2000.
• After hearing President Obama had had breakfast with leaders of the UK, China and Russia, 2010: “Can you tell the difference between them?”
• On Princess Anne, 1970: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”
• To wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident, 2002: “Do people trip over you?”
• To a fashion designer, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?”
• To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms, 1998: “It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!”
• “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.” 1988.
• On robots colliding, Science Museum, 2000: “They’re not mating are they?”
• To a British student in China, 1986: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll go home with slitty eyes.”