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"I'm frequently accused of meddling in affairs that have no concern of mine. I'm always told
I mustn't take sides."
The Duke of Edinburgh. He may be the most senior man in the royal family, and of course
has been the queen's consort since she took the throne - but this hasn't stopped him from
being prone to the odd mistake. This week, when visiting a care centre in Norfolk, he
made a joke about pushing a toddler off an inflatable ball - which is the latest in a
long line of many Prince Philip indiscretions.
Here are some of our favourite gaffes. Let's start with the 60s. In this decade, the Duke announced
that "British women can't cook". He famously said he "would like to go to Russia very much"
before accusing the nation of murdering half his family. He asked Tom Jones if he gargled
with pebbles and said of the Royal Family's finances: "We go into the red next year. I
shall probably have to give up polo". When looking at Ethiopian art, he stated "It looks
like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons". And the Duke
said to a nurse in the Caribbean: "You have mosquitoes. I have the Press."
I must not be controversial.
Then in the 70s we saw these gems.
On a tour of Canada he said: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other
ways of enjoying ourselves" and reportedly said to a civil servant - "You're just a silly
little Whitehall twit: you don't trust me and I don't trust you."
The 1980s were also a busy time for the Duke. In the recession in the early part of the
decade he said: "Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining
they are unemployed" and during a visit to Kenya he asked a lady who presented him with
a gift: "You are a woman aren't you?"
You may think that I spend a rather long time laying down the law without justification.
And the Duke's troubles abroad continued into the 90s when in the Cayman Islands, he asked
a local "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?"
Also in the 90s, he said to survivors after the Lockerbie bombing he said: "People usually
say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We're still drying out Windsor
Castle." And of course one of his most famous gaffes was when he asked a Scottish driving
instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the *** long enough to pass the test?"
We should be beyond the pint. We have to have a revolution or something about these things.
And then came the new millennium. Here's a run down of the 2000s. This classic quote
happened - "People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have been known to
marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans." And of course, we all loved this
incident, when he told Elton John: "Oh it's you that owns that ghastly car is it? We often
see it when driving to Windsor Castle."
During a famous visit to Australia, Prince Philip said to an Aboriginal leader : "Do
you still throw spears at each other?"
And when chatting with Cate Blanchett, he asked her to fix his DVD player because she
worked "in the film industry". Priceless.