1. Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

Phil's Bloopers

Discussion in 'Queens Park Rangers' started by Goldhawk-Road, Apr 9, 2021.

  1. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    10,769
    Likes Received:
    10,267

    We've lost a master practitioner of "foot in mouth".

    PS not to be read if you are of a woke disposition :


    On cultural differences

    “If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes,” he remarked to 21-year-old British student Simon Kerby during a visit to China in 1986.

    “I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family,” he said in 1967 when asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union.

    “You can’t have been here that long, you haven’t got a pot belly,” said to a British tourist in Budapest , Hungary in 1993.

    “You managed not to get eaten then?“ he asked a British backpacker who trekked through Papua New Guinea in 1998.

    “We don’t come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves,” he said about a trip to Canada in 1976.

    “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?” he asked residents of the Cayman Islands in 1994.

    “Do you still throw spears at each other?” he asked Aboriginal leader William Brin at the Aboriginal Cultural Park in Queensland in 2002.

    On the economy
    “A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone’s working too much. Now that everybody’s got more leisure time they are complaining they are unemployed,” he said during the recession in 1981.

    “All money nowadays seems to be produced with a natural homing instinct for the Treasury,” he said talking about high taxes in 1963.

    “We go into the red next year… I shall probably have to give up polo,” he moaned about the Royal Family’s finances on US television in 1969.

    please log in to view this image

    Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visit the President of Kenya. The Prince is famous for making culturally insensitive remarks on such occasions (Getty Images)
    On disability
    “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf,” he mused loudly to deaf children standing near a Caribbean steel drum band in 2000.

    “Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?” he told a wheelchair-bound Susan Edwards with her guide dog Natalie in 2002.

    “Do people trip over you?” he asked a wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident in 2002.

    “How many people have you knocked over this morning on that thing?” he asked mobility scooter user David Miller, a trustee of the Valentine Mansion in Redbridge, in 2012.

    On women
    “British women can’t cook,” he told the Scottish Women’s Institute in 1961.

    “You are a woman, aren’t you?” he asked woman in Kenya in 1984.

    “People think there’s a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans,” he said in 2000.

    “Do you have any knickers in that material?” he asked Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie in 2010, while they were admiring tartan made for the Pope.

    “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing,” he said confusingly in 1988 when discussing blood sports.

    “Ah, so this is feminist corner then,“ he asked a group of female Labour MPs whose name badges read “Ms” at a Buckingham Palace drinks party in 2000.

    “Every time I talk to a woman they say I’ve been to bed with her. Well I’m bloody flattered at my age to think some girl is interested in me,” he said in 2006.

    “I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit,” he told a woman solicitor.

    “You’re not wearing mink knickers, are you?” Philip ASKS fashion writer Serena French at a World Wildlife Fund gathering in 1993.

    “I would be arrested if I unzipped that dress,” he remarked to a well-wisher during a Diamond Jubilee visit with the Queen to Bromley in Kent.

    “Who do you sponge off?” he asked women at a community centre in Barking and Dagenham in 2015.

    “Yak, yak, yak; come on get a move on,” Prince Philip said to the Queen from the deck of Britannia in Belize in 1994. Her Majesty was talking to her hosts.

    On youth
    “Young people are the same as they always were. They are just as ignorant,” he said while celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme.

    “Ah you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then? Ha, ha! Well done,” he told 14-year old George Barlow who invited the Queen to visit Romford, Essex, in 2003.

    “So who’s on drugs here?… HE looks as if he’s on drugs,” he said referring to a 14-year-old member of a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002.

    “You could do with losing a little bit of weight,” he told hopeful astronaut Andrew Adams, 13.

    “Holidays are curious things, aren’t they? You send children to school to get them out of your hair. Then they come back and make life difficult for parents. That is why holidays are set so they are just about the limit of your endurance,” he told schoolchildren in 2000.

    “You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?” he asked an Australian school orchestra in 2002.

    please log in to view this image

    Prince Philip is the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch in history. (Getty)
    On Britain
    “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?” he asked a Scottish driving instructor in 1995.

    “The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion,” he said at the opening of City Hall in 2002.

    “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?” he asked Tory politician Lord Taylor of Warwick in 1999. “Birmingham,” the MP replied.

    “Only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education,” he said when he was made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in November 1953.

    On the media
    “You have mosquitoes. I have the Press,” he joked to the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean in 1966.

    “Well, that’s more than you know about anything else then,” he told Michael Buerk, after the BBC newsreader said he did know about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Awards in 2004.

    “What are you doing here?” he asked Simon Kelner, editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception in 2002. “I was invited, sir.” Philip: “Well, you didn’t have to come.”

    “Damn fool question!” he said derisively to BBC journalist Caroline Wyatt after she asked the Queen how she was enjoying her stay in Paris in 2006.

    “Where are you from?” he asked the editor of the Sun, before replying: “Oh, no…one can’t tell from the outside.”

    “Just take the f***ing picture,” he told a photographer at the RAF club in 2015.

    On common people
    “You bloody silly fool!” he exclaimed to an elderly car park attendant who who didn’t recognise him at Cambridge University in 1997.

    “Oh! You are the people ruining the rivers and the environment,” he told three young employees of a Scottish fish farm at Holyrood Palace in 1999.

    “If you travel as much as we do you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort. Provided you don’t travel in something called Economy Class, which sounds ghastly,” he said to the Aircraft Research Association in 2002.

    “Are you all one family?” he asked of multi-ethnic dance troupe Diversity at the Royal Variety Performance in 2009.

    “Is it a strip club?” he asked a female Sea Cadet who told him she worked in a nightclub.

    “Why don’t you go and live in a hostel to save cash?” he asked a penniless student in 1998.

    “The Philippines must be half empty, you’re all here running the NHS,” he said to a Filipino nurse at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital in February 2016.

    On the Royal family
    “Tolerance is the one essential ingredient … You can take it from me that the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance,” he said, giving advice for a successful marriage in 1997.

    “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested,” the Prince said of his daughter, Princess Anne, who competed as an equestrian athlete in the 1976 Olympics.

    “It looks like a tart’s bedroom,” he said of plans for the Duke and then Duchess of York’s house at Sunninghill Park.

    “My son…er…owns them,” he replied after being asked whether he knew the Scilly Isles.

    “Where did you get that hat?” he supposedly said to Queen at her Coronation.

    “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons,” he said of “primitive” Ethiopian art in 1965.
     
    #1
    kiwiqpr and QPR999 like this.
  2. rangercol

    rangercol Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2011
    Messages:
    35,613
    Likes Received:
    19,159
    This should upset a few on here.

    A man who knew the meaning of duty. Totally committed to his Queen and Country,

    RIP.
     
    #2
  3. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    10,769
    Likes Received:
    10,267
    He did a great job for this country, a great ambassador. He came from another time and another place, and his occasional gaff was just part of his character and his background - and gave hope to those of us who have occasionally said the wrong thing at the wrong time! I should think that in his prime, he was great company, even if what he came out with made people wince from time to time
     
    #3
  4. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,602
    How insensitive of you Goldie, to post this at such a sad time. You weren't related were you?
     
    #4
    kiwiqpr and finglasqpr like this.
  5. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    10,769
    Likes Received:
    10,267
    No aristocratic Greek blood, no.

    Didn't mean it to be disrespectful, but his humour and undoubted occasional indecorum was part of the man. It made him human amongst a choke of procedural niceties that must have really got him down. He was an action man really, especially during his time in the navy. He had to have a lot of patience to get through all the protocol.

    His reaction during an official Royal family photograph during the Battle of Britain celebration when the photographer was faffing about adjusting people's position - "just take the ****ing photograph". You kind of knew how he felt.
     
    #5
  6. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2011
    Messages:
    13,488
    Likes Received:
    14,910
    Old Greek Prince Philip, he had a decent innings. Ah well, life goes on.
     
    #6
    kiwiqpr and Goldhawk-Road like this.
  7. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2011
    Messages:
    13,488
    Likes Received:
    14,910
    Some of those 'bloopers', for want of a better word are quite funny, some are quite cringeworthy and some are just ****ing rude. Fella wasn't my cup of tea but then again I'm not a fan of the royal family to be fair.
     
    #7
    Yorkshire-Rs and Hoopington like this.
  8. qprbeth

    qprbeth Wicked Witch of West12
    Forum Moderator

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2011
    Messages:
    14,402
    Likes Received:
    12,575
    Some of the things he said would have graced the finest comedian

    “People think there’s a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans,” he said in 2000.

    “I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family,” he said in 1967 when asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union.

    Incredible
     
    #8
  9. finglasqpr

    finglasqpr Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2011
    Messages:
    6,266
    Likes Received:
    3,609
    Agree. Who's perfect? We all have our faults.

    Sad day but at least he had a good innings. May he rest in peace.
     
    #9
    kiwiqpr, peter1954qpr and Ninj like this.
  10. daverangers

    daverangers Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2011
    Messages:
    7,494
    Likes Received:
    8,211
    As soon as I saw his passing mentioned on the RIP thread, I wondered how long it would take for his gaffes to get a mention. Years of loyal service, and a great support to the Queen over the decades, but also well know for some howlers. Rest in peace.
     
    #10

  11. Bwood_Ranger

    Bwood_Ranger 2023 Funniest Poster

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2011
    Messages:
    57,241
    Likes Received:
    45,160
    This thread has deeply upset me but I was warned.
     
    #11
    kiwiqpr likes this.
  12. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    10,769
    Likes Received:
    10,267
    But remembering the howlers isn't criticism, Dave. It was part of what a lot of people liked about the man and made him popular. He was a human being, a big personality and not an faceless bloke who trailed the Queen.
     
    #12
    QPRski, kiwiqpr, peter1954qpr and 4 others like this.
  13. Goldhawk-Road

    Goldhawk-Road Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2018
    Messages:
    10,769
    Likes Received:
    10,267
    Come, come, it's unlike you to be so self-effacing, Finglas
     
    #13
    kiwiqpr and rangercol like this.
  14. daverangers

    daverangers Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2011
    Messages:
    7,494
    Likes Received:
    8,211
    Agree not a criticism. Perhaps some his comments over the years will have upset the PC brigade, but at times they've been very funny.
     
    #14
  15. QPR999

    QPR999 Well-Known Member
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2011
    Messages:
    21,196
    Likes Received:
    17,789
    At Australian customs the Duke was told he'd be asked the same questions as anyone else. Asked if he had a criminal record, he replied,
    '' I had no idea it was still a requirement. ''
     
    #15
  16. Sooperhoop

    Sooperhoop Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2011
    Messages:
    34,790
    Likes Received:
    26,870
    I would far sooner know someone like him who was being himself, gaffes and all, than someone shallow who says the right things to please the type of people who are never pleased. Sadly, we seem to be in an age of the latter...
     
    #16
    Ninj, qprmountmartha, kiwiqpr and 7 others like this.
  17. YorkshireHoopster

    YorkshireHoopster Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 8, 2012
    Messages:
    3,652
    Likes Received:
    2,623
    I know he is Greek. But that joke is the sort of gem which trips off the tongue of some quick-witted scousers.. Are we sure that there wasn't an interloper somewhere in the family tree who hailed from the banks of the Mersey
     
    #17
    daverangers, Ninj, kiwiqpr and 2 others like this.
  18. QPR999

    QPR999 Well-Known Member
    Staff Member

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2011
    Messages:
    21,196
    Likes Received:
    17,789
    While at the Royal Variety Performance in 2000, Sir Elton John was performing and Prince Philip said, '' I wished he'd turn the microphone off. ''
     
    #18
  19. Uber_Hoop

    Uber_Hoop Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2011
    Messages:
    17,851
    Likes Received:
    26,917
    Phew! I’m glad there’s nobody like that on here, Soops.
     
    #19
    Sooperhoop and kiwiqpr like this.
  20. Sooperhoop

    Sooperhoop Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 26, 2011
    Messages:
    34,790
    Likes Received:
    26,870
    Perish the thought...:grin:
     
    #20
    kiwiqpr and Uber_Hoop like this.

Share This Page