Prince Philip’s best and worst public gaffes ahead of his final royal engagement – relive 96 classic quotes – Mirror.co.uk

Prince Philip is today poised to bow out of public life with his final royal engagement at the age of 96.

The Duke of Edinburgh's last royal duty will be at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday at The Captain General's Parade.

It comes following an announcement in May that Philip was stepping down from public life.

One of the hardest working royals, the Duke of Edinburgh is patron, President or member of more than 780 organisations and charities.

They will be hoping another royal or public figure will step into his shoes - but whoever they are, they will not be quite the same...

Philip has made a series of public gaffes with his politically incorrect, off the cuff comments over the years. Some have been funny, others have been plain embarrassing - or offensive.

These are some of his classic quotes...

1. After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: Are we going to need ear plugs?

2. To a car park attendant who didnt recognise him in 1997, he snapped: You bloody silly fool!

3. To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception: What are you doing here? I was invited, sir. Philip: Well, you didnt have to come.

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4. To female sea cadet: Do you work in a strip club?

5. To expats in Abu Dhabi in 2011: Are you running away from something?

6. After accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.

7. At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: Cats kill far more birds than men. Why dont you have a slogan: Kill a cat and save a bird?

8. To multi-ethnic Britains Got Talent 2009 winners Diversity: Are you all one family?

9. To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: You look like youre ready for bed!

10. His description of Beijing, during a visit there in 1986: Ghastly.

11. At Hertfordshire University, 2003: During the Blitz, a lot of shops had their windows blown in and put up notices saying, More open than usual. I now declare this place more open than usual.

12. To deaf children by steel band, 2000: Deaf? If youre near there, no wonder you are deaf.

13. To a tourist in Budapest in 1993: You cant have been here long, you havent got a pot belly.

14. To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: You managed not to get eaten then?

15. His verdict on Stoke-on-Trent, during a visit in 1997: Ghastly.

16. To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: Theres a lot of your family in tonight.

17. 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.

18. To Lockerbie residents after plane bombing, 1993: People say after a fire its water damage thats the worst. Were still drying out Windsor Castle.

19. In Canada in 1976: We dont come here for our health.

20. I never see any home cooking all I get is fancy stuff. 1987

21. On the Duke of Yorks house, 1986: It looks like a tarts bedroom.

22. Using Hitlers title to address German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1997, he called him: Reichskanzler.

23. We go into the red next year... I shall have to give up polo. 1969.

24. At party in 2004: Bugger the table plan, give me my dinner!

25. To a woman solicitor, 1987: I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.

26. To a civil servant, 1970: Youre just a silly little Whitehall twit: you dont trust me and I dont trust you.

27. On the 1981 recession: A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyones working too much. Now everybodys got more leisure time theyre complaining theyre unemployed. People dont seem to make up their minds what they want.

28. On the new 18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: Its a vast waste of space.

29. After Dunblane massacre, 1996: If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?

30. To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002: If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort provided you dont travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.

31. On stress counselling for servicemen in 1995: We didnt have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun. You just got on with it!

32. On Tom Jones, 1969: Its difficult to see how its possible to become immensely valuable by singing what are the most hideous songs.

33. To the Scottish WI in 1961: British women cant cook.

34. To then Paraguay dictator General Stroessner: Its a pleasure to be in a country that isnt ruled by its people.

35. To Cayman Islanders: Arent most of you descended from pirates?

36. To Scottish driving instructor, 1995: How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?

37. At a WF meeting in 1986: If it has four legs and its not a chair, if its got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and its not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.

38. You ARE a woman, arent you? Kenya, 1984.

39. 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.

40. On Ethiopian art, 1965: It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.

41. To a fashion writer in 1993: Youre not wearing mink knickers,are you?

42. To Susan Edwards and her guide dog in 2002: They have eating dogs for the anorexic now.

43. When offered wine in Rome in 2000, he snapped: I dont care what kind it is, just get me a beer!

44. Id like to go to Russia very much although the bastards murdered half my family. 1967.

45. At City Hall in 2002: If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.

46. On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: A pissometer?

47. You have mosquitoes. I have the Press. To matron of Caribbean hospital, 1966.

48. At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002: So whos on drugs here?... HE looks as if hes on drugs.

49. To a childrens band in Australia in 2002: You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?

50. At Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme, 2006. Young people are the same as they always were. Just as ignorant.

51. On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: What about Tom Jones? Hes made a million and hes a bloody awful singer.

52. To Elton John on his gold Aston Martin in 2001: Oh, its you that owns that ghastly car, is it?

53. At an engineering school closed so he could officially open it, 2005: It doesnt look like much work goes on at this university.

54. To Aboriginal leader William Brin, Queensland, 2002: Do you still throw spears at each other?

55. At a Scottish fish farm: Oh! Youre the people ruining the rivers.

56. After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat from Gallic chef Regis Crpy, 2002: The French dont know how to cook breakfast.

57. To schoolboy who invited the Queen to Romford, Essex, 2003: Ah, youre the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then?

58. To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, 1999: And what exotic part of the world do you come from?

59. To parents at a previously struggling Sheffield school, 2003: Were you here in the bad old days? ... Thats why you cant read and write then!

60. To Andrew Adams, 13, in 1998: You could do with losing a little bit of weight.

61. Wheres the Southern Comfort? When presented with a hamper of goods by US ambassador, 1999.

62. To editor of downmarket tabloid: Where are you from? The S*n, sir. Philip: Oh, no . . . one cant tell from the outside.

63. Turning down food, 2000: No, Id probably end up spitting it out over everybody.

Prince Philip: Through the years

64. Asking Cate Blanchett to fix his DVD player because she worked in the film industry, 2008: Theres a cord sticking out of the back. Might you tell me where it goes?

65. People think theres a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans. 2000.

66. After hearing President Obama had had breakfast with leaders of the UK, China and Russia, 2010: Can you tell the difference between them?

67. On students from Brunei, 1998: I dont know how theyre going to integrate in places like Glasgow and Sheffield.

68. On Princess Anne, 1970: If it doesnt fart or eat hay, she isnt interested.

69. To nursing-home resident in a wheelchair, 2002: Do people trip over you?

70. Discussing tartan with then-Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie: Thats a nice tie... Do you have any knickers in that material?

71. To a group of industrialists in 1961: Ive never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing.

72. On a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957: Its not a very big one, but at least its dead and it took an awful lot of killing!

73. On being made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1953: Only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education.

74. I must be the only person in Britain glad to see the back of that plane. He hated the noise Concorde made flying over Buckingham Palace, 2002

75. To a fashion designer, 2009: Well, you didnt design your beard too well, did you?

Prince Philip: Through the years

76. To the General Dental Council in 1960: Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which Ive practised for many years.

77. On stroking a koala in 1992: Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.

78. On marriage in 1997: You can take it from me the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.

79. To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms, 1998: It makes you all look like Draculas daughters!

80. I dont think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing. 1988.

81. To female Labour MPs in 2000: So this is feminist corner then.

82. On Nottingham Forest trophies in 1999: I suppose Id get in trouble if I were to melt them down.

83. Its my custom to say something flattering to begin with so I shall be excused if I put my foot in it later on. 1956.

84. To a penniless student in 1998: Why dont you go and live in a hostel to save cash?

85. On robots colliding, Science Museum, 2000: Theyre not mating are they?

86. While stuck in a Heriot Watt University lift in 1958: This could only happen in a technical college.

87. To newsreader Michael Buerk, when told he knew about the Duke of Edinburghs Gold Awards, 2004: Thats more than you know about anything else then.

88. To a British student in China, 1986: If you stay here much longer, youll go home with slitty eyes.

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Prince Philip's best and worst public gaffes ahead of his final royal engagement - relive 96 classic quotes - Mirror.co.uk