Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip has a job that consists solely of socializing, and he's had Elderly Tourette's Syndrome since he was young. Fortunately, being Prince Consort is one of the few jobs that that won't get you fired from. From the U.K. Independent:
Ninety gaffes in ninety years
From Papua New Guinea to Stoke-on-Trent, Prince Philip has left his mark around the world. As his 90th birthday looms, Hannah Ewan recalls the soundbites that could only have come from one man
1. "Ghastly." Prince Philip's opinion of Beijing, during a 1986 tour of China.
2. "Ghastly." Prince Philip's opinion of Stoke-on-Trent, as offered to the city's Labour MP Joan Walley at Buckingham Palace in 1997.
7. "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?" Asked of a Scottish driving instructor in 1995.
8. "Damn fool question!" To BBC journalist Caroline Wyatt at a banquet at the Elysée Palace after she asked Queen Elizabeth if she was enjoying her stay in Paris in 2006.
11. "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves." During a trip to Canada in 1976.
13. "British women can't cook." Winning the hearts of the Scottish Women's Institute in 1961.
15. "What do you gargle with – pebbles?" To Tom Jones, after the Royal Variety Performance, 1969. He added the following day: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."
16. "It's a vast waste of space." Philip entertained guests in 2000 at the reception of a new £18m British Embassy in Berlin, which the Queen had just opened.
18. "If it has 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." Said to a World Wildlife Fund meeting in 1986.
22. "I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family." In 1967, asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union.
24. "Oh, it's you that owns that ghastly car is it? We often see it when driving to Windsor Castle." To neighbour Elton John after hearing he had sold his Watford FC-themed Aston Martin in 2001.
25. "The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion." At the opening of City Hall in 2002.
28. "You must be out of your minds." To Solomon Islanders, on being told that their population growth was 5 per cent a year, in 1982.
30. "Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species." Accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991.
31. "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" In the Cayman Islands, 1994.
34. "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." To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002.
39. "I wish he'd turn the microphone off!" The Prince expresses his opinion of Elton John's performance at the 73rd Royal Variety Show, 2001.
49. Philip: "Who are you?"
Simon Kelner: "I'm the editor-in-chief of The Independent, Sir."
Philip: "What are you doing here?"
Kelner: "You invited me."
Philip: "Well, you didn't have to come!"
An exchange at a press reception to mark the Golden Jubilee in 2002.
51. "Any bloody fool can lay a wreath at the thingamy." Discussing his role in an interview with Jeremy Paxman.
52. "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." At the opening of a school in 2000.
58. "I have never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing." Addressing a group of industrialists in 1961.
59. "It's not a very big one, but at least it's dead and it took an awful lot of killing!" Speaking about a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957.
71. "It is my invariable custom to say something flattering to begin with so that I shall be excused if by any chance I put my foot in it later on." Full marks for honesty, from a speech in 1956.
73. "In education, if in nothing else, the Scotsman knows what is best for him. Indeed, only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education." Said when he was made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in November 1953.
84. "What about Tom Jones? He's made a million and he's a bloody awful singer." Response to a comment at a small-business lunch about how difficult it is in Britain to get rich.
86. "I'd much rather have stayed in the Navy, frankly." When asked what he felt about his life in 1992.
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70 comments:
young harry is quite un-pc charles on the other hand is a twit who welcomes the idea of a first mosque in oxford.
IF one of the young monarchs COULD start making natioanlistic statements they could greatly help to turn things around.
Just look at the power of the imagery of the royal wedding and the shrill reactions from 'culture of critique' writers.
More:
http://www.allgreatquotes.com/prince_philip_quotes2.shtml
1."Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."
Prince Philip at the height of the recession in 1981.
2."If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed".
Prince Philip To British students in China during Royal visit there in 1986.
3. "It looks as if it was put in by an Indian."
Prince Philip Pointing at an old-fashioned fuse box while on a tour of a factory near Edinburgh.
4. "Bloody silly fool!"
Prince Philip referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who failed to recognize him, 1997.
4."You managed not to get eaten, then."
Prince Philip to student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea in 1998, suggesting Papuan tribes people were still cannibals.
5. "If you gave a seven-year-old a brush and paints he'd produce something like that."
Prince Philip in the Sudan, after viewing some of the paintings housed in the country's ethnic museum.
There are many more.
If you gave a seven-year-old a brush and paints he'd produce something like that."
Prince Philip in the Sudan, after viewing some of the paintings housed in the country's ethnic museum.
hate fact.
It's like the Emperor's New Clothes, but in reverse: only the Emperor speaks the truth, but no one listens.
Actually Prince Philip's 'dry, acerbic wit' is quite common amongst upper class British circles, where the whole idea of 'jokes and witticisms' is to insult as much as possibe.
So, Prince Phillip has the freedom to say everything that we're thinking...
I've always considered the British Royals to be a bunch of useless eaters, but maybe Philip is an exception.
It's not just him, old people can get away with saying anything.
"If it has 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."
That's funny!
Maybe apocryphal, but I didn't see my personal favorite one in there.
[to a Nigerian dignitary wearing traditional robes--] "You look as if you're dressed for bed."
Some great quotes from the monarch. But, have to disagree on Tom Jones. Truly, a great singer, and still sounds great 45 years after his first hit record!
It's not just him, old people can get away with saying anything.
Not Watson.
Now I understand his oft-quoted comment that he would like to be re-born as a deadly virus (or was it bacteria) that would wipe out 90% of the world's population. He feels strongly about humans ruining the environment. I'm not entirely unsympathetic, but of course it's not the people that worry who are mainly responsible for overpopulation, whatever resources they use.
Recently I learned that Philip's mother was institutionalized a number of years with schizophrenia, or something similar. That may explain a few thing too, hbd and all that.
Sounds like a hell of a guy. Too bad the rest of us can't say what we are thinking whenever we want.
By far his best comment - to the be-medalled leader of some Latin American junta - "it's so nice to be in a country that isn't run by its people!"
This guy reminds me of my dad. Thankfully, our friends and family also take what he says in good spirit.
Put him on the the GOP ticket!
As for the Tom Jones opinions--he's wrong.
On the other hand, we don't need the Prince--just get together a traveling panel of 80 somethings to travel the country, maybe by bus, like Palin, and let them spout the truth of HBD and everything else.
Would be very funny and would open up dialogue about the unmentionable topics.
Actually, there should be traveling bus tours of the elderly occuring all during primary season and through the actual Presidential contest itself.
I like my idea!
Now, this is the kind of monarch we want. Snobby and superior, a man we love to hate.
He's no Prince Albert, Queen Vicoria's husband and all around great guy.
He had access to all the Queen's papers, was drafting her correspondence... The clerk of the Privy Council, Charles Greville, wrote of him: "He is King to all intents and purposes."... A man of progressive and relatively liberal ideas, Albert not only led reforms in university education, welfare, the royal finances and slavery, he had a special interest in applying science and art to the manufacturing industry...
When the Trent Affair...threatened war between the United States and Britain, Albert was gravely ill, but intervened to soften the British diplomatic response.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert,_Prince_Consort
He'd be funnier if he weren't such a misanthrope.
OT. Funny that Lind would accuse anyone of being braindead.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/05/24/lind_niall_fergsuon
Monarchism vindicated? You left out one of his more infamous quotes:
"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation," Philip told Deutsche Press Agentur in August 1988.
Sounds like a hell of a guy.
"He'd be funnier if he weren't such a misanthrope."
That's like saying beer would be more enjoyable if it didn't have any alcohol in it.
If you think misanthropy is a problem, then you aren't actually "getting" the humor here.
@VG
Watson is/was a highly respected scientist.
Not some inbred monarch.
He's the greatest living world leader, but if you're point was serious he'd have actually said something about his country's suicide under his reign.
OT, but I just feel the need to scream that if that's Anthony Weiner's weiner, "Anthony's got a teeny, weeny weiner....neener, neener, neerer!!!!!"
. "If you gave a seven-year-old a brush and paints he'd produce something like that."
Prince Philip in the Sudan, after viewing some of the paintings housed in the country's ethnic museum.
It's true of modern art, as well.
"He'd be funnier if he weren't such a misanthrope."
On the contrary, his misanthropy is just what makes him so funny.
Plus, I like that he's not afraid to show he still considers his way of life the only way, measured against which all other ways are regrettable, unnecessary and perverse variations.
"1."Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.""
If Barack Obama said that I promise I would vote for him!
naomi wolf confirms sailer's theory of female journalism
http://www.rooshv.com/naomi-wolf-is-a-delusional-old-hag
Prince Philip is a tribute to the human race. The British are lucky to have him. He doesn't get enough credit. He's been a major influence on generations of British comedians.
-Risto
But NOTHING about Jews. Whew!! That would have been the one unforgivable gaffe.
Prince Harry made fun of Pakistanis and Arabs once.
hthttp://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/news/123700/Watch-Prince-Harrys-racist-outbursts-on-video.html
Harry's real father isn't Charles. It's ex-military man, super alpha male James Hewitt. Might be why Harry acts the way he does.
http://http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=36121
So, what's the problem?
Well, what do you epect? It is the woman's job to have people skills and not the man's. I cannot think of a more emasculated job than being "Prince consort". There are two kinds of males who are naturally charming and diplomatic:
1. Gays
2. Psychopaths
And neither make good heads of state.
It's like the Emperor's New Clothes, but in reverse: only the Emperor speaks the truth, but no one listens.
Nice observation.
Prince Phillip has my vote for funniest man alive.
Man, you just gotta love Phil the Greek. He says 75% of what is the soundtrack running silently through my mind.
To liken Prince Philip's candid and frequently tactless remarks to Tourette's syndrome (with its motor tics and gibberish or obscene vocalizations) seems off the mark. The use of the word "gaffe" to describe them is more appropriate, if meant in the Kinsley sense, i.e., a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. Yet even this is not quite right, for Prince Philip is not a politician. The powerlessness of modern royalty is what frees him to voice honest opinions. He is not embarrassed by them; they serve only to embarrass the politicians that actually run Britain in his wife's name.
There is something admirable about a man in public life who has enough confidence in his position that he is unafraid to express his true beliefs. Britain lost many such public men when it eliminated the rights of all but a few hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. I suspect that much support for the retention of monarchy arises from fear of a future in which flannelmouthed politicians and bureaucrats not only rule but reign. The United States supplies a cautionary example of this to the rest of the world.
bluto said...
It's not just him, old people can get away with saying anything.
You mean people of a certain generation.
I love this guy. He reminds me very much of my father and my father's friends. What many people are shocked about is an ethnocentric attitude that used to cause whites to value their co-ethnics above foreign nationals.
When you consider that the current generation of Chinese, Indians and Mexicans has any number of old men saying similarly insulting things about whites, the younger generation, etc, you start to realize maybe such attitudes are necessary both for the survival of a people and to reign in the excesses of younger generations.
Sounds like a cranky old fool. I'm surprised the comments are in praise of this whiner.
Some funny stuff in there:
"I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit." Said to a woman solicitor.
"You're not wearing mink knickers, are you?" Philip charms fashion writer Serena French at a World Wildlife Fund gathering in 1993.
"What about Tom Jones? He's made a million and he's a bloody awful singer." Response to a comment at a small-business lunch about how difficult it is in Britain to get rich.
"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. People don't seem to make up their minds what they want." A man of the people shares insight into the recession that gripped Britain in 1981.
3. "Deaf? If you're near there, no wonder you are deaf." Said to a group of deaf children standing near a Caribbean steel drum band in 2000.
5. "You managed not to get eaten then?" To a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea, during an official visit in 1998.
It's like the Emperor's New Clothes, but in reverse: only the Emperor speaks the truth, but no one listens.
Excellent.
Hi Steve. How would you feel about John Bolton for the GOP nominee?
You know the Prince is worshipped as a god in the Pacific island of Vanuatu?
Not since Emperor Haile Selassie came to Jamaica has such a thing been known :
"Some 100,000 Rastafari from all over Jamaica descended on Palisadoes Airport in Kingston, having heard that the man whom they considered to be God was coming to visit them. They waited at the airport playing drums and smoking large quantities of marijuana."
The quickest route to failure for anyone on the right side of the Bell Curve is to enact the classic maxim "be yourself."
Having the vibe of a bright or free person even unawares will hurt him, apart from the content of anything he says or does or thinks. This is especially true in the Borg world (academia, corporate, government).
The penalities for nonconformity to any inhumanly low standard grow more suffocating yearly. Soon, no one with an IQ of 105+ will be able even to breathe in regular life.
Make no mistake: the dumbs and conformists want us dead (unemployed forever, penniless, or lobotimized). This is why our fight must be radical.
Vox Day said it was too bad the Prince didn't have a microphone on him during Will and Kate's wedding.
Perhaps we could have heard his opinion of the Pastor's sermon or Kate's lack of a bust.
These make him sound really, really cool, much cooler than any of his children. Also a bit like the colonel in Fawlty Towers. In my mind I read most of these in that character's voice.
How the hell would he know what it's like to fly in economy class?
Such honesty throughout though. Wow. I think my favorite is #84. By the way, that paper censored some of his most famous lines. I remember reading about him berating some poor Englishman for his shoddy work - "this looks so bad that you'd think it was made by an Indian."
OT Stoppard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvBas5Unajc
I heard he used to go Paki bashing with a polo mallet.
Sailer's Female Journalism Law vindicated again:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/a-wrinkle-in-time-twenty-years-after-the-beauty-myth-naomi-wolf-addresses-the-aging-myth/2011/05/11/AGiEhvCH_story.html
o/t but looks like Israeli business dealings with Iran might have had a national security aspect component:
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000650751
Anonymous said...
"He'd be funnier if he weren't such a misanthrope."
That's like saying beer would be more enjoyable if it didn't have any alcohol in it.
If you think misanthropy is a problem, then you aren't actually "getting" the humor here.
Apparently you missed the reincarnated as a deadly virus crack. I don't think he was joking.
Well, with the rarest of exceptions people, places and things are ghastly.
I remember reading about him berating some poor Englishman for his shoddy work - "this looks so bad that you'd think it was made by an Indian."
"This looks so bad it must be American (Detroit) union made."
Japanese saying
Anonymous said...
"Actually Prince Philip's 'dry, acerbic wit' is quite common amongst upper class British circles, where the whole idea of 'jokes and witticisms' is to insult as much as possibe."
Exactly so. I hang out with these people sometimes, and that's how it is with them. That's also how it is, by the way, with all the shit-giving men of the working classes of course.
Why? It's funny, that's why. Do we not want people to be funny?
"Apparently you missed the reincarnated as a deadly virus crack. I don't think he was joking."
Oh, so serious!
You need a good dose of Boyd Rice to flush that Puritan-no-humor-meme out of your system.
"Apparently you missed the reincarnated as a deadly virus crack. I don't think he was joking."
You mean this one?
"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."
Prince Philip Quotations
I think it's nice that he'd like to be of service to humanity.
"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."
Well, he's already a parasite, so...
At times it seems high status people don't say much, either because they are portrayed that way in movies, or because they rarely deign to talk to us in real life.
However, I'm learning high status people are quite talkative, especially when giving orders, giving rebukes, or specifically asking for what they want.
Royal observers said Diana didn't like the royal family, and those same observers hoped Kate made a smoother transition.
Shudder at what Prince Philip says in private, especially if it's directed at you! It's quite a letdown to finally make it into the royal circle and that is your ultimate reward!
Philip doesn't need you, and he'll treat you poorly to remind you. You enter his life on his terms, which is his main source of power. He social proofs you with his presence but the cost is your dignity.
Elizabeth and Philip have a good cop, bad cop act going: she stays above the fray, while he says what they're both thinking.
He's alpha. She didn't marry down!
He says this stuff because he knows he has impunity. If he were a longshoreman instead of a royal parasite, his face would have been rearranged long ago.
"Actually Prince Philip's 'dry, acerbic wit' is quite common amongst upper class British circles, where the whole idea of 'jokes and witticisms' is to insult as much as possibe."
Exactly so. I hang out with these people sometimes, and that's how it is with them. That's also how it is, by the way, with all the shit-giving men of the working classes of course.
Or men and boys in general. Members of the male sex have ripped on each other for humor since the dawn of time.
"He social proofs you with his presence but the cost is your dignity."
If you want to move up the social ladder in the former aristocracy, you need to see this another way. You are being tested for "alphaness" by how you handle such insults. If you can come up with a witty retort that doesn't involve threats, you've gone a long way towards proving your worth.
The mistake many a lower class revolutionary type makes is in believing that elites are completely amoral and that they, as the "little people", are somehow free from vice. Yeah, the rich can hold parties the likes of which would destroy your credit rating for life and, yes, they are looking out for their own self-interest but, so are you.
I'm constantly amused by people who are so thin-skinned they want to make rudeness and bluntness a crime when evidenced by wealthy elites. It's often a sign of respect that such a person believes you can handle it. And, if you keep your perspective, you can. If you can't, you really aren't leadership material.
"Tom Jones. Truly, a great singer, and still sounds great 45 years after his first hit record!"
Not exactly. He sounds the SAME as he did 45 years ago, which is to say he sounds great for a 71 year old. Or perhaps his singing is an acquired taste, which thankfully I did not acquire.
"59. "It's not a very big one, but at least it's dead and it took an awful lot of killing!" Speaking about a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957."
And he's absolutely right! This is typical of crocodiles!!
Peter Capstick, who was a professional white hunter, tells this tale in the book "Death in the Long Grass". He was guiding some client who brain shot a croc out in the water in Botswana's Okavango Swamps with a .257 Weatherby Magnum. Peter couldn't get any of his native gunbearers and skinners to go get the 'dead' croc ( they wouldn't come anywhere near a croc, dead or alive!! ) so he went out there to haul it in himself. He dragged it about 40 yards and the croc thrashed his tail and knocked Peter down and submerged his 470 Nitro double rifle which he had slung over his shoulder in the river. He managed to retrieve the rifle and open it up to drain the water out of the barrels, and then he shot the croc in the head with both barrels of the 470 Nitro at close range -- these are ( 2 ) 500 grain bullets. By now there wasn't much of this croc's head left, so he dragged it back on to the shore. But now that it was up on land, it still was thrashing around, so the client shot it twice more in the head with a .300 Magnum. Then they skinned it.
A couple hours later they came back by the croc and there was a ring of vultures circling the croc at a respectful distance. AND the croc had one of the vultures in its mouth!!!
Kurt
"In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation."
Well, he's already a parasite, so..."
well that's sort of true, but at least he earns some of his keep with this royal gems of wit that the rest of us don't have the guts to say. He also farts in public. There's a pic of him on the balcony with the Queen and family, all making disgusted or laughing faces at him, while he's there grinning like self-satisfied loon.
"He says this stuff because he knows he has impunity. If he were a longshoreman instead of a royal parasite, his face would have been rearranged long ago."
Such a brutal, graphic image.
I'm surprised you had it in you.
It's good to be the king.
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