A Philipism is something embarrassing that Prince Philip has said during his travels. Here are some of the best of them:-
- He told Indian businessman Atul Patel, ‘There’s a lot of your family in tonight,’ at a 400-strong Buckingham Palace reception for British Indians in October 2009.
- Navy sea cadet instructor Elizabeth Rendle, 24, who works in a bar was asked ‘Is it a strip club?’ by the Prince. She said: ‘It was a joke and I didn’t take any offence,’ after the blunder in Exeter, Devon, in March 2010.
- A Buckingham Palace guest with a goatee who told Prince Philip he was a designer got the sharp response: ‘Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?’ in July 2009.
- Prince Philip surprised Aborigines in Australia by asking ‘Do you still throw spears at each other?’ during a state visit in March 2002. Cultural park manager William Brim replied: ‘No, we don’t do that any more.’
- A Scottish driving instructor was asked in 1995: ‘How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?’
- When visiting Hungary in 1993 he said to a resident Briton: ‘You can’t have been here long – you haven’t got a pot belly.’
- When visiting the Welsh Assembly he offended a group from the British Deaf Association in May 1999. He pointed to a band they were standing near and said: ‘Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.’
- British students in China were told during a state visit in 1986: ‘If you stay here much longer you will all be slitty-eyed’.
- He said to a student travelling across Papua New Guinea in 1998: ‘You managed not to get eaten then?’
- And during a trip to Dubai, he asked a group of expats, “What are you running away from?”
I would have answered, “Embarrassing old men.”
Of course he will never beat good old George.