'The Philippines must be half empty,': Top 10 gaffes from Prince Phillip
Published: 2013 February 20 23:49:15 (3221 Views)
The 91-year-old Duke of Edinburgh made the off-the-cuff comment yesterday during a visit to Luton and Dunstable University Hospital.
Prince Philip made another one of his famous gaffes, telling a Filipino nurse: “The Philippines must be half empty - you’re all here running the NHS.”
Philip unveiled a £5.5m cardiac centre and met staff at the hospital including the unidentified Filipino nurse who laughed off the prince’s joke.
A spokeswoman for the hospital would not comment on the Duke’s remark but said his visit had been “hugely motivational” for workers and that he was making jokes throughout his tour.
He had a stent fitted to clear a blockage in a coronary artery in December 2011 and when he was given a gold plated stent by the hospital he quipped that he now had a spare.
She said: “Staff greatly enjoyed the opportunity to meet the Duke of Edinburgh, and we regard all personal conversations he had with our staff and guests as private and therefore would not comment on them.”
Buckingham Palace said it did not comment on private conversations.
The visit was one of the first engagements in Philip’s 2013 calendar following his Christmas and January break with the Queen at Sandringham.
It is thought to be his first recorded “gaffe” of the year - although last year during the Diamond Jubilee he was in full flow as he and the Queen travelled the country.
In December he bluntly warned: “Don’t do it again!” to bank bosses about the financial crisis on a visit to the Bank of England.
At a Buckingham Palace garden party last May he said to one guest: “I hope you can afford your hat” when she told him she was expecting her second child.
And earlier in the same month he told a woman in red in Bromley, south London: “I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress.”
Prince Philip's top ten gaffes and gags
1 "You can't have been here that long - you haven't got a pot belly". Comments to a Briton the Prince met in Hungary in 1993.
2 "Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed." Phil gets to the heart of the matter when discussing the 1981 recession.
3 “You are a woman, aren't you?" Philip to a Kenyan dancer during a State visit.
4 "Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut." A 13-year-old boy's life-long dreams of space exploration are dashed.
5 "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test." The Duke quizzes a Scottish driving instructor.
6 "It looks as though it was put in by an Indian." The Prince gives his verdict on a less-than-sophisticated fuse box spotted during a tour of an electronics firm.
7 Speaking to British exchange students during a 1996 tour of Beijing: "If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed."
8 "You look as if you're ready for the bed." Philip’s greeting for the Nigerian secretary-general of the Commonwealth, who has dressed up in his ceremonial robes for a state dinner.
9 It's a pleasure to be in a country that isn't ruled by its people." The Prince meets the then Paraguayan dictator General Stroessner:
10 "Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf." Phil dishes out some sound advice to a group from the British Deaf Association who were standing near a band.
- Mirror
Prince Philip made another one of his famous gaffes, telling a Filipino nurse: “The Philippines must be half empty - you’re all here running the NHS.”
Philip unveiled a £5.5m cardiac centre and met staff at the hospital including the unidentified Filipino nurse who laughed off the prince’s joke.
A spokeswoman for the hospital would not comment on the Duke’s remark but said his visit had been “hugely motivational” for workers and that he was making jokes throughout his tour.
He had a stent fitted to clear a blockage in a coronary artery in December 2011 and when he was given a gold plated stent by the hospital he quipped that he now had a spare.
She said: “Staff greatly enjoyed the opportunity to meet the Duke of Edinburgh, and we regard all personal conversations he had with our staff and guests as private and therefore would not comment on them.”
Buckingham Palace said it did not comment on private conversations.
The visit was one of the first engagements in Philip’s 2013 calendar following his Christmas and January break with the Queen at Sandringham.
It is thought to be his first recorded “gaffe” of the year - although last year during the Diamond Jubilee he was in full flow as he and the Queen travelled the country.
In December he bluntly warned: “Don’t do it again!” to bank bosses about the financial crisis on a visit to the Bank of England.
At a Buckingham Palace garden party last May he said to one guest: “I hope you can afford your hat” when she told him she was expecting her second child.
And earlier in the same month he told a woman in red in Bromley, south London: “I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress.”
Prince Philip's top ten gaffes and gags
1 "You can't have been here that long - you haven't got a pot belly". Comments to a Briton the Prince met in Hungary in 1993.
2 "Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed." Phil gets to the heart of the matter when discussing the 1981 recession.
3 “You are a woman, aren't you?" Philip to a Kenyan dancer during a State visit.
4 "Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut." A 13-year-old boy's life-long dreams of space exploration are dashed.
5 "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test." The Duke quizzes a Scottish driving instructor.
6 "It looks as though it was put in by an Indian." The Prince gives his verdict on a less-than-sophisticated fuse box spotted during a tour of an electronics firm.
7 Speaking to British exchange students during a 1996 tour of Beijing: "If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed."
8 "You look as if you're ready for the bed." Philip’s greeting for the Nigerian secretary-general of the Commonwealth, who has dressed up in his ceremonial robes for a state dinner.
9 It's a pleasure to be in a country that isn't ruled by its people." The Prince meets the then Paraguayan dictator General Stroessner:
10 "Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf." Phil dishes out some sound advice to a group from the British Deaf Association who were standing near a band.
- Mirror
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