Phil the Greek

I was saddened today to hear that Auntie Betty's husband is in hospital. Get well Phil. I truly aspire to be this man when I'm 80 odd (if I make it anywhere near that). Let's remind ourselves of some of his finer moments:-

In May 2002 he angered deaf people during a visit to the new Welsh Assembly. While he was with a group from the British Deaf Association who were standing near a band, he pointed to the musicians and said: "Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf."

In 1996 he caused an outcry among gun law reformers when he said: "There's no evidence that people who use weapons for sport are any more dangerous than people who use golf clubs or tennis rackets or cricket bats."

He told a Briton he met in Hungary in 1993: "You can't have been here that long - you haven't got a pot belly".

In 1995 he asked a Scottish driving instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test."

The Prince angered local residents in Lockerbie when on a visit to the town in 1993, he said to a man who lived in a road where 11 people had been killed by wreckage from the Pan Am jumbo jet: "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still trying to dry out Windsor Castle."

During a Royal visit to China in 1986 he described Peking as "ghastly" and told British students: "If you stay here much longer you'll all be slitty-eyed."

He said of Canada: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves." (I just regret it wasn't America Phil)

At the height of the recession in 1981 he said: "Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."

In 1966 he provoked outrage by saying: "British women can't cook."

Commenting on stress counselling for servicemen in a TV documentary on the 50th Anniversary of D-Day, he said: "It was part of the fortunes of war. We didn't have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun, asking `are you all right - are you sure you don't have a ghastly problem?'. You just got on with it."

Personal remarks have annoyed singing stars. In 1969 The Duke said to Tom Jones after the Royal Variety Performance: "What do you gargle with, pebbles?".

At a private lunch given 30 years ago he said he thought Adam Faith's singing was like bath water going down a plug hole

Phil Sir, you are a Legend - and you have the claim to fame or seeing her Maj's Vag!