
After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: “Are we going to need ear plugs?”
To a car park attendant who didn’t recognise him in 1997, he snapped: “You bloody silly fool!”
To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception: “What are you doing here?” “I was invited, sir.” Philip: “Well, you didn’t have to come.”
To female sea cadet last year: “Do you work in a strip club?”
To expats in Abu Dhabi last year: “Are you running away from something?”
After accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: “Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.”
At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?’”
To multi-ethnic Britain’s Got Talent 2009 winners Diversity: “Are you all one family?”
To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”
His description of Beijing, during a visit there in 1986: “Ghastly.”
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.”
To deaf children by steel band, 2000: “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf.”
To a tourist in Budapest in 1993: “You can’t have been here long, you haven’t got a pot belly.”
To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”
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