Speaking to the General Dental Council, 1960:“Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practised for a good many years.”
Speaking at the Scottish Women’s Institute, 1961:“British women can’t cook.”
When shown art during a trip to Ethiopia, 1965:“It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons.”
Speaking on American TV about the Windsor family’s finances, 1969:“We go into the red next year … I shall probably have to give up polo.”
During a visit to Canada, 1969:“I declare this thing open, whatever it is.”
When asked about visiting the Soviet Union, 1969:“I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.”
To Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner:“It’s a pleasant change to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”
Speaking during an official trip to Canada, 1976:“We don’t come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves.”
Accepting a gift from a woman in Kenya, 1984:“You ARE a woman, aren’t you?”
To a British student during visit to China, 1986:“If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes.”
When asked his thoughts on Beijing during a tour of China, 1986:“Ghastly.”
During a visit to the city of Xian in China, to a group of British exchange students, 1986:“If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”
At a World Wildlife Fund meeting, 1986:“If it has got 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.”
When asked if he would like to touch a koala while in Sydney in 1992:“Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.”
While chatting to a fashion writer Serena French, 1993:“You’re not wearing mink knickers, are you?”
Chatting to a British man during a visit to Budapest, 1993:“You can’t have been here that long – you haven’t got a pot belly.”
To a group of businessmen in the Cayman Islands, 1994:“Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?”
While speaking to female solicitor:“I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit.”
Shouting at the Queen, from the deck of the Britannia, while she spoke to their hosts on the quay during an official visit to Belize, 1994:“Yak, yak, yak; come on get a move on.”
Of daughter, Princess Anne:“If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”
In a conversation with a Scottish driving instructor, 1995:“How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”
Addressing German chancellor Helmut Kohl during a speech, 1997:“Reichskanzler.” (Which was actually Hitler’s title …)
While speaking to a British student who had hiked in PNG, 1998:“You managed not to get eaten then?”
While inspecting a factory in Edinburgh and spying an old-fashioned fuse box, 1999:“It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.”
After presented with a hamper of goods form the American south by the American Ambassador in London, 1999:“Where’s the Southern Comfort?”
When he asked politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, whose mum and dad are Jamaican, 1999:“And what exotic part of the world do you come from?” To which Lord Warwick replied: “Birmingham.”
During a visit to Cardiff, to children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing near a Caribbean steel band, 1999:“If you’re near that music it’s no wonder you’re deaf”.
Speaking to a group of female politicians at a Buckingham Palace party in 2000 whose name tags had ‘Ms’ on them:“Ah, so this is feminist corner then.”
Spying two robots bumping into each other at a science museum, 2000:“They’re not mating are they?”
When offered some fish by Rick Stein, 2000:“No, I would probably end up spitting it out over everybody.”
To a guest in Berlin after the Queen had just opened the new $32 million British Embassy in Berlin, 2000:“It’s a vast waste of space.”
