A-Z Challenge 2012
Q is for Queen
I'm a strong Royalist, well, what would you expect from someone who served her Majesty in the finest Army in the world!
On the day you sign up you sign the Oath Of Allegiance and you get paid a day's pay, commonly known as taking the Queen's Shilling.
Somewhere I still have the little paper certificate I received on the day for pledging my oath. I was 15 years of age.
Don't get me wrong, I don't paint my face red white or blue or wave flags or any of that, but I am a firm supporter of the Royal family and what they stand for.
Now, the Royal family have been criticised in the past for being out of touch, but with the coming of age of both Prince William and Prince Harry, watch this space. Over the next 20 years there will be a massive growth in support for the Royals as these two do their thing!
I'm very proud to of served, and even prouder of our brave boys and girls currently on tour in various parts of the world, risking life and limb in the hope that in some small way they are making the world a better and safer place.
You have to remember these soldiers are no conscripted, they join of their own free will, it does make me cross to hear of stories where by after being killed the parents say that their young son didn't know that he could be shot. He has joined the Army, not the bloody tiddlywinks club!
Thankfully this does not happen very often, the vast majority of parents being level headed and simply mourn for their loss.
This year is our Queens Diamond Jubilee. What a remarkable achievement, and one that I happily will be supporting.
60 Years of having to bite your tongue and showing grace and decorum, however Prince Philip has been known to let slip the odd classic statement! I say odd, but really it's loads!
1969
The Duke said to Tom Jones after his Royal Variety Performance: "What do you gargle with, pebbles?".
He later added: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."
On the Royal Family's finances: "We go into the red next year. I shall probably have to give up polo."
1976
On a tour of Canada: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves."
1981
During the recession he mused: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."
1984
When accepting a figurine from a woman during a visit to Kenya he asked: "You are a woman aren't you?"
1986
He told a World Wildlife Fund meeting that "if it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."
Prince Philip's opinion of Beijing, during a tour of China in 1986, was simply: "Ghastly."
1993
To a British tourist in Hungary in he quipped: "You can't have been here that long — you haven't got a pot belly."
To survivors of the Lockerbie bombing he told them: "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle."
1994
"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?", he asked an islander in the Cayman Islands.
To a Caribbean rabbit breeder in Anguilla, he said: "Don't feed your rabbits pawpaw fruit — it acts as a contraceptive. Then again, it might not work on rabbits."
1995
He asked a Scottish driving instructor in Oban: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?"
1996
Following the Dunblane massacre, he questioned the need for a firearms ban: "If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?"
1998
The Duke asked a British student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"
1999
In Cardiff he told children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing by a Caribbean steel band: "If you're near that music it's no wonder you're deaf".
2000
To guests at the opening reception of a new £18million British Embassy in Berlin: "It's a vast waste of space."
At a Buckingham Palace drinks party, he told group of female Labour MPs: "Ah, so this is feminist corner then."
On being offered fine Italian wines by Giuliano Amato, the former Prime Minister, at a dinner in Rome, he is said to have uttered: "Get me a beer. I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer!"
"People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans."
2001
To Elton John: "Oh it's you that owns that ghastly car is it? We often see it when driving to Windsor Castle."
2002
While touring a factory near Edinburgh he said a fuse box was so crude it "looked as though it had been put in by an Indian".
2002
To Australian Aborigines during a visit to Australia with the Queen he asked: "Do you still throw spears at each other?"
To the Aircraft Research Association, he said: "If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort, provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly."
2009
Said to black dance troupe Diversity at the Royal Variety Performance: "Are you all one family?"
To a young fashion designer at Buckingham Palace he told him: "You didn't design your beard too well, did you? You really must try better with your beard."
2010
On asking a female Sea Cadet what she did for a living, and being told that she worked in a nightclub (as a barmaid), the Duke asked “Is it a strip club?” Observing her surprise he dismissed the suggestion saying that it was “probably too cold for that anyway”.
2010
At a prize-giving ceremony for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards a girl told him that she'd been to Romania to help in an orphanage. He replied: "Oh yes, there's a lot of orphanges in Romania - they must breed them".
Others that are undated:
"YOU have mosquitos. I have the Press."
- To the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean.
"If it doesn't fart or eat hay then she isn't interested"
- speaking about his daughter, Princess Anne.
"Can you tell the difference between them?"
- The Duke's question after President Barack Obama said he met with the leaders of the UK, China and Russia.
"The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion."
- on London traffic.
"Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut."
- to a 13-year-old whilst visiting a space shuttle.
“You look like you’re ready for bed!”
- To the President of Nigeria, dressed in traditional robes.
Finally my favorite has to be: When asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union: "I would like to go to Russia very much, although the bastards murdered half my family."
Till later........
