The legendary wit of Prince Philip

It is unfortunate that Prince Philip, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, who is 90, was absent due to illness at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of his beloved wife, 'The Queen' of the world.

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born at Mon Repos on the Greek island of Corfu on June10, 1921, as the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. He had four elder sisters.

In 1922, Philip's uncle, the reigning King Constantine I of Greece, was forced to abdicate, and Philip's father Prince Andrew, along with others, was arrested by the revolutionary force.

Royal Navy

The commander of the army and five senior politicians were executed. Prince Andrew's life was believed to be in danger. In December, a revolutionary court banished Prince Andrew from Greece for life. King of England George V sent a special Royal naval force to evacuate Prince Andrew's family, with Philip being carried to safety in a cot made from a fruit box.

They went to France, where they settled in the Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud. Prince Philip did not have a good grasp of the Greek language as he left Greece when he was a baby, but is fluent in English, German and French.

He studied in France at an American school and as well as in Germany. With the rise of Nazism in Germany, Philip moved to Gordonstoun school in Scotland. After leaving Gordonstoun in 1939, Prince Philip joined the Royal Navy, graduating from the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, as the top cadet in his course. He was commissioned as a midshipman and spent time in the Indian Ocean, followed by a shorter posting in then Ceylon. He was commissioned to many battle fronts during his career as a naval officer.

He has been married to Queen Elizabeth II since 1947 and is the longest-serving consort in British history. Although he had to cut back on his engagements in a compromise to his age, his propensity for uttering rude off-the-cuff remarks and wildly offensive would-be witticisms is well known.

"He's the last of a dying breed," said Phil Dampier, a reporter who has covered the royal family and is the author, with Ashley Walton, of "Duke of Hazard: The Wit and Wisdom of Prince Philip," a compendium of Philip's best lines. "The great thing is that he never apologizes for these remarks."

When on a trip to Australia his question - "Do you still throw spears at each other?" - had proved highly upsetting to the Aboriginal leader to whom it was addressed, Prince Philip accused the news media of making a big deal out of nothing.

Following the Coronation in 1953 he turned to Her Majesty pointing to the crown and said: 'Where did you get that hat?' The queen went speechless.

Personal comments

When on a visit to Cayman islands he asked a museum curator - "Aren't most of you descended from cannibals?" - and to address the drinking problem in Scotland he asked a Scottish driving instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them to pass the test?"

Once he met partly blind people on a visit to a blind school and said" considering the colour of the tie you are wearing I assume you are totally blind".

Looking at a messy wiring of a telecommunication point he said "it looks like work of an Indian engineer". When he met some British students in Papua new Guinea, "oh! You have not been eaten then?" "

To the matron of a hospital he visited in the Caribbean he commented: 'You have mosquitoes, I have the press'," When on a visit to China in 1986: Chinese eat everything which has four legs but a chair, anything which flies but an aircraft, everything that swims which is not a sub-marine.

One of his famous remarks was to a British student in China: "If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes." (He later defended himself by saying that "the Chinese weren't worried about it, so why should anyone else?")

To a Kenyan woman offering him a present: "You are a woman, aren't you?" To a young boy who said he wanted to be an astronaut: "You could do with losing a bit of weight." To the President of Nigeria, in traditional costume: "You look like you're ready for bed." To the singer Tom Jones: "Do you gargle with pebbles to sing that way?" To the girls in red uniforms at a British school: "It makes you all look like Dracula's daughters!" He also seems to be unable to refrain from the sort of personal comments that might be offensive to blind, deaf, poor, unemployed, young, people in wheelchairs,French people, and even Elton John - all have come in for his sarcasm: "The trouble with you lot is that you've got a total absence of humour, a complete lack of humour," he said.

In the House of Commons the other day, Prime Minister David Cameron praised the duke's "unique turn of phrase" and "inimitable approach." and said that Prince Philip is "cracking jokes all the time" as a way to cope with his public role, which consists essentially of shaking hands and making numbingly boring small talk with hundreds of strangers every day. Prince Philip was an inspiring bridge between the old generation and the new. He's a great symbol of continuity".

Public engagements

Cameron further said that the duke had been a "source of rock solid strength" for the Queen and had conducted hundreds of public engagements a year - with many overseas visits. He was worshipped on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu, "as a god". He said his famous remarks had filled several books and he recounted his favorite: "When after a long flight, the umpteenth eager-to-please official asked him: 'How was your flight?', he replied: 'Have you been on a plane? Well, you know how it goes up in the air and then goes back down again? Well, it was just like that.'" And there was laughter in the Commons when the Prime Minister said MPs could learn from the duke's advice on church sermons which overran: "The mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure. Closing his appreciation the Prime Minister said "Humour is a great part of British life and we thank the duke for his unique contribution."

"If a man opens the door of his car to a woman, she is new or the car is". That's is the Duke's philosophy on car and women.