Crazy Prince Philip at it again
 

What do you folks think of our crazy Prince Philip and his out spoken views, I find him a real good laugh. :rotfl:

Not very politically correct, but he has come out with some funny ones.

My mum was once at the Windsor polo ground looking over a horse-drawn carriage and critising how dirty the tack was and how it was set up wrong. There was a polite cough from above her, and who should be sitting on the carriage but Prince Philip, it was his carriage! :oops:

In this era of George W. Bush, it is nice to spend some time looking at someone else's black sheep, so, yes I do enjoy reading him.

Now, to the business at hand: This thread was rated at 5 stars. I apologize in advance, but I had to give you 4, which is a rating of 'good'. The content was well-done and humorous, but most of the initial post was quotation. Frankly, it could have used some more emoticons as well. Overall, it was good, but not your best effort. If you want to make it through to the next round, you had better hope that our television audience is willing to spend the the $.70 US to text message their vote for you. Lines open at midnight.

"Philip said he hoped to do "as little as possible" during the London Olympics in 2012."Fantastic statement. :up: I want to meet that man and shake his hand.What is FIFA and IOC more than a method to seize some old and fat and greey functionaries ridiculously high pensions?I would like to see FIFA and olympic events beeing opened with a team event named "team deathmatch": the executive commitee versus a band of lions.

The old sod has a point though....

He is though a diplomatic nightmare. I wonder how long he'd last in Bagdad?

Skybird, I didn't know you was a fan of Prince Philip. :up:

Just for you here's a picture of the old buffer.

http://img414.imageshack.us/img414/9749/buffer4zs.png

I never pay any attention "monarchs" and royalty, less to anything they have to say.

That's alot of medals, do you get all of them by just sleeping with the Queen on the same bed?

I think he should be hired by the Olympic committee, the one with the pensions, to change the closing ceremonies. I second the bloody suggestion, we need a violent sport in the end to counter the whole peace and comming together thing. With his pension, and if he's allowed to sell any organs left intact after the carnage, he will make enough money to let the Royal Family Tax be eliminated, now that's something worth banning.

I've always liked the old boy, he served in the Royal Navy in the far east during WWII so I'm sure some of the medals are earned.

At 91 he's entitled to be an old codger.

Well, you're really missing out when it comes to Prince Philip. Some of my favourites are:

"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?" - To a Scottish driving instructor

"Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed." - During the recession in the early '80s

"If you stay here much longer you'll all get slitty eyed." - To British students in China

"You managed not to get eaten, then?" - To a student who had been hiking in Papua New Guinea

"Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?" - To a blind woman with a guide dog

"Do you still throw spears at each other?" - To an Aboriginal in Australia

"You were playing your instruments, weren't you? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?" - To a band of Australian school children

"Where did you get that hat?" - To the Queen, just after her coronation

Some of those are pretty funny. Some are insulting. There's also the utterly ugly side.

My personal feelings, after visiting England several time (much family there), is that sooner or later it's time to disband the monarchy, who no longer serve any relevant public or governmental purpose and have been reduced to total figureheads, feeding off British taxpayers.

Let them eat cake.

I would say that their role in all the Commonwealth constitutional monarchies is one of checks and balances, and denying the politicians absolute power. Since all these countries are currently politically stable, it may look like the Queen does bugger all, but that doesn't mean she isn't still a vital part of the whole process.

Also, I've read that through the tourism industry the Royal family rakes in huge amounts of cash for the British taxpayers.

They don't serve a "government" purpose because they aren't part of the government (Blair is head of the government). They have been "reduced to figureheads" by design. The King/Queen is head of state, that is their purpose, and they perform the associated ceremonial functions that go along with it. There are very few democracies where the functions of the head of state and the head of government are held by the same person (though I'm certain there are others, the US is the only one I can think of based on this model).

That is correct. In both of our countries (Canada and Australia) its the Governor General, the Queen's representative, who has the power to dissolve government so that elections may be held (within a 5 year period in Canada, as prescribed by our constitution). That's in addition to her purely ceremonial duties as head of state (which frees the head of government to actually govern, rather than spend his time photo-opping).

The royals might not have a great deal of relevence these days, but lets not forget the massive role they played during the war- it was very important for the populace to see the queen out an about in the land; it presented (real or otherwise, it's the result that counts) the appearence of solidarity which greatly improved moral of the average englander back then. A point which could have had far reaching consequences had things gone the other way.
Like your grandparents (mine are all now sadly moved on) who remember the war, they are from another time and place, one which doesn't really equate with todays standards and ideals. I'm no big 'royalist' but we shouldn't forget just how things were and the importance of a 'presence' so desperately needed back then.
Let's not just ****can them because they don't quite fit the modern mould. Besides, Phillip says what he feels like, I can say that there are times when I feel like opening my mouth, perhaps when I shouldn't, but I don't have the luxury of being in the position where it really doesn't matter what is said. :arrgh!:

This can be done by much less expensive methods of employment.
That is obvious. However, historic and architectural England would still be there to see if the royal family decides to move to Monaco tomorrow. I never went to London to see the queen! I went to see her abode. I would do the same again, whether anyone's at home or not.

Has anyone in England actually ever produced a theoretical report on the change in revenues and expenses, should this happen? That would be interesting.

Obviously. What you seem to not get is that the monarchy is also symbolic, part of one's national identity, and has an intrinsic value that many would find cheapened (ie: dirtied) were it to be rationalized by some bean counter looking to find a few dimes to waste on something else. Though given your outlook on national symbols, perhaps you'd be willing to auction off your own Statue of Liberty or Washington Monument to help pay off the $9 trillion US National Debt... have you considered how much "billionaire" Hugo Chavez might pay to see the Washington Monument shipped to Caracas? Surely some aspiring American Entrepreneur might be interested in converting the Statue of Liberty into the world's largest McDonald's, complete with matching scale Golden Arches to adorn the NYC skyline with. Likewise Nike would almost certainly pay huge sums to put the swoosh and "Just Do It" on the American flag... in a way it'd even be oddly fitting. Has anyone done a study to see how much revenue any of these projects could bring into the National Treasury? I don't know about anyone else, but if I were to visit NYC it would be, in part, to see the Statue of Liberty, not the enormous Ronald McDonald standing next to it.

I've read this "utterly ugly" side and have found nothing attributed to him that is "utterly ugly." If anything it is simply a brutally frank and honest accounting of the period from someone who seems to feel he doesn't have anything he needs to hide.

The article, without attaching any date to the period he is referring to, attributes this to him (note that they don't bother to provide the full quote): his family found Hitler’s plans to bring Germany at the helm of European power were “attractive” and admitted they had “inhibitions about the Jews.” Notice also that he is speaking of his family and not himself and that these things are not one and the same.

Then there are the "shocking" pictures: One picture from 1937 shows Prince Philip aged 16 with relatives at his sister Cecile’s funeral in [sic] dressed in SS and Brownshirt uniforms. Lord Mountbatten, his uncle, is seen wearing a German Navy hat. More dirt tossed on his family, but again nothing on him personally.

Then this, which reads to me as only an honest and accurate depiction of these events from one who lived during them:

“There was a great improvement in things like trains running on time and building. There was a sense of hope after the depressing chaos of the Weimar Republic.

“I can understand people latching on to be something or somebody who appeared to be appealing to their patriotism and trying to get things going. You can understand how attractive it was.”


He added that there was ‘a lot of enthusiasm for the Nazis at the time, the economy was good, we were anti-Communist and who knew what was going to happen to the regime?’



Lastly we get to the meat, the only part of the article having anything to do with personally:

Philip said that he was never ‘conscious of anybody in the family actually expressing anti-Semitic views,’ but acknowledged that that there were ‘inhibitions about the Jews’ and ‘jealousy of their success.’


Again that's probably as good a way as any to honestly assess the anti-semitism that was the norm in Europe at the time. At worst he is probably guilty of a thought crime for feeling inhibited toward a minority that was marginalized and demonized (though again he seems to be speaking of his family and not himself). Is this an "utterly ugly" side of him? Hardly. Unless you also consider that he fought for the Allies in WWII "utterly ugly"; but better to ignore that part to focus instead on his thought crimes and the guilt by association that goes with being born into a Royal family and having siblings whose arranged marriages were to German Princes.

Personally I find him to be an amusing old geezer with a knack for being a little more direct and honest than some can handle. Indeed I find the quotes mog gave to be the product of a rare wit who seems to care less about political correctness. Kudos to mog :up: