The Duke of Edinburgh's Encyclopaedia of Witty Remarks

The Duke of Edinburgh met four belly dancers in March 2008.

He told them during a visit to a school: "I thought Eastern women just sit around smoking pipes and eating sweets all day."

In 2008, the Duke of Edinburgh asked actress Cate Blanchett if she could fix his DVD player. He met Cate at a Buckingham Palace function.

Cate told him she was “in the film industry” and the Duke of Edinburgh explained what was wrong with his broken DVD player.

He said there was a cord sticking out of the back of the machine and asked her if she knew where it went.

The Duke of Edinburgh in a TV series about Windsor Castle: "An American tourist asked why they built the castle so near London Airport."

"If you stay here much longer you'll all get slitty eyed." The Duke of Edinburgh speaking to British students in China in 1986.

At a ceremony to celebrate the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Abuja, Nigeria in December 2003 the Duke of Edinburgh was asked by an Australian reporter what he thought of his African visit. Philip said after a long pause: "I will pass on that, if you don't mind."

"You are a woman, aren't you?" The Duke of Edinburgh to a Kenyan woman who had just given him a gift.

"British women can't cook." The Duke of Edinburgh in 1966.

"What do you gargle with - pebbles?" The Duke of Edinburgh to Tom Jones after The Royal Variety Performance in 1969.

"Oh no. I might catch some ghastly disease." The Duke of Edinburgh when asked to stroke a koala bear in Australia in 1992.

"You can't have been here that long. You haven't got a pot belly." The Duke of Edinburgh to a Brit in Budapest in 1993.

"You managed not to get eaten, then?" The Duke of Edinburgh to a student in 1998 who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea

To Susan Edwards, a blind woman with a guide dog in Exeter in 2002: "Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?"

"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?" The Duke of Edinburgh to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland, during a 1995 walkabout

"Aren't you descended from pirates?" The Duke of Edinburgh to a Cayman Islander in 1994.

"It looks like it was put in by Indians." The Duke of Edinburgh after seeing a fusebox in Edinburgh.

"If it has got four legs and isn't a chair, if it has got two wings and isn't a plane, and if it swims and isn't a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it." The Duke of Edinburgh at a World Wildlife Fund meeting in 1986

"Do you still throw spears at each other?" The Duke of Edinburgh to an Aborigine in Australia in 2002.

"You were playing your instruments, weren't you? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?" The Duke of Edinburgh to a childrens' band in Australia in 2002.

The Duke of Edinburgh asked four Tamil high priests: "Are you Tigers?" during a visit to a temple. The Hindu leaders told him they had nothing to do with the Sri Lankan militant group, the Tamil Tigers. The duke was with the Queen during a visit to the Highgate Hill Murugan Temple in London in June 2002 when he asked the question. One of them replied: "No, we are priests. We are not associated with violence."

Prince Philip opened a new research centre at York University in February 2003. He said: "It is surprising the way things have changed since I first became chancellor of the university 50 years ago." The university was celebrating its 40th anniversary and the chancellor is the opera singer Dame Janet Baker.

George Barlow, 14, wrote to the Queen inviting her to visit Romford, Essex - and became the toast of the town when she accepted. When Philip was introduced to the nervous George during the visit in March 2003 he sneered: "Ah you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then? Ha, ha! Well done."

Prince Philip visited Sheffield’s Fir Vale School in May 2003. The once failing school used to be called Earl Marshall before it was re-launched in 1999. Prince Philip went up to a group of parents in the school hall and asked: “Were you here in the bad old days, then?