Source: http://www.crazydaysandnights.net

Faux Pas – A Reader Blind

A recent blind reminded me of this celebrity encounter I had when I was young.

My family had the opportunity to attend a huge international sporting event in Kentucky.

This was the inaugural competition there so this would have been 4 decades ago.

To make an even bigger splash for both the present and international viewing audience, this foreign-born A+ married celebrity opened and attended each day of competition. We had the opportunity to greet and visit with the celebrity which was a big deal.

We also got a chance to witness two behaviors for which he is famous.

At a reception, our celebrity compared a young lady’s incredibly long hair that was woven into a heavy braid to a horse’s tail, and not favorably.

I cannot remember exactly how he said it, but I know he told her to cut her hair.

When he said it, there were gasps of embarrassment in the crowd, which were quickly suppressed.

The celebrity didn’t seem to notice.

I remember that the girl, probably 17 or 18 turned bright red.

I felt terrible for her to be insulted so personally and publicly.

On this trip, the celebrity was accompanied everywhere by an assistant, never farther away than a few feet, who was a younger, smartly dressed and attractive woman.

I myself was too young to notice anything, but my mother, God bless her, remarked to us afterward that she had sharpened butcher knife if our dad ever tried flying around the world with his coochie-coo.

I remember this because she cracked herself up.

She witnessed the glances, hand brushes and lingering arms around the waist.

On this trip, the celebrity made a much bigger faux pas that caused the print media in his home country and ours to go into overdrive criticizing him, but as we all know, the wife doesn’t seem to mind.

Prince Phillip

The Kentucky Derby

Prince Philip’s gaffes from decades on royal duty

Prince Philip is renowned for speaking his mind – often explained as his attempt to lighten the mood – and that outspoken nature has at times led to controversy with some of those remarks teetering on the edge of being offensive.

Here are some of his most famous quips.

1966: “British women can’t cook”.

1969: “What do you gargle with, pebbles?” To Sir Tom Jones after a Royal Variety Performance.

1981: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.” During the 1981 recession.

1984: “You are a woman, aren’t you?” In Kenya after accepting a small gift from a local woman.

1986: “If you stay here much longer you’ll all be slitty-eyed.” To a group of British students during a royal visit to China.

1988: “It looks like a tart’s bedroom.” On seeing plans for the Duke and Duchess of York’s house at Sunninghill Park.

1992: “Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.” In Australia when asked to stroke a koala.

1993: “You can’t have been here that long, you haven’t got a pot belly”. To a Briton he met in Hungary.

1994: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?” To a wealthy islander in the Cayman Islands.

1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test.” To a Scottish driving instructor.

1996: “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?” In response to calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting.

1997: “Bloody silly fool!” Referring to a Cambridge University car park attendant who did not recognise him.

1999: “Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.” Speaking to a group of young deaf people in Cardiff who were standing near a steel band.

1999: “It looks as if it was put in by an Indian.” Referring to an old-fashioned fuse box in a factory near Edinburgh.

2001: “You’re too fat to be an astronaut.” To 13-year-old Andrew Adams who told Prince Philip he wanted to go into space.

2002: “Still throwing spears?” Question put to an Australian Aborigine during a visit.

2002: “You look like a suicide bomber.” To a young policewoman wearing a bullet-proof vest on Stornoway, Isle of Lewis.

2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.” After looking at the name badge of businessman Atul Patel at a Palace reception for British Indians.

2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?” To designer Stephen Judge about his tiny goatee beard.

2010: “Do you have a pair of knickers made out of this?” To Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie Pointing while pointing to some tartan in Edinburgh.

2010: “Do you work in a strip club?” To 24-year-old Barnstaple Sea Cadet Elizabeth Rendle when she told him she also worked in a nightclub.

2012: “I would get arrested if I unzipped that dress.” To 25-year-old council worker Hannah Jackson, who was wearing a dress with a zip running the length of its front, on a Jubilee visit to Bromley, Kent.

2013: “The Philippines must be half empty as you’re all here running the NHS.” On meeting a Filipino nurse at Luton and Dunstable Hospital.

2013: “[Children] go to school because their parents don’t want them in the house.” To Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban and now campaigns for the right of girls to go to school without fear.

2017: “You look starved.” To a pensioner on a visit to the Charterhouse almshouse for elderly men. – Source


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