Addressing a group of deaf British teenagers standing near a loud Caribbean steel band: “If you’re near that music, it’s no wonder you’re deaf.”
Speaking to British students in China: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”
Quizzing a Scottish driving instructor: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”
Assessing his country’s women and cuisine: “British women can’t cook.”
Feeding apes in Gibraltar, surrounded by the usual royal-media entourage: “Which are the apes, and which are the press?” (A mistake anyone could make.)
On the warring parties in Northern Ireland: “As long as they agree on conservation, I don’t care what they do to each other.”
Describing (daughter-in-law) the Duchess of York’s bedroom: “It looks like a tart’s boudoir.”
Downplaying Britain’s 1981 recession: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed.”
Showing compassion upon being told that an Indian photographer covering the royals had broken a leg: “A shame it wasn’t his neck.”
Scrutinizing a far-from-sophisticated fuse box: “It looks like it was put in by an Indian.”
Empathizing with a mother who had lost her sons in a fire: “Smoke alarms are a damned nuisance.”
On the ceremonial robes of the Nigerian secretary-general of the Commonwealth: “You look as if you’re ready for bed.”
On Princess Anne: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”
Upon being greeted by the then Paraguayan dictator General Stroessner: “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”
