Muy pocos le pueden discutir el título de hombre más controvertido del reino. La izquierda le tiene por un racista sin remedio que no se da cuenta de que sus pesadas bromas ponen en evidencia al país. La derecha le considera un librepensador al que le trae al pairo la corrección política. El príncipe Felipe, marido de Isabel II, cumple hoy 90 años y sigue siendo el de siempre. Para bien o para mal.

El duque de Edimburgo no piensa alterar su rutina diaria por el simple hecho de que sea su 90º cumpleaños. Lo celebrará el domingo en el castillo de Windsor con un servicio religioso en la capilla de San Jorge seguido de una recepción.

Aunque a partir de ahora recortará un pellizco sus actividades, seguirá encabezando más de 800 organizaciones y asistiendo a una media anual de 350 actos públicos. Se le quiera o se le odie, nadie le niega que llega a los 90 años en admirable buena forma. Y la prensa todavía espera con expectación alguna de sus conocidas meteduras de pata. O desprecios al protocolo, como se quiera ver.

El otro día, en el viaje de la reina a Irlanda, se hizo un absoluto silencio entre los medios que seguían desde el centro de prensa en Dublín la visita de la pareja real a los cuarteles generales de la cervecera Guinness: el duque miraba de reojo la pinta que le ofrecieron de buena mañana. Bastó una mirada de la reina para que el duque renunciara al desafío de dar un sorbo. Solo entonces los periodistas rompieron con una carcajada esos pocos segundos de casi tenso silencio. Hubiera sido la foto del día.

Y podía haberlo sido. Porque el duque de Edimburgo es capaz de todo. Ese de todo incluye cosas muy mal vistas, pero que cuando el ahora nonagenario era un chaval se consideraban normales, como considerar que todo lo extranjero es raro y probablemente inferior. O catalogar a la gente con viejos estereotipos: los chinos destacan por sus ojos rasgados, los escoceses son borrachos, los nativos de Nueva Guinea son caníbales, los caribeños son piratas, los aborígenes australianos se matan a flechazos... Cosa curiosa en un patriota británico que en realidad nació en Grecia con sangre danesa y alemana.

Pero a pesar de sus legendarias meteduras de pata, o de las tensas relaciones que históricamente ha tenido con su hijo Carlos, heredero de la corona, o del atractivo que siempre ha despertado en las mujeres, el duque de Edimburgo siempre ha contado con el apoyo absoluto de su esposa y reina, Isabel. Aunque la pose quizás no sea espontánea, vale la pena ver dos fotos de la pareja mirándose acaramelados que se exhiben en la exposición sobre el 90º cumpleaños del duque abierta en el castillo de Windsor hasta el 22 de enero de 2012. Dos fotos gemelas, pero separadas por 60 años.

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1963

Speaking about the rate of British tax, he said: "All money nowadays seems to be produced with a natural homing instinct for the Treasury."

1965

On seeing an exhibition of "primitive" Ethiopian art, he muttered: "It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons."

1966
The Duke famously proclaimed: "British women can't cook".

1967

When asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union: "I would like to go to Russia very much, although the bastards murdered half my family."

1969
The Duke said to Tom Jones after his Royal Variety Performance: "What do you gargle with, pebbles?".

He later added: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."

On the Royal Family's finances: "We go into the red next year. I shall probably have to give up polo."

1976
On a tour of Canada: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves."

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

1984
When accepting a figurine from a woman during a visit to Kenya he asked: "You are a woman aren't you?"

1986
He told a World Wildlife Fund meeting that "if it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

Prince Philip's opinion of Beijing, during a tour of China in 1986, was simply: "Ghastly."

1993

To a British tourist in Hungary in he quipped: "You can't have been here that long — you haven't got a pot belly."

To survivors of the Lockerbie bombing he told them: "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle."

1994
"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?", he asked an islander in the Cayman Islands.

To a Caribbean rabbit breeder in Anguilla, he said: "Don't feed your rabbits pawpaw fruit — it acts as a contraceptive. Then again, it might not work on rabbits."

1995

He asked a Scottish driving instructor in Oban: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?"

1996

Following the Dunblane massacre, he questioned the need for a firearms ban: "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?"

1998
The Duke asked a British student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"

1999
In Cardiff he told children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing by a Caribbean steel band: "If you're near that music it's no wonder you're deaf".

2000

To guests at the opening reception of a new £18million British Embassy in Berlin: "It's a vast waste of space."

At a Buckingham Palace drinks party, he told group of female Labour MPs: "Ah, so this is feminist corner then."

On being offered fine Italian wines by Giuliano Amato, the former Prime Minister, at a dinner in Rome, he is said to have uttered: "Get me a beer. I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer!"

"People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans."

2001
To Elton John: "Oh it's you that wons that ghastly car is it? We often see it when driving to Windsor Castle."

2002
While touring a factory near Edinburgh he said a fuse box was so crude it "looked as though it had been put in by an Indian".

2002
To Australian Aborigines during a visit to Australia with the Queen he asked: "Do you still throw spears at each other?"

To the Aircraft Research Association, he said: "If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort, provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly."

2009
Said to black dance troupe Diversity at the Royal Variety Performance: "Are you all one family?"

To a young fashion designer at Buckingham Palace he told him: "You didn't design your beard too well, did you? You really must try better with your beard."

2010
On asking a female Sea Cadet what she did for a living, and being told that she worked in a nightclub (as a barmaid), the Duke asked “Is it a strip club?” Observing her surprise he dismissed the suggestion saying that it was “probably too cold for that anyway”.

2010
At a prize-giving ceremony for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards a girl told him that she'd been to Romania to help in an orphanage. He replied: "Oh yes, there's a lot of orphanges in Romania - they must breed them".

Others that are undated:

"YOU have mosquitos. I have the Press."
- To the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean.

"If it doesn't fart or eat hay then she isn't interested"
- speaking about his daughter, Princess Anne.

"Can you tell the difference between them?"
- The Duke's question after President Barack Obama said he met with the leaders of the UK, China and Russia.

"The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion."
- on London traffic.

"Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut."
- to a 13-year-old whilst visiting a space shuttle.

" I would love to go to Russia very much - although the bastards murdered half my family"
- when asked if he would like to visit the Societ Union.

“You look like you’re ready for bed!”
- To the President of Nigeria, dressed in traditional robes.