A right royal consort.

So the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, officially becomes Britain's longest-serving handbag, I mean consort this weekend.

He's had the job for over 57 years and 70 days.

And I only have one thing to say about that.

THE.POOR.FUCKER.

Times journalist Alice Thomson followed the 87 year old round for thirteen hours in the torrential rain as he met over 800 people,unveiled three plaques, shovelled earth on a foundation stone, gave four different speeches and test drove a children's playground.

And that was just Tuesday.

Could you think of anything worse?

But then, maybe he actually deeply cares for the job. He could really enjoy the fact that he can swan around the world being as titanically unPC and thoroughly inappropriate as he likes secure in the knowledge that he's not going to get fired. Notable quotes include :

During a state visit to China in 1986, he famously told a group of British students: "If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed".

He also asked a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?"

"Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed." (during the 1981 recession)

"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 1996, amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting)

"Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf." (in 1999, to young deaf people in Cardiff, referring to a school's steel band).

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

"People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still trying to dry out Windsor Castle." - said to a man who lived in a road where 11 people had been killed by wreckage from the Pan Am jumbo jet, on visit to Lockerbie in 1993.

"Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?" speaking to Susan Edwards, who is blind, wheelchair bound and has a guide dog.

And I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the Mrs heard him say : "I don't think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing."

But then, he could have been playing the reverse psychology card, maybe his offending of sexes, cultures and disabilities has all just been a ploy to stop him being wheeled out on high rotate around the country and the world.

Somehow I doubt it.