In the introduction to a recent anthology of his modest but knowledgeable speeches, Britain's Prince Philip shrewdly observes: "People would rather be bored than offended." In the past, oddly, Philip's own public relations have sometimes been more offensive than boresome.* But he has recently shown more self-awareness of his snippy streak, as he demonstrated last week in a speech to Britain's General Dental Council. Defined Philip: "Dentopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. I've been practicing it for years."

After suing A. & P. Heir Huntington Hartford, 48, for divorce on the ground of multiple adultery, Marjorie Steele Hartford, 31 and married to him for eleven years, was reported to be asking a world record $25 million property settlement. The exact amount is a court secret because a Manhattan judge decided that the case and Marjorie's accusations should not be aired in public. Last week, however, Marjorie's attorneys came out in the open to ask for temporary alimony, and that amount was enough to bug the eyeballs of even such a wealthy chap as Hartford: $1,000 a day.

Back in July, renowned Birth Controller Margaret Sanger, 77, took a suspicious look at Roman Catholic Presidential Nominee John Kennedy and dramatically announced that she would move out of the U.S.--lock, stock and devices--if he were elected. Last week she changed her mind, decided to give Kennedy's Administration a one-year trial before making any plans for expatriation. Reason: "Some of my friends who are also very close friends of Senator and Mrs. Kennedy have told me that they are both sympathetic and understanding toward the problem of world population."

It seemed a splendid idea to France's Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, Author Andre Malraux, to have the state pay retirement pensions for legitimate writers. Accordingly, Malraux went before France's National Assembly, asked for a 1961 pension budget of $106,800. To determine who in France is really an author, Malraux applied the social security definition that a writer is one drawing at least 51% of his income from author's rights. To his dismay, Malraux found French letters in a sad state. Only 150 writers in all France qualified under the definition--and about 80% of these were either mystery-plotting hacks or vulgarizers of other works. Moaned he: "Who will deny that in this domain, statistics lead to the absurd? The problem of true writers would not have been resolved. There are many who, in order to live, must ply a second trade." In his own second-trade capacity as a Cabinet minister, Writer Malraux made a painful decision: No writer, good or bad, will get a pension next year.

Even through the war years, Sir Winston Churchill always made his annual appearance at his old school of Harrow to be acclaimed as its most honored living Old Boy. His only absence since 1940 came four years ago, when he was downed by a bad cold. Some 650 young Harrovians last week serenaded him as is the custom, once again brought a proud smile to Sir Winston's face as they sang the Latin words of May Fortune Stay with the House, including the line, "Churchill's name shall win again."

Ill lay: Cinemactor Clark Gable, 59, bedded in Hollywood after a "slight" coronary thrombosis--four months before the expected arrival of his first born (by Fifth Wife Kay, 42, who also has a heart ailment); TV Impresario Arthur Godfrey, 57, rebounding after removal of a fatty tumor from his back in Manhattan, where doctors stated that it was unrelated to the lung cancer for which he underwent surgery last year.

In the 32 years since D. H. Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley's Lover, her ladyship has been an adulteress without undue dishonor in her own land mainly because the unexpurgated version of her affair with literature's gamiest gamekeeper has never been legally available to British readers. The ban on Lawrence's four-letter specifics of illicit love was removed fortnight ago by a jury of nine men and three women who found Lady Chatterley not guilty of obscenity. Londoners last week converged on bookstores as the titillating tome went on sale for the first time. A Leicester Square book vendor peddled 1,300 copies in an hour after setting out a window placard reading "Lady C.--12 Sharp!" By evening of C-day, the paperback edition, priced at 50-c-, was being hawked and sold by Soho scalpers for $2.80. Among the many objectors to the literary sensation was Major Arthur Neve, secretary of Britain's Gamekeepers Association. Allowing that recruiting has shown no sudden jump, the major stiffly observed: "The sort of conduct that's mentioned by D. H. Lawrence--it's highly unprofessional, you know. My association couldn't stand for that."

* Example: In 1958 he arrived at Gibraltar, whose best known inhabitants are its lowbrowed Barbary apes. Gazing at the welcoming committee, Philip loudly inquired: "Which are the press and which are the apes?"

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