Recker's World
Queen's Honours
By Vanessa Dante (May 2016)
I’m thinking that with Queens Birthday coming up next month, that perhaps I might put in an application for a knighthood. I know what you’re thinking. I’m a woman. How can a woman be given a knighthood? Knighthoods are for men. You surely can’t have someone called Sir Vanessa. That just wouldn’t sound right.
I have to admit, it doesn’t sound right at all, although even Dame Vanessa sounds too stuffy for my liking, but I still think that my sex should not count me out for a knighthood. After all, just look at Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager. SHE gets called “sir”.
The reason I think a woman should be allowed to be knighted is because anyone these days can be knighted. You don’t have to have been some big war hero. We are living in a day now where even bards can be knights. Just look at Sir Elton John and Sir Cliff Richard!
So if we can knight bards, then we should be able to knight other non-heroic warriors too. Like blacksmiths and brothel owners, after all they perform valuable services to the kingdom. Cooks could be knights too. How about Sir Gordon Ramsey for instance? Priests, vicars, rabbis. They could all be knights. Could you imagine New Zealand’s own Bishop Bryan Tamaki being called Sir Bryan Tamaki instead? I know, it’s a horrible thought isn’t it? But it COULD happen!
To be honest with you, I think it’s all become a bit of a joke. Knighthoods were given to men of valour - brave men who went out and risked their lives for the good of the people. I don’t see any of our modern knights doing anything like that.
I mean Sir Richard Hadlee may be fantastic with a cricket ball, he might be able to bowl out a middle stump with ease and hit a six over top of the stadium walls, but just how effective would he be if you replaced his cricket bat with a sword?
Sir Mark Todd, he might have been one of our top equestrian guys at the Olympic Games a couple of decades ago. But just how great would he be if you put a lance in his hand and put him up against Gregor Clegane from Game of Thrones? I’m guessing neither Hadlee nor Todd would last very long in REAL battle.
Sir Richard Hadlee once said that being a knight wasn’t much different to not being one. It’s just that now, instead of ordering a beer at a bar, he was expected to order a gin and tonic instead. Mmmm, I wonder if it was the same for the knights of old. I wonder if Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot, when they went in search of Monty Python’s Holy Grail, ever got that fancy?
Write a comment