Knights of the Realm & The Dutchess of Pork

Never being one to pass up the opportunity to wax poetic on the vagaries and complexities of the British way of life, I found myself wonderfully engaged in a brief discussion on Knighthood. I'm for it. I loved the original idea behind a Knighthood - rewarding and recognising a British citizen for duties above and beyond the call, but find the title sadly watered down by giving it away to pop-stars and rugby players. I would expect to find them being offered on ebay before too much longer:

One knighthood for sale, slightly used, £200 o.b.o.
buy an OBE and get free shipping!

Silly really - How many people do you have to give an honor to before it stops being an honor?

Then there's Fergie. The Dutchess of Pork. When I was starting my first year of boarding school in England (the stories are most definately not true!) Fergie came by to officially open one of the new buildings... this one actually:


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The teachers lead her round the classrooms like a prize bull showing her some of the children hard at work.

They came to my class.

The press had been arranged at the far end of the room so they could get some good shots of the Dutchess fraternizing with the lower class scum that comprised our classes. I was sitting there, minding my own business with a bloody great big calculator sitting next to me, graph paper in front of me, calculations (we called them sums in my day... before we could afford the extra syllables) all over the paper. The dozy cow stops in front of my desk and asks me...

"What are you doing?"

I mean... come on... don't they teach more interesting conversational points in royalty school? Being myself, the completely honest young man that I was (hadn't developed my overwhealming sense of self yet) I answered the only way I knew how...

"Math"

I think she was stunned slightly - how dare this 12 year old snot dare say such things to a Royal?! regardless, she soldiered on, asking the girl next to me what she kept in her pencil case (yep, you guessed it... pencils).

Well - apparently the woman keeps a grudge, the rest of the day every time she saw me, she would glare in my direction!

heheheh - great first day!