Keeping knighthoods in the (royal) family

Tom Moloney writes: Re. “Rundle: Prince Philip knighthood may be Abbott’s finest service to the Liberal Party” (yesterday). Rundle does it again. Corvo, forsooth. Again I break a rule against letters to the editor. One little sentence opens out the failure of ambition and desire and pursuit closed off in 1987. So quiet and nasty. Well done, Rundle. I saw Barry Morse in Peter Luke’s Hadrian VII in Melbourne in the late ’60s. Morse was good, but they won the day by putting Frank Thring in as a last minute horrible/ wonderful Cardinal Ragna. It was so last minute that it was done after the programmes were printed. Gosh, I saw a lot of stuff in the ’60s.

Langdon Blight writes: With one apparent exception, all Australians seem united in having a negative view of Prince Philip’s knighthood (although I do confess to looking fondly on the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme). However, nobody has commented on the fact that Prince Charles is also a Knight within the Order of Australia, having been appointed by the Fraser government in 1981.

Blair Martin writes: Re. “The knightmare continues” (Wednesday). Denise Marcos writes, “… for a man already full to the gunwales with titles …” which reminded me of a story about the Sir/Duke/Prince Philip on a state visit to Brazil meeting a military officer whose chest jingled and shone with a plethora of medals. Our newest AK asked, “where did you get all those medals?” and the answer came, “in the war.” His Royal Foot In Mouthness responded with, “I didn’t realize Brazil was in the war for that long?”.  His Brazilian interlocutor shot back,  “At least, sir, I did NOT get them for marrying my wife!”