A bit of lighter topic today, in keeping with the rising temperatures and the (unfulfilled) desire to do jack.
I confess that I’ve never quite got the point of titles. By titles I mean the olde-worlde honorifics of baron, duke, count and so forth. It was all very well in yonder days. Being wife to a baron (since the only two professions available to women were wives and...umm, ladies of pleasure, I’ll go with wife) must have been rather snazzy.
All those beautiful gowns, corsets and ladies-in-waiting to do my bidding would beat any old nine-to-five job, I’m sure. And should I get bored of a life spent lapping up the luxury that is a noblewoman’s by right, never fear – I can always do a Lady Godiva in aid of the starving masses. Just because we’re in recession doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun and games.
What’s brought on all this? A recent report about two squabbling ‘noblemen’ who took their differences to court in the hope that one only one of them would legitimately keep reigning as the Grand Master of "Ordo Byzantinus Sancti Sepulchri". I kid you not. Read the report here if you don’t believe me: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120705/local/courts-cannot-rule-on-titles-of-nobility.427316.
Unlike me, the court of appeal was not amused and promptly declared that it can’t rule on titles of nobility. Quote, unquote: “if it were to investigate who was entitled to be Grand Master, deputy Grand Master and Grand Chancellor of this order it would be recognising the Order itself.”
What I take away from this – apart from the fact that it was all a waste of time and really some people ought to get a life – is that it’s no-one’s business if I were to decide to start calling myself Most Gracious Duchess of Wherever. If our law courts have no jurisdiction on titles of nobility, what is to stop me from doing so? And by “me”, I mean “other nutters” – but I’m too polite to say so.
Please excuse me while I adjust my e-mail address accordingly and order new business cards. And kindly get ready with the curtsies.