Jim Hopkins: New Year honours just a lot of bull - or a bit of a cow

Belated it might be but we probably should look at the vexed matter of the New Year honours. In case you hadn't noticed, these were the ones you didn't notice when they were announced exactly a week ago today. (Or yesterday if you're reading the paper tomorrow.)

Don't be upset if you didn't notice the honours. A recent Harold Tent Poll (conducted at the Parnell camping grounds just before they were sold and lost forever) revealed the total number of people who were unaware of the honours was higher than the total number of people who were polled.

There are lots of reasons why people (like yourself) didn't notice the New Year honours, including:
(A) You were on holiday in a remote Norwegian cottage at the time.
(B) You were doing missionary work in Hamilton.
(C) You were busy buying the Parnell camping grounds - "where ordinary Kiwis get a really ordinary holiday".
(D) Your name wasn't mentioned.
(E) Jonathan Hunt got the big one.
(F) All of the above.

Now, when we say Jonathan Hunt got the big one we don't mean Christmas hampers.

What the former Minister of Taxi Chits actually got was the biggest honour. (We can't call it the highest honour because the Green Leader of the Joints, Mr Nadnor Tanktop, would be upset that he missed out.)

We should also note that Mr Hunt didn't get the biggest honour for being the former Minister of Taxi Chits.

He got it for being "the Father of the House" - not to be confused with our dad who was known as "the Father of the Public House" because all us kids were conceived in the lounge-bar toilets. (They didn't have any in the public bar; you just opened a window.)

To recap, then. In the New Year honours (which you didn't notice) the biggest honour went to Mr Jonathan Hunt, otherwise known as "the Father of the House" (although there are moves to change that to "the Gender-Neutral Parent of the House" to avoid offending gay foreign students reading the paper in the new squat loos at Auckland University.)

Gosh, you've got a lot of brackets this week - the Senior Chief Inspector of Columns.

Yes, sir. It's the holidays, you see, and I'm putting up shelving.

Very well. Carry on - the Senior Chief Inspector of Columns.

Right. So what we've got is the biggest honour going to the Gender-Neutral Parent of the House, Mr Jonathan Hunt, who picked up the Order of New Zealand, otherwise known as ONZ.

Strictly speaking, there is one bigger honour than ONZ and that's ONZH (short for Holiday) - which the PM was on when Mr Hunt got ONZed but she was in a very remote area at the time and couldn't be contacted, although Mr Goff was in constant communication with her on an hourly basis.

Anyway, moving on, the thing about being an ONZ is that it's a very select club. At any one time, only 20 people can be ONZed (thus explaining why the SIS stopped snooping on the Maori Party for a week in order to liquidate two current ONZers so they could make room for Mr Hunt).

Fortunately, they were successful (it's all been hushed up, of course) and he's now the Hon ONZ, one of an elite band of bonza ONZers - almost none of whom anyone else can name.

But that shouldn't diminish their achievement (whatever it was). Or the exclusive nature of the honour. Because it definitely is exclusive - with a capital X. By comparison, our 20 ONZers equals half the number of personal assistants Sir Clive Woodward is bringing with him for the Lions tour.

Oops, we probably shouldn't have mentioned Sir Clive. There are still a few fossilised plonkerwallahs who don't appreciate how unique and exciting and wonderful we really are and, therefore, keep clamouring for the return of irrelevant ancient traditions like knighthoods and such.

You can see why. At least people understand the terms. They know that "Sir" is a shortened version of "Sire", which is what fawning courtiers used to call their kings, usually because they hoped the impotent old inbreds would think the royal offspring were theirs and not the costermonger's.

And also that Dame is a polite variant of the oath "Daymne", which is what medieval chaps used to say when their (naturally superior) wives wouldn't let them go down to Ye Olde Rutting Gosling for a firkin of mead and a sackbutt of chips.

But those knights are gone these days. Instead of Sir Jonathan, we've got ONZ Jonathan - or Jonathan ONZ. And we're the richer for it.

Having a new honours system just like the old honours system but with titles that sound silly is a far better reflection of our unique identity.

Although perhaps those who decide these things for us could consider blending olde and new.

One way would be to name our new honours after our most successful export industry, dairying. Let's face it, earning $9 billion a year does seem worth celebrating, you'd have to say. Especially since the beasts who do the nation's lactation have fortuitously apposite names such as jersey and friesian.

Hence, we could have Jer Jonathan Hunt (a nice echo there) and - assuming we honoured our most famous political prisoner - Frie Ahmed Zaoui.

Tell y'what: people would notice the flamin' New Year honours then.