“Arise Sir Samuel", said The Queen. "Why thank you, ma'am," I replied. "An extra 15 grand p.a. should just about make the nut".

The Queen looked puzzled but I'm sure I heard Fergie titter in the background. Little gagettes at such august affairs may not be the norm in the Palace of Buck but then it's not every other day that the likes of Samuel J. Snort Esq becomes a knight.

Needless to say, the fact that the world's greatest living rock journalist, and an Irishman to boot, agreed to accept the Order of the British Empire, has given rise to much sniping from liberals, beardies, socialists and other dreary sods. To them, I say, in a spirit of tolerance and fair play: fuck you, you fucking fucks and fuck your muthas.

BOOGIE LOSERS

Just to set the record straight: I qualified for my knighthood on the basis that I hold dual citizenship of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Of course, thanks to the Brothers Hernandez and their state of the art printing press, I also hold passports for Bolivia, Paraguay, North Korea and the Cayman Islands. But those are for strictly business purposes. My UK credentials are much more important; they're for fun.

The honour was bestowed on me for all the usual reasons; my humanitarian projects, my arts endowments, my charity work on behalf of the Prince's Trust and Battersea Dog's Home.

Or at least that was what the press release said.

The reality was rather different, in so far as I make it a rule not to trust anything with the word trust in it and hate all animals but most especially any species that can produce a specialist breed called "sniffer", while the only work I've ever done that could possibly be defined as combining humanitarian and - to a much lesser degree - artistic merit, was managing southern fried boogie losers Foghat.

No, the only reason I received what Fergie later wittily described to me in private as "the order of the porksword", is because I am a valued member of the establishment. And the reason I am a valued member of the establishment is because I am A Man Who Knows Too Much.

Looking for the hot poop on drug abuse in the polo world? You've come to the right place. Want to know whose toe got sucked in the royal jacuzzi? I'm your man. Puzzled as to how the Queen Mum still hasn't croaked it? Me too, as it happens.

Otherwise, there's very little that goes on in Buck House which doesn't reach the ear of Samuel J. Snort esq. The royals, like all rich and eccentric dingbats, have always had a soft spot for flamboyant paddies, and they don't come much more flamboyant than a man whom they first encountered balancing six lighted haggis on his engorged phallus, while duetting with dear old Elton on 'Rocket Man', one memorable New Year's Eve above in Balmoral. With that kind of entree, it wasn't long before I was sipping absinthe with Anne, consoling Fergie during hubby's long days at sea, and bamboozling the dimwit Philip by suggesting Keith Richards when he informed me that the 'oul one needed another "hip replacement".

And then there's Charlie. But sure we all like that, no harm there.

POONTANG WIRES

As for the bonny prince, what can one say about a man who spurned the attentions of a foxy chick in favour of an older babe of altogether horsier mien? Is it something to do, I wonder, with getting your basic poontang wires crossed when young, a delayed reaction to too much exposure, at an impressionable age, to the more perverse, not to say violently ugly, aspects of country life? Jah knows, I tried talking sense to the man, but you might as well have been talking to a plant. As indeed we frequently were.

Anyway, it quickly became pretty clear that Sam's access-all-areas philosophy of life applied to the world of royalty just as much as it would to, say, the backstage area at Reading. Alarmed, the infamous "grey men" at Buck House tried to disarm me by unofficially designating me "a source close to the palace" but when I began using this as an excuse to host long, boozy, tell-all lunches with the Wapping rotters, word went out that a bigger gesture was required.

Hence, the splendid spectacle of your royal servant, down on his knees, getting the old shoulders bladed by not so thin Lizzy.

"Arise, Sir Sam," she purred. "I am always risen," I quipped goodnaturedly.

Your ever lovin' Sir Samuel J. Snort Esq