Knights

Dear Reader, 

Here I am again, scratching around the alphabet looking for something beginning with K. Downstairs, the Dear Lady Wife is knitting A-Z widow jumpers in a variety of sizes. I can hear the irritated clacking from here. Knitting, now there was something in my thin book of notes from many months ago when I was allegedly preparing for all of this. What I didn't think of back then was knights.

So, knights. Knights are noble folk, with a predisposition to heavy metal. Clothing, as opposed to the musical genre. There are many shining lights of Knighthood I could talk about. The Knights of the Round Table, for example. The Knights Templar also spring to mind. But there are far more important iconic Knights under my beady eye.

Let me begin the Knights who say Ni. This band of knights surface during one of the finest comedy movies ever made, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The film charts some of the higher and lesser knights of the round table as they attempt to find the Holy Grail. Specifically, King Arthur, Sir Bedevere the Wise, Sir Lancelot the Brave, Sir Robin the not-quite-so-brave-as-Lancelot and Sir Galahad the Pure.

Arthur and Bedevere do their best to satisfy the requirements of the Knights who say Ni, the foremost of which is a shrubbery. Using the the same weapon as the Knights who say Ni (saying the word Ni repeatedly to cause pain to anyone in earshot) to torture a crone, they eventually stumble upon a shrubbery seller. Upon return the Knights have re-branded. Thy now require a second shrubbery a little taller than the first one so they can put a path down the middle. None of this will make sense to anyone who hasn't seen the film and certainly isn't supposed to make sense to anyone who has so don't worry. Watch it, you will not regret it. The specific scene I describe is played out below:

There is one other Knight that struck me as noteworthy. That would be Knight Rider. As 80's TV goes, everything was just right. We have the now legendary David Hasselhoff as Micheal Knight and an intelligent car called KITT, see below.

The Hoff, back in the day.

KITT, or Knight Industries Two Thousand.

For me, it's the car, but others may disagree. They fought crime, the car talked and occasionally made jokes. Micheal flirted with a technician in a white jumpsuit. That was it pure and simple, but it was brilliant, well I thought it was anyway. Everything you needed to know about this program was in the titles which are a lesson in themselves...

It's all there, the hair, the teeth, the astonishingly contrived stunts, the voice-over, the token girl and the music, don't forget the music. You can't but love it.

So that is me done with Knights. A history lesson it may be, but not, perhaps, the one you expected. Hope you enjoyed the ride. Tomorrow, Dear Reader, I need to lasso the letter L

xx