It’s a bit uncool to dishonour the honour system

Damien Hirst says that he refused the offer of a CBE because it was “a bit uncool”. I expect he is right: no more people would have bought his sharks in formaldehyde, spot paintings or jewel-encrusted skulls if he had become a Companion of the British Empire.

But it is typical of the hipster mindset to think only of yourself. If Hirst was offered the CBE, it was to honour him. If people are offered an honour, they are perfectly entitled to refuse, but they should nevertheless be grateful. To start commenting publicly and unfavourably on the offer (“I don’t really like that stuff ”) is insulting to all the worthy people in the world who are proud to accept them. Very soon, the list of the Queen’s New Year honours will be published, giving great pleasure to their friends and family. Why does this multimillionaire have to announce his disdain for them?

I have noticed something else about the CBE in particular: a notable proportion of those offered it refuse, not because they don’t want an honour but because they think they deserve a knighthood. If he had the chance of being Sir Damien, might Hirst throw his worries about being “a bit uncool” to the winds?

So far as I know, there are only two people in the world today who have been in charge of their realms since before I was born in 1956. The first, of course, is the Queen, who succeeded her father in 1952. The second is Rupert Murdoch, who did the same. Admittedly, the former started with the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, numerous other realms and large quantities of empire; the latter only with a couple of newspapers in Adelaide. Her dominion reduced: his spread. But the authority of both has been continuous for 65 years.

Not many people are sentimental about Mr Murdoch, but I felt a twinge at the news last week that this greatest of media moguls is drawing in his horns. It was announced that the Murdoch organisation is selling out of the entertainment world, which suggests that his empire is at last in retreat. After so long, I find this change unsettling.

One of Mr Murdoch’s greatest skills is to recover from problems. He beat the print unions at Wapping in 1986. He nearly went bust in 1990, over-borrowing to finance satellite television, yet he came through and triumphed. Is this latest move part of a fiendish plan to spring back into action later? I must admit that I almost hope so.

All the reports of Hamilton, the American musical just premiered in London, are ecstatic. I have heard particular praise for the way it takes history seriously. This allows people to draw authority and inspiration for their political struggles from the show. In the United States, it has been used against Donald Trump to demonstrate the value of immigration. (Hamilton came from the West Indies.)

There’s something for us over here, too. At one point, George III embarks on a sneering tirade against the rebellious colonists after they have won the battle of Yorktown. Now you’re getting your independence, he sings, “What comes next?/ You’ve been freed./ Do you know how hard it is to lead?/ You’re on your own/ – Awesome, wow –/ Do you have a clue what happens now?/ Oceans rise, empires fall./ It’s much harder when it’s all your call./ All alone across the sea,/ When your people say they hate you,/ Don’t come crawling back to me.”

The point of the song, obviously, is that the people never did come crawling back to King George. By taking control, America did all right. A theme song for Brexit, I feel.

In about 1500, a monk in Battle Abbey, presumably straying from his monastic tasks, composed a Christmas carol and scribbled it in his service book. In recent times, it was discovered in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

My father was until recently the chairman of the Battle Historical Society (and a graduate of Trinity). He thought it would be nice if the carol could be given a tune for Christmas, so the society commissioned one from a local composer, Stephen Page. It was sung for the society’s Christmas party last week.

It fell to my sister, Charlotte, to tweak the monk’s medieval English words and spelling in the interests of clarity. The monk wrote, for example, that “sorrow increaseth, and envye is bold/ When chereti is skantye and waxethe colde”. Charlotte changed the second line to “When charity is scanty and does grow cold”. She thought that if she had written “waxes”, people would not have understood. Nowadays waxing is something people do in beauty parlours. She now regrets the change, thinking that “does grow cold” is a bit feeble.

Otherwise, the carol trips along as merrily as its author intended. The monk’s topics are quite modern. Here he is on fake news: “All fancy talk is not worth a straw/ Where there’s no love which fulfils the law/ Therefore in meeting where ye resort/ Belie no man with false report.” The chorus shows that the English Christmas message hasn’t altered much in 500 years, even if its command is disobeyed: “Be merry all with one accord/ And be ye followers of Christ’s word.”