I'll never forget that day. I was sitting in my kitchen when it was broadcast on TV in the next room. I was so shaken by an act of such faux pomp and privileged nonsense that I spilt hot coffee in my crotch.

Abbott's monarchic lunacy will forever bear seared into my, umm, memory.    

Do you remember the conversations you had about our reversion to knights and dames in the hours and days afterwards?

The change was so astonishingly puerile that Australians remained  gobsmacked months later. Most of the chats I recall about the subject started with either "Can you effing believe ...." or "What a complete and utter ..."

I can honestly say I am yet to meet one single person who thinks Abbott's unilateral reintroduction of Sir and Dame into our national lexicon was a good thing.

No, he was universally bagged for it and rather sheepishly admitted knighting the Queen's husband was "injudicious". It's part of the reason Malcolm Turnbull is now prime minister and Tony Abbott is not.

But then I've never met professor David Flint, head of that visionary, critical-thinking mob at Australians for Constitutional Monarchy.

I can only imagine him on that sunny Australia Day morn back in January sitting in his kitchen as I sat in mine; his corgis at his slippered feet, HRH the Queen smiling down on him from the mantelpiece as he sipped Earl Grey from his Wedgewood tea cup - pinkie finger extended just so as the wireless carried the wonderful news - and whispered to himself, "Jolly good show, Prime Minister. Jolly good show indeed!"

But now that Malcolm Turnbull has rightly flushed Abbott's asinine, self-described "captain's pick" of knights and dames down the dunny of Australian history, poor old Professor Flint has gone all conspiracy theorist on us.

Banishing the appointment of brave knights from our fair realm, Flint reckoned, was an act of revenge by Turnbull - former head of the Australian Republican Movement - for his failure to push Australia clear of its sepia toned constitutional monarchy status at the 1999 referendum.

"I heard about that captain's pick," Flint said on Monday, not so cleverly trying to hang "captain's picks" around Turnbull's neck (psst, professor - Tony Abbott was the captain's picker, m-kay?) "I'm not that impressed [but] it doesn't surprise me at all," Flint continued. "It was to be expected. It's obviously part of his plan to revenge 1999."

Really? What is Flint a professor of? Stupidity? Of rewriting history? *

Many people believe the hare-brained knighting of Prince Philip was a huge boost to the Australian Republican Movement.

"It was the moment," said current ARM chair Peter Fitzsimons, "when the Australian people said 'if that's a captain's pick we need a new captain'."

And so it came to pass.

The reason Malcolm Turnbull - backed by cabinet mind you, and signed off by the Queen herself - undid Abbott's backward-looking regal handiwork was because the vast majority of Australians thought it was bullshit -  and that the then PM was so out of touch even Bronwyn Bishop couldn't have reached him in a top-of-the-line chopper. 

Does Flint not remember the outrage? Has he forgotten the embarrassing international headlines? Has his brain erased all recollection of the mockery the 2015 Australia Day fiasco exposed us all to?

Has it slipped his mind how just a few weeks after Abbott made such a git of himself that he faced a spill in his own party room? Does he remember how although no-one ran against him, 39 people still voted for an empty chair instead of Abbott.

Personal revenge, my foot. Knights and dames have been dispatched (again) because they have no place in modern Australia. If the Poms want to go all weak-kneed and give Mick Jagger and Elton knighthoods, fantastic. Should Australia give them out to the Hoodoo Gurus and Humphrey B. Bear? Come off it.

Oddly these missed opportunities are what Professor Flint is so upset about. "It means we can't give international recognition to our best soldiers like Sir John Monash, our best sportsmen like Sir Donald Bradman and our best singers like Dame Nellie Melba," he said.

"The New Zealanders have woken up to this and they realise the best way to go give international recognition to their best but we're denying the best in Australia international recognition."

This is, of course, unadulterated frogsh-t. We bestow our own uniquely Australian honours all the time. There's the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), the Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM).

I'd have no problem giving any one of them to Humphrey and the Gurus.

As for our defense personnel, there are literally dozens of medals they can be awarded, the topmost being the highest award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross (VC). Everyone knows that when it is given to a soldier, it is huge news in this country.

Professor Flint, who is about as committed a monarchist as there is in Australia (Tony Abbott aside), is entitled to his views. I'm also entitled to say he's full of stale gas and I wish he'd shut up.

I've never liked the idea of calling some people "Sir" or "Dame" simply because they were handy with a bat or could belt out a decent tune. Such an honorific, I believe, only elevates a certain class of person to supposed greatness - and they're usually people who've already enjoyed fame, success and/or wealth.

You don't ever hear of undercover cops getting the big nod on Australia Day, even though their gig is about as dangerous as it gets in civilian life. And how about those incredible school teachers who help shape our future generations? And what of our nurses? Miners? Garbage collectors? Fire fighters?

Sure, Sir Paul McCartney had a few hits back in the day but like all of us, he - and every other knight and dame of the realm - needs the aforementioned more than they've ever needed him.   

 *David Flint is a professor of international law but I still think he's stupid.