Andy Richardson: What an honour to be talking to a Sir!

While the rest of the world switched off after a hard week at the coal face, I was making an unwelcome trip through freezing fog to a destination I enjoy as much as the dentist. And that's on days when the dentist's performing root canal treatment without the anaesthetic.

Auntie Beeb was keeping me company. Dink: Trump's said something stupid. Dink: terrorists have ruined more lives. Dink: a football manager's been sacked. Dink: a bloke you're on first name terms with has just been knighted. Yup, that fella who told you some of the filthiest stories you've ever heard has just been made a Sir.

I double checked Aunty Beeb. Scorchio. It was right first time.

Poetic homilies failed me and I tapped out a quick SMS to Mr Sir: 'nice one, dude.' I almost added: 'Holy mackerel.'

Now I don't know the etiquette to follow when writing about new knights. I've never done it before and my subscription to Debrett's has expired.

All I know is this: the Honour's System divides people like no other.

There are those, like The Wonder Stuff's Miles Hunt, for instance, who hate the gongs-for-the-boys charade with such passion that they'll Tweet stuff like this when New Year calls: 'It is at this time, every year, that I am eternally grateful I never did a thing to make my name worthy of the NY Honours' List'.

Which is a shame because I believe Her Majesty was a closet fan of The Stuffies. Hup was one of her favourite albums of 1989 and she also bought a copy of Dizzy for the Buckingham Palace Secret Santa.

Another group articulate their objections in more specific terms. The Birmingham poet Dr Benjamin Zephaniah declined an honour from an 'empire' connected to slavery, preferring to keep on keepin' on without any hullabaloo.

Phil Scraton, the Hillsborough justice campaigner, was coming from a similar place when he rejected an OBE.

Most, however, turn cartwheels when the letter arrives in late November telling them they've been selected – along with the usual caveat about keeping it under their hat until New Year.

And my pal was in that camp: chuffed to bits. Like so many recipients, he was grateful that having devoted a hard life to something worthwhile, having inspired others and having conferred prestige on the nation he was being given a super massive thank you.

Now, I'm not sure how to play this. Do we name names or does discretion become the better part of valour? Let's go with the latter: though you'll hardly need to be Columbo to fill in the blanks.

And I know that the guy I'm writing about will think it's hilarious that I'm having an ethical dilemma on his account. 'Stick my name in, you idiot,' he'd say. 'It's good fun.'

Mr Sir and I met not long after the London 2012 Paralympics and agreed to work on his autobiography.

It is a rambunctious and thrilling read, heart-breaking and hilarious: it's a hymn to the indefatigable nature of the human spirit and it has the best, funniest and most improbable group sex story that it's ever been my good fortune to write.

His book is, in a word, sensational. Headline writers will love it when it's published.

We saw one another half a dozen times four years ago to talk about every little detail of his life and form a narrative that was about unwavering determination and self-realisation.

We met, we talked, I listened, we wrote, we did the whole thing all over again and then took a step back and said: 'Wow, that's one helluva story.' It is. And the best thing is, it's true.

And then he went and got flippin' knighted. How about that?

The newly-anointed one responded to my SMS by saying thanks and suggesting we might have to write another chapter.

'We will,' I agreed. 'Thank you, sir'.

His phone exploded with laughter. He realised the 'sir' was banter rather than obsequiousness.

'Let's stick to first names,' he responded, revelling in the late-Knight (of the Realm) banter.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Big thumbs up. Bosh.

I continued on my now-merrier way and reflected on how cool it was to be texting congratulations and jokes to one of the UK's 3,000 living knights and to receiving emojis in return.

I also thought about the stories of fearlessness, bravery and hunger that feature in his book.

As well as the debauched tales of too much drink and complicated hanky panky.

Mr Sir's right: it does need another chapter. But once that's written, he can't wait for all of you to read it.