8 May—Anent the allure of mature manure, the Home Hint of the Day on yesterday’s Old Farmer’s Almanac website was a corollary to Tuesday’s: “Don’t apply any manure or compost that’s not thoroughly decomposed to the early garden. Such treatments can burn seedlings and attract flies that introduce root maggots.” Truth be told, while my mother’s fresh Aqueduct Racetrack horse manure did a job on the grass, I can’t recall any more flies than usual. And who knew about root maggots in New York City?

So today is the centenary—the hundredth birthday—of Don Rickles and David Attenborough. Hearty congratulations to both Don and David. Sadly, Don died in 2017 at 90. But David is still with us, although reportedly he’s physically frail and celebrating his hundredth birthday in hospital. But he’s mentally sharp and still working on documentaries.

Technically, David Attenborough is Sir David. Among his numerous honors are two British knighthoods, Knight Bachelor (with no post-nominal designation) in 1985 and Knight Grand Cross Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (with post-nominal GCMG) in 2020. In 1991 he had been made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO), but not a Knight Commander.

If you care, Sir David’s almost-three-year-older brother, actor-director-producer Richard, having been made a non-knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1967, was made a Knight Bachelor in 1976 and a life peer in 1993 (Baron Attenborough, or Richmond upon Thames) shortly after “Jurassic Park” was released. Knight Bachelor is the lowest of the knighthoods, by the way, and Knights Bachelor aren’t an actual chivalric order; and women can’t be Knights Bachelor.

All four Beatles were made non-knight Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1965. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the surviving Beatles, have since been made Knights Bachelor, McCartney in 1997, Starr in 2018–21 years later! Politics politics politics. Talk about well-rotted manure.

Back to Sir David Attenborough, then, like many fine people before him, he refused a life peerage. Who needs it, especially when he has over 50 species and genera of plants and animals named after him—including insects, reptiles, and extinct creatures.

Like for instance: a South African lizard Platysaurus attenboroughi; a giant carnivorous pitcher plant Nepenthes attenboroughii; a dinosaur Attenborosaurus conybeari; an Australian goblin spider Gibellula attenboroughi; a lichen Malmidea attenboroughii; an Andean frog species Pristimantis attenboroughi; a miniature orchid Lepanthes attenboroughii; and a flowering tree species Sirdavidia solannona.

Only Charles Darwin has more such recognitions, with over 300. But Darwin wasn’t knighted or given an hereditary peerage (life peerages didn’t come in until 1958)—because his theory of evolution was considered heretical by the then troglodytic Church of England. Talk about well-rotted manure . . .