Basically it's a way of periodically issuing a press release saying "We think these are good eggs", but in such a way that it actually gets picked up by the media and given some of the attention normally reserved for Big Borer and Pop Idle and suchlike.

Could be done a lot better of course. Such drab titles, with such dodgy associations, "British Empire" and so forth. I've always liked the sound of these exotic foreign decorations - Order of the Emerald Elephant and that sort of thing . "Order of the Garter" is OK, a touch kinky - but they could do better with the rest.

So the winning Rugby team could have been given the Order of the Golden Ball, Though, as has been pointed out, they've already been granted a far more valuable honour - the knowledge that they will never need to buy a drink for themselves in a pub, for the rest of their lives.