An old friend of mine is a CBE. I suspect he got the gong because he used to be in a job which involved reading lots of letters written in green ink. Unfortunately these sometimes resembled certain postings on this august organ.

Seriously, he got it because he stuck his neck out. He raised the profile of the organisation in his care greatly with the public, and also extracted large sums of money from various bodies. He accepted the CBE as a recognition of what his whole team had done during his tenure - like Richard Thompson, he's a modest man.

I think it's wonderful that Richard's been recognised in this manner - in my book it's recognition by his own country for somebody who has stuck to his guns and ploughed his own furrow for about 40 years now. And who remains a decent human being.