NO ROOM IN THE DRAWER..

Browsing through today`s published New Year Honours, I see that I have been overlooked again. It`s one of life`s rituals, on a par with reading the obituary column in the local paper each week to see if I`ve passed away.

Anyway, I`m pretty sure I neither deserve nor desire any form of official honour, especially one dished out by this Government, who always seem to have an eye for a headline rather than the recognition of true merit. How else can knighthoods for such luminaries as Mick Jagger, Tom Jones, Bob ("I don`t like Mondays") Geldof, Terry Wogan and the rest be justified? And today, honours have been awarded to none other than Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi of Status Quo. Rossi welcomed this event in fitting terms, " "I'm not sure that we deserve it, but fuck it, I'm so made up it's ridiculous. " Such dignity.

And so, after all, maybe any feeling I may have harboured of being shunned is tempered with relief that I will not be joining their ranks or, indeed, have the problem of going to Buck House to collect the gong. In fact, in a former life, I was once invited to the Queen`s Garden Party but I declined on the reasonable grounds that I really didn`t want to go. Anyway, the drawer in which I have housed my collection of awards over the years is pretty full already with such priceless treasures as my Cycling Proficiency Badge (CPB,) my 50-metre breaststroke certificate, my football medals including runners-up in Division 7 of the Maidstone and District Football League 1963/64, medals for refereeing including being Assistant Referee at the Kent Youth Cup Final (so there!) and my certificate for passing the trade test as a projectionist on Bauer B7 Cinema Projectors (BCP.)

I think I`ll just rest on my own laurels, thank you very much.