GONG HO !

Well, the New Year Honours came and went and seemed to leave behind the much vaunted knighthoods for David Beckham and Andy Murray.   I can only conclude that, far from it being `too early` for them to become knights of the realm, the powers that be were understandably fearful of the effect it might have on  Mrs. Beckham`s inherent shyness and modesty and, as for Mr. Murray, well it`s just possible that with the referendum on Scottish independence looming later this year, it was felt to be a bit daft to make him Sir Andy only for the `honour` to be rendered worthless in what might become a foreign country.

Incidentally, the parliamentary three stooges - Cameron, Clegg and Miliband - are all urging the Scots to remain part of the United Kingdom, all for blatantly political reasons rather than any hint of unity.   As for me, I remain miffed that we here in England along with those in Wales and Northern Ireland are not being given the chance to vote on whether the United Kingdom might become even more disunited than it already is.

But back to the honours, for there might now be a slim chance of more gongs heading in the direction of Snopperville.   The New Year Honours this time around included a British Empire Medal for a local lady in recognition of her services to recycling domestic household waste and for ensuring the welfare of seagulls and it surely cannot be long before another award is handed out to the local nocturnal malcontent in recognition of his/her services to ringing door bells late at night, disturbing the peace of elderly residents and running away.

All of which will merely add to the farce of awarding British Empire Medals anyway when there`s no British Empire any more. But then the whole `honours` business is a faded relic of the days of yore and, like our football team, it`s time for the Honours Committee to wake up and realise that any past glories there might have been are now but distant memories.   But at least the seagulls are happy.