People I know kept looking at me saying "You look very posh, Sarah!", sounding really surprised... to which the only obvious response I could muster was a very indignant and wounded: "But I am posh!" Those of us getting honoured were allowed to bring three guests each with us, so I took my husband, Steve... obviously.
"If you remember, at the start of the year there was confusion over whether the Olympians and Paralympians would get honours; the committee said it was unlikely.
Star professors palm their pupils off on graduate students and then give them top grades to keep them happy (one survey found that 91% of Harvard graduates get honours compared with just 51% at Yale).
Typically, people get honours for their charity work, and I've never even agreed with that, since it tends to mean donations, which tend to proceed from wealth, and all it does is lock down and make flesh the fallacy that rich people are more honourable than everyone else.
Several MPs who lost their jobs in David Cameron's cabinet reshuffle are to get honours, it has been announced.
Mr Livingstone, 67, said the accolade would have been for services to the Olympics but he did not believe politicians should get honours.
Revealing that until now he had only told his wife, he said: "I was offered a CBE but I don't believe politicians should get honours.
He told London radio station LBC 97.3: "I don't believe politicians should get honours", adding that he "was paid very good money to be the mayor of London" and voters' recognition was reward enough for him.
Mr Sutcliffe told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "If you remember, at the start of the year there was confusion over whether the Olympians and Paralympians would get honours; the committee said it was unlikely.
His descendant Winston Churchill did the same in 1945: he got honours, and a few million in book royalties.
