Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the Commons, is the solitary woman out of 23 (the death of Sir Anthony Caro in 2013 left an unfilled vacancy) holders of the order, one said to be unique for being the direct gift of the monarch.
For all Ballack's faults and his unfilled dreams about international titles, it would be a tragedy if the career of a modern great found such an unedifying end.
Fortunately for traditionalists, if not for safety or access considerations, the curved shape of many tube station platforms, as well as the variety of trains in operation, means similar devices might not necessarily work, leaving the Underground's gap unfilled.
Special schools will receive £10,000 per available place plus a top-up to cover the cost of every child enrolled, but will no longer receive funding to cover the full cost of any unfilled places.
Mr Neves took a 45% cut in salary, capped public-sector pay and left 3,000 jobs unfilled, rather than using them in the traditional way to reward political allies.In this section The awkward couple Justice or democracy?
But they hedge their bets: many of the 400,000 job cuts announced in the first quarter may, in fact, merely be cuts in unfilled positions, according to Steve Patchel of Watson Wyatt, a human-resources consultancy.
It identified 600,000 positions that were going unfilled because there were too few qualified skilled workers.
A similar survey of American manufacturing firms in 2011 by Deloitte, another consultancy, found that 67% had trouble finding the right people, and that 5% of their jobs remained unfilled for lack of suitable applicants.
