I hear it’s nice to be honoured. Having never been afforded the luxury (due to my never having done anything honourable of note), I fantasise about the day when I am given a ‘gong’. All I have to do is locate a feelgood vehicle on which to arrive at the end destination.

Some are revered in bronze, steel or plaster of Paris. It is hit and miss as the immortalisation of the footballing show pony Ronaldo, recently immortalised in bronze, shows. Sadly the bust, which took artist Emanuel Santos three weeks to complete, looked more like Sunderland ‘legend’ Niall Quinn and has hastily been removed from Madeira airport.

Others are honoured on a more localised scale: My brother, many moons ago, appeared on the ITV4 ‘hit’ series Bad Lads Army. He had delusions of grandeur and believed that he was to be the next Gemma Collins. He was invited, along with the rest of the ‘lads’ to open a village fete in Wales. It was ‘most expenses paid’ (ie, they put them up on locals' floors for the night and chipped in for the petrol money). They were paraded around the village on an open topped double decker bus prior to collectively cutting the ribbon. It is a perfect indication as to the commercial pulling power of ITV4 coupled with signifying how little goes on in rural Welsh hamlets, bud.

I looked through the recent honours list of CBEs, OBEs, MBEs and peerages and was pleased to see that Sir Kenneth of Dalglish is being lauded for the footballing genius displayed over many years both north and south of the border.

In total 1,057 people were given honours with 210 OBEs, 392 MBEs and 318 awarded a BEM (British Empire Medal). Some 71 per cent went to ‘community heroes’. The recipient make up shows that 12 per cent work in health, 11 per cent in education, 13 per cent in industry, five per cent in sport and three per cent in science. Some surprising recipients include Niomi McLean-Daley, aka Miss Dynamite for services to music despite, to my knowledge, only having one hit in 2002. No doubt Joe Dolce can expect a phone call next year to honour him for his 1980 hit, although it is conjecture as to whether he will accept or tell the dignitaries to shaddap your face.

Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest billionaire, receives a knighthood and our longest serving poppy seller, and the oldest on the list, Rosemary Powell, is made a deserved MBE. Rosemary, at the tender age of 103, has collected for the Royal British legion for an astonishing 97 years.

Danger zone lady Kate Adie becomes a CBE and Mary will now be Dame Beard, which sounds like a pantomime character although the jury is still out as to whether it is her career that is behind her.

So how to be honoured? Go to www.gov.uk/honours and nominate a person who has either made achievements in public life or committed themselves to serving and helping Britain. This nomination must be backed up by two supporting letters.

The nominee must still be ‘actively involved’ in what they are being nominated for. Some 12 to 18 months later you will receive a reply as the relevant government departments, responsive as usual, undertake due diligence, including with HMRC. Sadly that rules Jimmy Carr out of the running for 2019.

I am resigned to the fact that I will never make it onto the list. This is a shame as I would love, for egotistical purposes, to have a CBE after my name: a rare occurrence indeed for a Hastings native. It would be a boon to meet the Queen and have a day out at somewhere other than Crystal Palace. I will instead have to console myself with prolonged anonymity and the odd backhanded compliment from friends and family. On the plus side I am respectfully called ‘Sir’ at work on a daily basis, which is a privilege that many do not get to enjoy.

- Brett Ellis is a teacher who lives in London Colney