As always, the full list verges on the impenetrable but if you've still got five minutes to spare dipping into the Queen's birthday honours can be quite fun.
There's the usual mix of house-hold names and unknowns, dead certainties, intrigues and perhaps the odd person you know, however remotely.
Maev Kennedy has mentioned some. Joan Bakewell (now a dame) and Allegra McEvedy (MBE) will be familiar to G2 readers. Carolyn McCall (OBE) will be to Guardian staff.
Of the people I know however remotely group - from when I worked in the north-east - both the Berwick MP, Alan Beith, and Newcastle hospitals chief, Len Fenwick, have been knighted.
