No Rock And Roll Fun

GONGS FOR THE GONKS: There's been a whole heap of awards hurled at elderly music folk in the Queen's birthday honours list: Gerry Marsden, the never-as-successful-as-the-Beatles scouser, gets an MBE. Jools Holland gets an OBE for his services to, um, persuading The Donnas, Fela Kuti and Radiohead to jam together or something. Errol Brown, the alien-meeting Hot Chocolate singer will now be able to add MBE to his application forms, a sign that he's forgiven the Palace for that awful sight a few years back when Prince Charles did a Full Monty style dance to You Sexy Thing. And, to top an odd list, Sting has become a CBE. Quite how the decision to give Jools an O, Sting a C and Brown an M isn't clear - maybe they just shake a bag out to decide what medal they get. Or maybe they start with the CBE, and open the Grove at random to decide who gets them?

By the way: How come the Mail got away with breaking the embargo on the list to blah on about David Beckham getting an OBE last week? They tried to make it sound like they'd heard a rumour, but clearly every newsroom in the country had a copy of the names by then and so it would suggest they either peeked, or else don't care that it looks like they did.