New Years Honours

Vicky Beckham, aka (in our house) The Scowl on a Stick, has gone into that compartment in my brain alongside Trump and Brexit. Every time I remember them I have to breathe into a brown paper bag.

Am I the only one surprised and slightly scathing about Rylance taking a gong from a Govt he presumably objects to after making such a thespy fuss about the RSC taking oil sponsorship?

I'm sure I read somewhere (on some list) that he had turned down a knighthood? Same list also said SRB had turned one down which if also untrue means he has been scandalously overlooked again!

I don't really understand what's wrong with Sir Andy Murray given he's our greatest living sportsman.

Even though I don't think sportsman should be made Knights or Dames until they retire the precedent of Hoy and Wiggins made it inevitable after the year he's had.

Oh per-lease

Well at least Helen McCrory has something, an MBE I think. Not sure but something. SRB ? Well... there you go. Perhaps it is an age thing? How old is Mark Rylance? Older? Just musing.

But the problem comes up every year doesn't it? Should you receive an honour for the job you do because you do it really well or should you do something else too, like massive charity work or some kind of ambassadorial position for the UK? Top civil servants still get honours for just doing their jobs. Sportsmen and women have to win international glory but some do get big financial rewards from their work. Actors are not rich ( unless they do a lot of top movie work) but do engage with the public. I like it when honours go to people who start and stick with charities, volunteers who get absolutely no money from what they but are doing stuff nobody else wants to do. I wish they gave more publicity to these, like the woman who has fronted the leukaemia charity in memory of her daughter.

The only justification for honouring theatre and sport is that it means we think these are important parts of our culture. So I'll go with that and hope that SRB sees it that way eventually.

I've started a campaign    (See Time Capsule thread.)

Completely agree.

Sorry?

Simon Russell Beale. (Who I agree is equally deserving of the honour, if he wishes to accept it.)

I notice Andy Murray was tweeting that it's a great day for Scotland this morning. Not Britain, obviously. God forbid he should acknowledge that. Do people not actually make the connection to the B.E bit of these awards? It's BRITISH EMPIRE. I wonder if all the people who have happily accepted them would be able to stand up and say what that actually means, and perhaps more interestingly whether they agree what it stands/stood for. One Olympian, the disabled swimmer I forget her name, said on TV last week that when she got the letter after 2012 she didn't have a clue what it was talking about and her Nan had to explain it "was a prize from the Queen".

Has SRB done anything beyond acting and a little tv presenting? Mark Rylance is also a writer, a director, an artistic director and a public commentator. And he's known internationally through cinema.