The 2012 New Year's Honours list has been quietly leaking for days, but the official list was published yesterday, January 1. Over the next six months, in a series of investitures held by the Queen and the likes of Prince Charles and Princess Anne, 984 honorees will receive various grades of the Order of the British Empire or otherwise acquire new letters after their names.
Most of the recipients are not public figures, and they seldom show up in pictures even on the day they receive a gong, unless they do something truly unusual. But there are always some famous names, and the 2012 New Year's Honours list is no exception.
F1 driver Nigel Mansell is going to become a CBE, not for his 1992 world championship win or for the Formula One sport at all, but for his services to children's charity UK Youth. Jonathan Paul Ive will soon be Sir Paul, for his services to iPads and iPods; he's been a leader in the British Apple team since the mid-1990s. Queen Elizabeth is a notable Apple fan.
Helena Bonham-Carter, who played the Queen Mother in “The King's Speech,” is also receiving her OBE; so are comedians and TV personalities Ronnie Corbett and Clive James. Golfers Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke made the list, as did cricket umpire Dickie Bird. From the realms of politics comes Joan Ruddock, a long-time campaigner for nuclear disarmament turned MP; she'll soon be a Dame.
But the vast majority of honorees remain modest enough to be “shocked” -- Jeanette Orrey, school dinner lady and campaigner for better school lunches, teamed up with the Soil Association and Jamie Oliver to get her message out. Prince Charles hosted Soil Association members late last year to thank them for their efforts to improve hospital food.
Here is a full list of names in the 2012 New Year's Honours.
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Sources: Formula 1 News; Washington Post; The Telegraph; The Guardian
Get British Royal Family news by subscribing to this column or using the RSS feed. Linda Gentile is the British Royal Family Examiner and you can also follow on Twitter and Facebook. And, for yet more British life and culture, check out Linda's British Life column.
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