But thinking about it at the start of the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations and the publication of the Honours List confirms my view that an inverse law operates in most aspects of human activity including the Honours system. Those who get the Knighthoods and CBE's are the ones who have also been very well paid for their various activities and / or have received a lot of very positive publicity and congratulations already. The people who deserve honours - if you have to have such a system - are the unknowns who do excellent work over and above the norm for which they do not get special  pay and recognition if any  is very local and low key. At most such worthy people get an MBE if they are very lucky.

In a former incarnation I was involved in proposing medical consultants in the region where I worked for honours. To do this I obviously took soundings from trusted colleagues including consultants and in all cases the names put forward were of those with merit awards, big private practices and / or high office in one of the medical Royal Colleges or similar institutions. The fact that because they were so busy attending to their private practices and professional high offices - feathering their own nests one might say, they actually did very little work for the NHS and for ordinary NHS patients seemed to be overlooked. To those who already have a lot more is given !

I wonder whether this inverse law operates in all societies or is a particular characteristic of the UK ?
Paul Walker