Say it ain't so, Simon, say it ain't so

So, it was a C.B.E. for Simon Armitage, was it. I must have missed the honours list when it was announced.

I remember a letter in Cycling Weekly many years ago where a reader bewailed a photograph of Eddy Merckx smoking. And this picture gives me a similar feeling.

Why would a poet, and a quite fine one at that, want the suffix 'Commander of the British Empire' appended to the perfectly adequate name they have already. A much less worthy poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, is better placed to explain and once did explain why not.

It doesn't make one's poems any better and, to be honest, one looks a proper charlie with the silly jewellery on.

It says here that Bonnie Greer and John Cale received similar awards at the same ceremony. How the mighty are fallen. If these gongs were not arbitrary enough in the first place, they spoil the names of the recipients with those atrocious words as well.

I don't understand it. Simon Armitage, go back two spaces and miss a turn.