It isn’t just me who’s shopping for honours

Hello,
I would like to be awarded a knighthood, or something close to a knighthood, for my excellent and selfless work over the years as a journalist. Can you help me with this, and what do I need to pay?
Many thanks
Rod Liddle

The reply to my email arrived within ten minutes. It would cost me £3,900, plus VAT. The company concerned — Awards Intelligence — promise a bit of money back if I don’t get some sort of official recognition for my brilliance and peerless contribution to the wellbeing of society. This seems like a good deal, no? Go through the official channels — i.e. bunging money direct to some sweating party fundraiser who the party will subsequently disown — and it’ll set you back a good half a million. Who said cut out the middle man?

The email from Awards Intelligence explained that they had more experience in drafting stuff to win awards from the Queen than anyone in the world, and they could fix up referees and so on. ‘If we don’t win at least two awards for you from 12 entries, or one from eight, we’ll return your fees in full,’ it added. Another email pointed out that I was four times more likely to win the ‘recognition which you deserve’ (they’re so right about that, don’t you think?) than if I tried to fix it by myself. Their website is replete with grinning monkeys who have successfully won bunches of awards after having acquired the services of this firm.