Salman Rushdie, the controversial novelist who spent years under threat of death after an Iranian fatwa, said he was "thrilled and humbled" by the knighthood awarded to him in British queen's birthday honours list today.
Also in the list, which contains an array of stars from sport, showbusiness, fashion, the arts and industry, are Oleg Gordievsky, the former Soviet spy who defected to Britain, cricketer Ian Botham, Dame Edna Everage's creator Barry Humphries and fund-raiser and terminal cancer sufferer Jane Tomlinson.
They share the limelight with hundreds of unknown "ordinary people" honoured for voluntary work and charity fundraising at what Downing Street describes as the "sharp end" of society.
Botham gets a knighthood not only for his cricketing prowess but for his long-distance walks which have raised millions for charity. He said that the money raised for leukaemia research was only possible because of his celebrity status as a cricketer.
"One does not work without the other," he said today. "What I achieved on the cricket field and the status I achieved with the public has allowed me to then go and raise the money for leukaemia."
One of the most remarkable awards is the CMG in the Diplomatic List for the spy Oleg Gordievsky, who like Rushdie lived for years in peril of assassination.
He was recruited by British intelligence in the 1960s and his value dramatically increased in 1982 when he was assigned to the Soviet Embassy in London, responsible for intelligence-gathering and espionage in the UK.
In 1985 he was ordered back to the Soviet Union, his cover apparently blown, and arrested and questioned. But there was no proof and he was allowed to return to his Moscow flat from which he subsequently fled, during a jog, secretly boarding a train to the Finnish border where he was picked up by British intelligence.
It was Rushdie's fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, which provoked riots and violent reactions from radical Muslims in 1988. There were death threats and a fatwa issued by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, calling for his assassination. He spent years underground, appearing in public only rarely, and continually having to change his address.
But the fatwa was ultimately lifted and he was able to resume a normal literary life. Sporting names in the list include Ryan Giggs, the Manchester United footballer, who has just retired from the Welsh national team, Teddy Sheringham, the West Ham striker and former England star, and Terry Griffiths, the retired Welsh snooker player.