Knightly satisfaction for Sir Mick

The newspapers had anticipated that former hellraiser Jagger would soon become Sir Mick, despite a life of prolonged rock and roll excess.

"You think 'this is great' and then are very surprised, thinking 'why is this?"' he said. "But I'm very happy - delighted."

Fellow 60s icon, pop artist Peter Blake - who designed the iconic cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - was also made a knight at the Queen's Birthday Honours.

"It's funny to be getting a knighthood at the same time as Mick Jagger - we actually lived 50 yards away from each other. It's nice that two Dartford boys are getting honours simultaneously," he said.

But the collage-specialist caused controversy last year with his championing of artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin in the Royal Academy of Art's traditionally painting-dominated summer show.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said Sir Mick was being honoured because he is "one of the great rock stars of the last century who continues to bring a lot of pleasure".

Sir Mick, famed for his womanising and rock'n'roll lifestyle, revealed: "I've been teased. I've had people on their knees, and I've even had plastic swords waved at me."

Another famous name being recognised is playwright Harold Pinter, who becomes one of only 65 Companions of Honour.

Often described as Britain's greatest living playwright, he is currently battling throat cancer.

Some of his best-known works include The Caretaker, The Homecoming and The Betrayal and Oscar-nominated screenplays for The French Lieutenant's Woman in 1981 and Betrayal in 1983.

But he has also developed a reputation for his political radicalism, with stinging criticism of American and British bombing campaigns in recent years.

Trevor Nunn, due to step down as head of the Royal National Theatre on London's South Bank in spring 2003, is also knighted.

Nunn was director of The Royal Shakespeare Company for 18 years and has masterminded a string of hit productions including Les Miserables.

He has also directed such diverse hits as Cats, Starlight Express and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, and recently took his West End revival of Oklahoma! to Broadway.

Also honoured from the world of the stage is opera director Jonathan Miller, who first came to fame in the 1960s with the Beyond the Fringe team.

His knighthood comes after a long career directing major international productions but also peppered with stinging criticism of some aspects of the opera world.

Honours for novelists include a CBE for Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks and an OBE for Ian Rankin, the creator of dark crime fiction featuring Edinburgh detective, Inspector John Rebus.

Elsewhere in showbusiness there is an OBE for actor David Suchet, whose trademark role was as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

Retirement honour

Video artist Steve McQueen, a Turner Prize winner, is also made an OBE in the diplomatic list.

And drag artiste Danny La Rue, who has raised thousands for the battles against Aids receives an OBE.

Former BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Sue MacGregor is made a CBE, just two months after her she left the early morning show.

An MBE goes to Posy Simmonds, the popular cartoonist, writer and illustrator of children's books.

And an OBE in the diplomatic list goes to Kenneth Annakin for services to the film industry.

He either directed or co-directed such famous films as Holiday Camp, Quartet, Trio, Swiss Family Robinson, culminating in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines.