WELL it is official. The 'Honours' system is a crock.

Billy Connolly gets a Knighthood. Johnny Johnstone gets fobbed off with an MBE.

And the media are again at it calling Andy Murray a hero (The Metro June 20).

Billy Connolly is a great comic and a fine actor but I do not remember him or Andy Murray doing anything heroic, do you?

Johnny Johnstone and his comrades did, and helped change the course of the war. No comparison!

If I were him I would give it back and tell the Queen that he did not want it.

On the subject of awards, I see Stagecoach touting for awards. But it won't be anyone from Ballingry with hospital appointments morning or afternoon (at both hospitals).

Their latest wheeze? If you buy a 'smartcard' on the bus you will be charged an extra 50p. How much money is enough?

Recently Lochgelly got an award for the Most Improved Town. Whoever decided this must have their eyes painted on!

Lets start with the Fabtek building next to the abandoned pub across from the empty Town House.

Not to forget Bank Street, the empty Post Office and a church no one uses or seems to want.

A fortune being spent on this eyesore which only spoils the excellent War Memorial.

Main Street? Another abandoned pub and shuttered or boarded up premises. Remedy-a few flower tubs. Aye right.

Perhaps the award was for the best of a bad bunch.

But Ballingry is worst. Half of Benarty Square is like a ghost town. Oh wait, the addition of a charity shop! The shop looks like a burned out building which it is not?

Lochore, two shuttered shops next to Baynes and the bomb site that was the old Bayne's Bakehouse. Next the Red Goth, looking like the castle in Bram Stokes's Dracula!

Further down another empty pub, then another bomb site where the garage was.

Then half of Inchgall Avenue demolished as well.

On the way out, or in, a near derelict cottage falling down and being swallowed up by foliage (next to the football pitch)

Cowdenbeath? Same, full of shuttered premises. The North End is a disgrace apart from the garage. The Crown Hotel building needs demolished.

The former Stein's Park football pitch is truly another eyesore while the War Memorial is being used as a drinking den for teens.

Cannot they move this to the empty green space down High Street, across from Partners, or are our war dead best forgotten?

Kirkcaldy High Street has hardly changed in 20 years except or the addition of The Exchequer, an excellent bar and restaurant but the obligatory charity shops.

Dunfermline High Street was ruined by the Kingsgate and is struggling. The Post Office round the corner is closed. From the Town Clock down to the Glen Gates it resembles a back street in Famagusta, with shuttered premises, umpteen charity shops. (Both town clocks work unlike Lochgelly though!)

Both Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline High Streets are blighted by buskers.

What to do with all the empty shops? Too many charity shops so maybe more Turkish barbers?

BILL BISHOP,

Ballingry.