Popular References
In the satirical British television programme Yes Minister, Jim Hacker MP is told an old joke by his Private Secretary Bernard Woolley about what the various post-nominals stand for.
Woolley: In the service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God".
Hacker: What does GCMG stand for?
Ian Fleming's spy, James Bond, a commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (R.N.V.R.) was fictionally decorated with the CMG in 1953. (This is mentioned in the novel From Russia, with Love and on-screen in his obituary in Skyfall.) He was later offered the KCMG (which would have elevated him from a Companion in the Order to a Knight Commander in the Order) in The Man with the Golden Gun, but he rejected that offer as he did not wish to become a public figure. Judi Dench's character of 'M' is 'offered' early retirement and a KCMG in Skyfall after several MI6 agents are killed at the start of the film.
Long-time Doctor Who companion, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, wore the ribbon of the order as the highest of his decorations in the series' classic era.
Read more about this topic: Order Of St Michael And St George
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“We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)