THERE is recognition at last for Waynetta Slob, Britain’s worst housewife and mother. For the first time she joins her equally unkempt and idle husband, Wayne, in the august pages of Who’s Who.

Behind Waynetta’s grotesque façade is Kathy Burke, the versatile cockney actress whose appearances with Harry Enfield on his comedy shows belie a long mainstream theatrical training and three Best Actress awards for her role in Nil by Mouth, a gritty portrayal of a South London family steeped in drug and alcohol abuse.

Burke is one of 1,000 new entries in the annual bible of the nation’s achievers, which among its 32,000 biographies increasingly reflects the role of women in public life. Almost a quarter of new entries this year are women, compared with less than 18 per cent last year.

Two Olympic champions — Dame Kelly Holmes, the runner, and Shirley Robertson, the sailor — head the list of newly recognised women chosen by the book’s editors and an anonymous selection board. Others include Andrea Levy, the author, Linda Bennett, the chief executive of the L K Bennett fashion store, and Sue Black, Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at Dundee University.

Two male newcomers this year are George Michael and Michael George. One, known to his mother as Georgios Panayiotou, sang Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. The other is a classical bass-baritone.

Entertainers are today’s aristocracy. Frank Skinner, the comedian, makes it this year, as does Kevin Spacey, the Oscar-winning American currently in charge at the Old Vic, whose real name is disclosed as Kevin Spacy Fowler. He cannot mind this; the chosen check and approve their entries.

Once you are in Who’s Who you are there till death do you part, however much you may sink into obscurity. Graeme Souness makes it this year, despite his parlous existence as manager of Newcastle United, and there he will stay. He lists his recreations as walking and gardening. Sir Alex Ferguson, his counterpart at Old Trafford and a longstanding Who’s Who entry, lists his as golf and snooker.

Restaurateurs now fall into the entertainment and celebrity category. Heston Blumenthal, the proprietor of the Fat Duck at Bray, in Berkshire, makes the cut for the first time on the basis of his views on bacon-and-egg ice-cream and his establishment being voted the best in the world.

The recreations of the famous have always been one of the more entertaining features of the reference work, ever since George Bernard Shaw listed his as “cycling and showing off”. It is the one line in the biography that allows the entrant a moment of self-indulgence.

Bel Mooney, the Times columnist, lists “riding pillion on a Harley-Davidson”. Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac and Tony Benn list no recreations at all, unlike Colin Divall. Professor Divall lists his as “failing to build Wimborne station 1/76th scale”. But then he is professor of Railway Studies at York University, and closely associated with thecity’s National Railway Museum. Having failed to build Wimborne, he does not say what he does with his spare time.

A spokeswoman for A&C Black, the publishers, confirmed that anyone who applied directly to have an entry would be automatically debarred; nominations have to come from one’s peers, or by decision of the selection board.

NEW ENTRIES

Dame Kelly Holmes 35 A mental health nursing assistant before nine years in the Army. Golds from the Commonwealth Games in 1994 and 2002 led to two more in the 800 and 1,500 metres at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Now retired. No recreations.

Andrea Levy 39. Married, two step-daughters. After a degree in textile design she became a writer. Hit the big time when Small Island won the Orange Prize for Fiction and Whitbread Book of the Year in 2004. Recreations: “learning things”.

Linda Bennett 43. Married with one daughter. Founded her West End fashion store in 1996. Was named Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year in 2004. Recreations include architectural history, walking and travel.

Kathy Burke 41. Described as our best character actress, she has enjoyed a solid acting career in nearly 20 films with parts as diverse as Elizabeth I and a South London crackhead. Also author and director. No recreations.

www.timesonline.co.uk/books

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