Well, when you shop at a supermarket you’re probably paying homage to someone in Burke’s. Whether it’s Lord Sainsbury, who stocked the shelves, or Sir Paul McCartney, whose tunes waft over the muzak.

Every time you pop in to the pub you’ll like as not sip something with a Burke’s connection, be it a Guinness, an ale from the Cobbold or Daresbury brewers, or something stronger, a Dewar’s whisky, say.

If you work or live in London, chances are you tread daily through some Big Guy’s Manor. No, not a gangland capo’s bailiwick. A stretch of real estate owned by a Burke’s biggie. There’s Chelsea, much of it Cadogan country. Or the Petersham patch in South Kensington. Or the Howard de Walden holding in Marylebone. Or the Grosvenor groundrental in Belgravia and Mayfair.

If you’re just visiting London, up for the Cup perhaps, at least two of the train stations you’ll have arrived by will have had Burkean connections. Euston, a minor title of the Duke of Grafton’s. And Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington’s top triumph. If you came by a Stagecoach bus, know that its owners live at Beauly Castle, former seat of the Lords Lovat.

If you try to flee the country you’ll be doing so courtesy of Lord Stirling of Plaistow’s P&O ships, or Sir Michael Bishop’s British Midland planes. Who are these guys who waft you hither and thither at the drop of a credit card? Look ’em up in Burke’s.

If you remain in Britain, you’re a subject of HM The Queen. She, as they say, needs no introduction. But how much do you really know about her? Bone up in Burke’s on the bloodstock-besotted beldame* of Balmoral.

If you commit a crime and it’s grave enough to get you tried in the High Court, the beak you’re up against will be a denizen of Burke’s. If you’re sent down, the blanket and slop bucket will have been kept up to scratch in part by Sir Stephen Tumim, ex-Chief Prisons Inspector and the first such to become a household name.

Once let out, you could probably do with help from an ex-offenders’ association. Step forward again Sir Stephen Tumim, chairman of just such a body. By the way, Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage features not just Sir Stephen but a goodly quota of old lags. We’re catholic as hell.

If you’d rather read about crime than commit it, you’ll be catered for by press lords. Men like Lords Black and Rothermere, owners of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. Want to dig for info on them the way their minions do on you? Try Burke’s.

If you’re more a Sun or Times sort, you’ll keep up with events via Rupert Murdoch. His mummy Dame Elizabeth is in Burke’s as the lady equivalent of a knight, hence him too.

But perhaps you like your news frothier? The lowdown on Claudia Schiffer, Jodie Kidd, Jacquetta Wheeler or Tara Palmer-Tomkinson? No need to rush out ’n buy the latest Hello. They’re all in Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage. So many supermodels are from toff families (inframodels too), we may have to rename it Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, It Girlage & Modellage.

Or is it lads you’d rather read up on? Lord Freddy Windsor, Dan Macmillan, Tom Parker-Bowles? They’re in Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage too.

Burke’s relevant? It’s so timely it’s treading on tomorrow’s heels. To know more about anyone who’s a Somebody ? be it the business bosses who run your life or the read-all-about-it non-stop revellers who make the running ? start here.

As for all the classic Burke’s stuff, such as who built Castle Howard, how old Anne Boleyn was when she copped it, what Harry Hotspur’s middle name was or where Pitt the Younger was educated, it’s still there. Only there’s more of it than ever.

Same goes for your ancestors. Burke’s is fuller of forebears than the Ministry of Sound clubbers on a warm Saturday night (prop. James Palumbo, a Burke’s entrant). Family trees, genealogies, lineages, pedigrees, progenitors, progenitrixes, we got ’em by the bowlful. Drop by and browse a little. You never know, you might fit in somewhere.

What about today’s knotty social questions? Relax! We haven’t stood still. Want to know how to address Sir Elton John’s live-in, er, partner? That’s been taken care of too. Try our website, www.burkes-peerage.net. It’s the on-line back-up to the book.

*The publishers emphasise that ‘beldame’ is here used in its primary sense of ‘grandmother’. It is in no way whatsoever intended in the derogatory sense, which is in any case a subsidiary one as listed by the Oxford English Dictionary.