Now for something completely different... John Cleese and Jumping Jack on our notes

Quantitative easing no longer means literally printing cash; 97 per cent of the money in circulation is neither coins nor notes. But the Bank of England keeps a list of faces to feature just in case it needs to produce new notes.

Beside writers such as Chaucer and Bunyan are inventors, like Arkwright, artists, Constable, and less obvious candidates including Sir Mick Jagger, John Cleese and Sir Jimmy Savile. Not on the list is the Bank's Governor; the only King put forward for joining the Queen on notes is the House of Commons' former Speaker, Lord Maybray King. And the only Brown or Darling is landscape architect Capability Brown and Grace Darling, whose sea-rescue heroics inspired Wordsworth (also on the list).

Great Britons have appeared on the reverse of notes since 1970, including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens and the Duke of Wellington. However, all were already dead, so Robbie Williams, Jonny Wilkinson and David Beckham may have long waits.

On the list too are the Beatles, Sir Michael Parkinson and biologist and "professional" atheist Richard Dawkins. Sir Richard Branson, would-be saviour of Northern Rock, is also there, plus Terry Wogan, who at least has a banking qualification.

The Bank's list runs to nearly 150 suggested names but excludes fictional characters, people not deemed sufficiently famous and "names which the Bank considers might cause public offence".

So Sir Fred Goodwin and the other disgraced HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland directors are unlikely to appear on a note, even though they printed their own Scottish paper money. RBS fronts all its denominations with its first governor, Lord Ilay, instead of the Queen, and depicts castles on the back. But commemorative notes have featured Robert Louis Stevenson, Alexander Graham Bell and Sir Fred's American golfing hero, Jack Nicklaus.

Bank of Scotland, now 43 per cent government-owned, puts writer Sir Walter Scott on all its notes. Clydesdale has just removed Robbie Burns from its fivers and Adam Smith from its £50 notes, but the economist still graces Bank of England £20 notes even if the poet is only on the waiting list.

Via RBS, the UK Government also owns Ulster Bank, whose notes normally depict Belfast Harbour but which also featured a George Best special. Of the other Northern Irish banks, Northern features local inventors, First Trust has a couple who age from childhood to old-age between the £1 and £100 notes, and Bank of Ireland (unable to issue notes in its native Eire) now pictures Diageo's old Bushmills distillery on all its sterling denominations.

Ulster and Scottish notes are not legal tender in England, of course – but Bank of England notes are not legal in Scotland or Northern Ireland, so the quantitative easing may have to stop at the borders.

Notes were handwritten until the Bank issued fully printed versions in 1855. It converted St Luke's lunatics' hospital on the City borders into a printing works before moving production to Debden in Essex in 1956. That plant was sold to De La Rue seven years ago and, while that company still prints the Bank's notes, the contract comes up for renewal this year.

That would be worth bidding for if the Bank were to turn up the printing presses, but De La Rue has hedged its bets: it prints many of those Scottish and Ulster notes too. Perhaps Thomas de la Rue should be on the Bank's list.