Bytes

Yell awards; Ig Nobel awards

ALL THE doom and gloom, dot.com and otherwise, failed to put a damper on the Yell Awards ceremony last week. Formerly a sedate daytime affair held at the London Television Centre, this year's awards shifted to the Atlantis Gallery in Brick Lane, where it was all black tie and glittery dresses, with nary a pair of combat pants in sight.

With Graham Norton hosting and Talvin Singh and Sonique providing the music, the organisers succeeded in making the Yells almost trendy – right up to the point when the B-list celebs started handing out the gongs. Then normal service resumed, with www.bbc.co.uk being given best media site along with a special achievement award (note to the BBC's gong collector: it's probably not a good idea to keep mentioning the license fee in a room full of people who have to beg for their funding).

The winner of the Site of the Year, www.caithness.org, continued the Yells' tradition of honouring worthy if obscure efforts. A full list of the winners can be found at www.yell.co.uk/awards.

ON THE whole, we'd rather have been at the Ig Nobel awards in Boston last week. Begun 11 years ago at Harvard University, the Ig Nobels parody Oslo's Egghead Oscars by honouring scientific research and achievements "that could not or should not be duplicated".

Hats off to the winner in the Technology category, given jointly to John Keogh, an Australian, for patenting "a circular transportation facilitation device" (aka the wheel), and the Australian Patent Office for granting him it earlier this year. Full list of winners at www.improbable.com/ig/.