How the other half live

Net Gains

www.upmystreet.com

Granted, "local community" doesn't have the same ring as "global village", but in its mission to put you in touch with people, organisations and information from around the world, the Internet has by and large neglected one area: your own backyard.

There's no end to listings sites selling you local entertainment and it hardly takes much more effort to rummage through Scoot or Yellow Pages to answer a specific neighbourhood query. A quick dip into local estate agents' web sites might give you a clue as to your postcode's kudos. Who, though, has the time or inclination to sketch out a warts-and-all thumbnail portrait of their manor? Well, the national obsession with the erosion of public services, the yo-yo property market and quality of life in general means we certainly have the inclination. Only UpYourStreet.com (above right) has the time, it seems.

Covering the larger towns and cities of England and Wales, the site offers a canny breakdown of your local borough's statistical performance against the relevant national average figure. Unemployment figures, school results, police clean-up rates are amongst the stats compiled. The site really nails the middle-class neuroses of its target audience with its stand- out features. You can compare the performance of property values in your postcode with any other in England and Wales's major population centres.

Dream on

www.websciences.org/trainee/SleepLinks.htm#Sleep

Given the average Net-head's propensity to forego an hour of kip for that one final link, it's ironic that the Internet contains such a wealth of sleep-related sites. Sleep Links demonstrates the reverence in which the Web's 24-hour society holds shut-eye. Aside from the usual action groups such as Parents Against Tired Truckers and Young Americans With Narcolepsy, there are some useful self-help pages for chronic snorers, teeth-grinders and the like. The Internet is, in some ways, the ideal media for sleep studies, a field in its infancy and blighted with New Agey associations. Numerous sleep research groups are to be found at Sleep Links, a few of whom are after subjects to contribute to their studies. See why you're still up and about in the wee small hours.