WATCH out for a new disease - Awards Ceremony Overload. Suddenly we seem inundated with prizes - the Baftas, the Brits, the Grammys, the Oscars. Best TV programme, best soap. Everywhere you look, there are people in impossible dresses standing beaming on red carpets. Or clutching a trophy and crying. Or clutching Kylie's bottom and smiling.

Once a week, it seems, there's yet another star-studded ceremony on television. Can we remember which is which any more?

Even books and sport are turned into showbiz - the Booker, the Orange, the Whitbread, the Best British Book, Sportsman of the Year, Sports Personality of the Year, Footballer of the Year...

Must we all have prizes?

It's not as if most of these people don't have plenty of recognition already. I mean, we all knew who Catherine Zeta Jones (pictured left) was even before she wore an almost topless dress to whichever awards there were at the weekend.

But it's not enough any more.

Just as children now have to have a present at every layer of Pass the Parcel, so we seem to

expect prizes for everything, the pat on the back, the extra

recognition. And, like sweets, they should be shared out fairly ("Now you can have a Bafta, and she can have an Oscar...") so when Norah Jones (who?) carried off eight Grammies, it probably put a lot of noses out of joint.

The more prizes there are, the less meaningful they become. Like degrees really. And the more people want one.

So I shall award you a prize for reading this, and you can give me one for writing it and we can all feel pleased with ourselves.

Any excuse for a posh frock...

Hooray for the people of Barnard Castle.

Since the council changed the system of car parking tickets in the town - you now have to pay for two hours minimum instead of one - there seems to have been a staggering drop in the number of tickets bought at the Safeway car park.

Now it could be because fewer people are parking there but far more likely is that people who are just popping to Safeway, or, like me, to the physio, are there for an hour or less and resent being bullied into paying for time they're not going to use.

So, when I was there a few weeks ago, a stranger pressed a ticket in my hand for me to use their unused 80 minutes. And, keen to adopt local customs, on my last four visits, I've either passed my ticket onto someone, or received one myself.

The payment tariff doesn't say much for the common sense of the councillors who thought up the plan. But the way round it says a great deal for the friendliness of the people of Barney and their pursuit of natural justice and fair play.

And in the long run, that will do their town a lot more good than any extra revenue from their ticket machines.

Published: 26/02/2003