The Gardeners' World Blog

Awards ceremonies are a modern phenomenon. But what's it all about, this desire to honour achievement with a knees-up and a statuette?

Inevitably, your view of the value of awards has a fair bit to do with what side of the fence you’re sitting on. To put it another way, if you win one it feels like a highly significant event; a fair and objective vindication of all your wondrous achievements. But if you’re nominated and don’t end up winning, awards are suddenly just the by-product of cynical stich-ups by clueless committees in smoked-filled rooms. And who wants their useless gongs anyway?

I do - which is why we made this the top story on the BBC Sport website this morning, and also why it stayed there through the whole of the morning, until it was knocked off the top slot by the live cricket.

But someone who uses our 606 website made this point: "Why have the BBC made this the top story on Sport today? So Beckham's got his opinion, so what?"

It's a fair point. These things are subjective. Spend even the smallest amount of time in our newsroom and you will hear debates about what we 'lead' on.

Live rugby league is back on the BBC this weekend with two games from the fourth round of the Carnegie Challenge Cup. And for the first time we will have interactive coverage on Saturday with a 30 minute forum following coverage of Warrington v Hull KR (kick-off 2.30pm, BBC One).

Saturday's tie is the only all-Super League clash of the round and on Sunday BBC cameras are at the Halton Stadium for Widnes v Wigan (kick-off 2.45pm, BBC Two).

As editor of both codes of rugby I'm often asked which is my favourite. My answer is simple: I was born and brought up in Widnes. End of, as I believe the vogue phrase goes among young people.