Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the
Worldwide Web, has picked up a gong in the New Year Honours List.

We shall now have to get used to referring to him as "Sir Tim".

Of course, this is an honour "which applies to the whole Web development community" etc. etc., or so says Sir Tim. You can read his press release here.

There has been a lot of controversy lately over the honours system, with first the Rastafarian poet Benjamin Zephaniah breaking protocol and publicly announcing that he had rejected the offer of an OBE (Officer of the British Empire), because of the British Empire's association with slavery.

Worse, much worse, for the government this month, when the Sunday Times published a list of 300 "refuseniks" who had declined the offer of awards from the Queen.

An unnamed official had mistakenly cced 80 people - instead of eight - in an email containing this list, government mole hunters told the FT yesterday. ®