Is this a blagger that I see before me?

It's wrong to laugh. But sometimes difficult not to. Especially with this tale of woe. Regular readers of The Register may be able (as I did) to guess the author from the headline.

Those of you still struggling to digest the Microsoft-Novell pact should read this piece on the Inquirer. Martin Veitch plays Simon Sharma in a rapid rundown of Novell's various wrong turns and stumbles.

Hats off to Marks and Spencer, which has scooped the title of the UK's most user-friendly Web site.

With Christmas really rather close now, e-commerce sites need to have sorted out their usability. M&S scored highly for navigation, product display, the checkout process and search capability -- as measured by web usability consultancy Webcredible.

IMRG also turned up some startling examples of user-unfriendliness, from big names whose web strategy apparently involves driving customers away.
Top Shop was slammed for not providing a search function, while the Clinton Cards website lets users add products to their basket without revealing how much they cost.

We wouldn't stand for this on the high street, and it's a safe bet that this year's Christmas e-shoppers won't tolerate it online either.

Corking story here, about changes made to the World Pie Eating Challenge [which is rapidly replacing The Ashes as my favourite sporting competition]. The organisers are reacting to concerns about obesity by changing the rules. Now, rather than trying to scoff as many pies as possible in three minutes, contestants must simply devour a single pie at breakneck speed.

"It will make for an exciting sporting spectacle, whilst also doffing its cap to government-inspired guidelines on obesity," said Tony Callaghan, whose bar will host the Challenge.

With vegetarian pies on the menu for the first time, traditionalists are concerned that this prestigious competition is losing its way.

Standards will still be rigourously enforced, though. The sport's rules dictate that competition meat and potato pies need to have a diameter of 12cm and a depth of 3.5cm when cooked.

No word, though, on the diameter of the contestants.

Perhaps technology PRs should try hosting some pie-eating. I'd fancy our chances. If you can down a pint in 3.5 seconds, how hard can a pie be?

Nice piece over on silicon.com about the rise in popularity of high-tech gadgets in the business world.

"Bug-detectors disguised as fountain pens, keyboards that can secretly record everything typed on them and clock radios with hidden cameras - devices once only of interest to spies are now being bought by company chiefs that fear they are being spied on," reports Steve Ranger.

I imagine, though, that some top managers might struggle with this technology. Can your CEO be trusted with a gun disguised as a PDA stylus, or might he accidentally take out half the sales team with one motivational gesture? Clearly, techies are going to have to play the role of Q, otherwise there'll be mayhem.