The Shiny boys’ tuxes are back from the dry cleaners, while the girls are fending off calls from major Italian fashion houses.

Yep the awards season is on its way. And up there with the Globes, the Oscars and the south Suffolk Marrow growers’ Vegathon is the annual Shiny awards.
Each year Team Shiny, in conjunction with a crack posse of gadget know-it-alls from The Sun, Guardian, Q etc get together to vote for the best and worst gadgets of the year.

Among the categories are serious stuff like Green Gadget, Best Smartphone and Web 2.0 innovation as well as a few more entertaining contests which we’ll let you know about very soon.

Sorry to say that the Chav Gadget award, won so spectacularly by the Apple iPod shuffle last year, is no more, but we have come up with a suitably cheesy replacement.

We are also teaming up with several European blog networks to launch the first ever Blog readers Euro-Gadget of the year. You’ll get your chance to vote on that very soon too.

Over the next week or so we will also be posting the nominations on Shiny Shiny and Tech Digest.

The awards will be held in a swanky central London venue on February 21st. Now where did I put that satin sash belt… [ashleynorris]