Yes, the polls have closed. The votes are in. The bull has bolted. The worm has turned. The bird has flown. The hills have eyes. It's time to tot up the results and smile. For a straight sober list of the results - without any of our faffing about - go straight to this page. For everyone else, let's go over live now to London Weekend Television...

And as the royal carriage drives down The Mall, I think I can see Sir Dickie Attenborough looking as radiant as ever. Which is a bit of a shame, as we're all stuck in a damp studio with Jonathan Ross.

Yes, it's the man who, if he was introducing himself, would be introduced as 'Mr Jonathan Ross, ladies and gentlemen', will you please welcome...Mr Jonathan Ross, ladies and gentlemen!

Ah-ha, thank you. You're looking absolutely stunning tonight, I hope you don't mind me saying that. Took my kids to see it the other day, thought it was brilliant. Mr Gordon Ramsay is in the house, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway, enough of that. What a year it's been, ladies and gentlemen. I think I can honestly say, in all my years of disingenuous self-promotion and festering, ordinary-guy-in-the-street rank-level hypocrisy, that these have been the worst twelve months of comedy I've ever experienced. And you're talking to a man who owns the Bo' Selecta box set!!! Although not any more, obviously. Isn't eBay a wonderful thing? DRUMBEAT

Ah-ha, alright. From Ricky Gervais to Marc Wootton, from Justin Lee Collins to The Mighty Boosh, from Julia Davis to the edited DVD of Vic Reeves' Big Night Out, from Alison Graham at the Radio Times via Mark Lawson and Stephen Armstrong, incorporating Paul Merton, Chris Morris and Radio 1's The Milk Run, not forgetting of course Mr David Quantick who wrote all my bloody links tonight, this has been a truly atrocious year.

So I say welcome one, welcome all, to the first annual Cook'd & Bomb'd Tumbleweed Awards for bad comedy. And unlike the real British Comedy Awards, where all the phone vote lines are plugged into the ITV1 washing machine just in case Extras doesn't win anything, The Tumblies are calculated from a genuine public vote. As Saddam Hussein might say, albeit in a slightly sarcastic voice, this is democracy in action.

All our winners tonight will take home one of these very beautiful statuettes, painstakingly rendered in 24 carat pixels by a blind madman with a grudge against humanity. And we'd like to thank him for taking time off from his busy schedule as Justin Lee Collins' hair stylist to help us out tonight.

So fasten your seatbelts, enough of my yakking, and...

PEERS AT AUTOCUE

...third one to be written. Ahem. Thanks, Quantick - that's the kind of stuff we're looking for. Let The Tumblies commence!

So, first up is our award for Worst New TV Comedy. And how spoilt for choice we were. But surely there was only ever going to be one winner, and that is... if I can just get the attachment open...

	Worst New TV Comedy: Spoons Zeppotron "sketch" "show" 44.18% of the overall vote "Well I'll say this much, its about time somebody poked fun at couples in their thirties, they've been getting away with it far too long." - Munday's Chylde "It was completely lacking in charm, anger, originality, silliness, wit, style, passion or pertinence. It felt like it was written by a focus group and performed by coma victims. " - Robot DeNiro "Whatever happened to sketches with great dialogue? Even the dialogue-heavy Catherine Tate Show is more about rhythm/reaction than the actual words on the page. Has it gone completely out of fashion? And if so, what the fuck are comedians doing following fashion?" - Emergency Lalla Ward Ten RUNNERS UP: Nathan Barley (31.39%), Extras (23.25%)

Yes, Spoons. "I want a fucking baby" was the catchphrase, but all anyone else said was "I want some fucking jokes". Can there be anything else which sums up the cold, formulaic, sketches-by-numbers face of British comedy like this monstrosity?

Marketed as a sophisticated, thinking person's sketch show, it was actually on about the same level as something like Three Of A Kind, except with none of the charm. Comedy for people who don't really like comedy - diet-Big Train, if you can imagine something that pointless. Cynically-contrived catchphrases, reaction-shot cutaways, people continually talking in That Voice... the question on everybody's lips is 'Will its contractually-obliged second series be just as awful?'. The answer of course is 'Yes, but with more publicity'.

Now, Worst Comedy Newcomer. Traditionally, the British Comedy Awards embarasses itself by awarding their newcomer award to someone who's been in the business for quite a while. Last year, I believe it was won by the fat bloke off of the Will Hay films. But here at The Tumbleweeds, we pride ourselves on paying tribute to only the very freshest turds. So we present the next Tumbly to this man...

	Worst Comedy Newcomer: Mark Dolan Man with glasses 40.506% of the overall vote "Mark Dolan, then: a man who genuinely has been involved with nothing of worth." - The Mumbler "He just screams 'Tory parents'" - Bean Is A Carrot RUNNERS UP: Rob Rouse (34.17%), Richard Ayoade (25.316%)

Yes, he'd previously delighted the nation by fooling idiotic unemployed people that they might have finally found a job, but 2005 saw Mark Dolan fronting Balls of Steel - possibly the nastiest, most depressing melanoma ever to emerge on the decaying carcass that is present-day Channel 4. Like Dom Joly and Marc Wootton before him, Dolan believes he's a cut above the likes of Jeremy Beadle, but he's actually producing something ten times more awful.

To make matter worse, he employs that slimy tactic of pretending that his bullying, mean-spirited pranks perform some moralistic greater good - by exposing attitudes to the disabled, for example. Yes, Mark, that's the reason why the show exists. With a bit of luck his next project will involve him hosting a live dogfight - that way he might claw back a little self respect.

In a similar vein, we present our award for Worst Comedy Actor to...

	Worst Comedy Actor: Marc Wootton Professional bully 47.5% of the overall vote "What little I've seen of his output so far consists of lazy, inherently hateful baiting of not-in-on-the-'joke' public members. As with Iain Lee on the 110cs, the public come away with more dignity than the perpetrator." - dan dirty ape "He does remind me of the obnoxious cunt you'd get in school who would take pleasure in humiliating the weedier/more vulnerable kids just so he can get a few laughs from his circle of friends. Only Wootton does this on national television (the BBC no less)." - jtc "Painfully unfunny man who does a rubbish joke, practical or otherwise, no one but 10 year olds laugh at it and then he walks around with an expression like a dog that's just shit on your carpet, hoping you see the lighter side of it and forgive him rather than putting your boot up his arse like he deserves." - Big Jack McBastard "Seems to be carving out a niche in making crudely, two-dimensional characters even more crude and two-dimensional." - Ignatius_S RUNNERS UP: Richard Ayoade (31.25%), Noel Fielding (21.25%)

For the same reasons as Dolan, really. He claims the moral high ground by insisting he satirises mediums who exploit the recently bereaved, but effectively he's just doing the same thing. Hopefully when Wootton's dead we can ring up his grieving relatives and treat them to a barrage of bad Duncan Norvelle impressions. Not that they'll be able to hear it over the sound of the party poppers and the rinkytink piano playing 'Happy Days Are Here Again'. And the vicar shouting 'Anyone know how to get piss-stains out of coffins'.

We shouldn't forget our runners up, though, notably Richard Ayoade. A man who started his expectation-lowering tactics at university by arguing that people shouldn't expect great comedy from his 1997 Footlights show as it was akin to requesting a heart lung bypass from a medical student. This brilliant attitude has surely contributed to his assured success in today's TV climate, playing his one character of 'Man Who Can't Act 2' to perfection.

Now it's often said that there aren't enough crap women in crap comedy. So let me introduce the winner of the next award, for Worst Comedy Actress...

	Worst Comedy Actress: Catherine Tate New product 41.77% of the overall vote "God how I hate actresses doing comedy. not women in general, just those actresses who think because they can portray a fairly convincing old lady that makes them a comedy genius." - Robot DeNiro "It's not a case of certain type of humour, or not 'getting' it, it's just bad. It's like you can see its seams. Bad." - Capuchin "Yes I somewhat agree with that. When you actually notice errors in the comic timing and the acting which on other shows just aren't there (and you take that fact for granted too) things are going a bit wrong." - Vermschneid Mehearties RUNNERS UP: Ashley Jensen (30.379%), Julia Davis (27.84%)

Yes, Catherine Tate from The Catherine Tate Show. A sketch show which reminds one of what Absolutely would have been like if it had been written by accountants. Smothered in all the horrors of modern-day attitudes towards comedy: shot on fake film, full of characters doing what amounts to the same sketch every week, and publicised to buggery by BBC2 in the desperate attempt to launch another Little Britain. Listen, BBC2, nobody outside of catchphrase thinktanks is going around saying "Am I bovvered?", apart from some students in the Christopher Hitchens Bar. And they're pissed.

Special mention must go to Julia Davis though for Nighty Night, the second series of which was so unbelievably awful that even Stephen Armstrong had to buy a new weather vane.

So, onto the award for the Worst Entertainment Programme. Well, we've already heard from their frontman, but this time an award goes to the entire team behind this show:

	Worst Entertainment Programme: Balls of Steel Farmyard 58.53% of the overall vote "I've got a relatively low pain threshold when it comes to bad tv, but this is revolting and i've turned it off. It's just making me angry and i can't be bothered with that. I'd complain to Channel 4, but i think that would only encourage them. Sad times for tv." - Roy*Mallard "Not feeling particularly eloquent right now, so will keep this to a general "o tempora, o mores"-type moan. The state of British Comedy in the last year has been a depressing mixture of the "it's quite good, honestly" with the downright abysmal. We have reasonably talented people such as Julia Davis and Chris Morris turning out at best barely-adequate comedy-drama bilge at the former end of the spectrum, while at the latter we have the increasingly smug "why bother?" approach of the likes of Walliams and Lucas, Ricky Gervais, and the abhorrent cretins behind Balls Of Steel. The trends towards comedy that is "dark" and/or "savage" as opposed to "funny" are continuing to ruin things for anyone who likes their humour to be inventive, or to make them laugh. The sad truth is that I get more genuine amusement and pleasure out of My Family than out of just about all of the programmes nominated on this list, and that can't be right." - Catalogue Trousers RUNNERS UP: The Friday Night Project (39.02%), Dirty Tricks (2.43%)

Yes, Balls of Steel. One of those rare occasions in life when you end up agreeing with Tom Cruise. Why, indeed, would they "do that"? Is Objective really made up of bullying, right-wing parasites? Or do they just assume the viewing audience is? Go on, do your mong voice. Throw dog shit at people, go on. You're watching Channel 4.

Now, this is the point in the evening where something goes wrong. At the British Comedy Awards, something aaaaaalways goes wrong, doesn't it? Something hilarious happens. Who can forget Julian Clary's "I've just been fisting Norman Lamont" comment, or... um... all the other things that have gone wrong. Buster Merryfield cracking his head open, that was a giggle. I'm sure there was something else. No, not Caroline Aherne shouting at Nigel Hawthorne, another one. Anyway, it'll come to me.

So, what's going to go wrong at the Tumbleweeds? Well, nothing, because we're the Tumbleweeds and we mean business. Now, the Worst Comedy Entertainment Personality. It can only be one man:

	Worst Comedy Entertainment Personality: Justin Lee Collins Yokel Oh No 39.75% of the overall vote "You remember the kid in school who made jokes that always died on their arse? Justin Lee Collins clearly does as he's doing a perfect impression of him." - Big Jack McBastard "Justin Lee Collins = Mitch Benn after too many Smarties." - Emergency Lalla Ward Ten RUNNERS UP: Jimmy Carr (34.93%), Mark Dolan (25.301%)

Justin Lee Collins, who I overheard in HMV recently talking in his real accent. Yes, he puts the West Country voice on as a comedy schtick. Does that make you hate him more or less? Tough call. Curiously, Collins remains the only person in the comedy industry who isn't on cocaine - he uses his media skills to become an irritating, over-confident gobshite by mindpower alone.

His other comedy schtick involves gurning towards the camera and shouting "Rock 'n' roll!", even though a typical Collins show involves him doorstopping the kids from the Colgate Blue Minty Gel advert and getting them to sing the theme from Mysterious Cities of Gold on the original set of John's Not Mad, while sucking on Mr Freeze icepops and sticking a copy of Rock Me Amadeus up their arses. Which I don't believe was part of Chuck Berry's original manifesto.

And Jimmy Carr - a bit of a predictable one perhaps: 'He's always on the TV!!!' is the humorous thing people in the comedy industry say, cleverly sidestepping any actual comment on his stand-up material. They were all over him circa 2002, you might remember - he was 'the good one' on Amnesty benefits. But now he's a safe target.

The reasons for hating Carr are less to do with his ubiquity and more because he does Jim Davidson-style reactionary jokes under a cloak of 'I'm being ironic, or am I?' aloofness, effectively having his right-wing cake and smearing it over his ex-oil industry salesman face. The fact that he tried to sue Jim Davidson (well, that's what he told Chortle, and they of course printed it as �news� like they always do) for nicking his material speaks volumes. Like Marc Wootton, he thinks he's better than the Davidsons of the world, but he's actually worse.

OK, now onto the Worst Sitcom... ENTER JULIAN CLARY. APPLAUSE Excuse me, Jonathan. I like a warm hand on my entrance, etc. What are you doing here, Julian? I thought you'd be down Hampstead Heath! Mind your backs! Oooh, hello sailor! That's not laddish homophobia, by the way - it's 2005 and it doesn't exist any more, I read it on the Little Britain website. Indeed. I just wanted to say... I've just been fucking David Cameron up the arse. AUDIENCE SILENCE. A GENUINE PIECE OF TUMBLEWEED DRIFTS ACROSS THE STUDIO

Ah-ha, alright. Something aaaaalways goes wrong! Another classic moment, ladies and gentlemen! And don't forget you can see that again on The Tumbleweeds - Untangled over on ITV2, as soon as I'm safely out of the building and hailing a cab home.

Anyway, Worst Sitcom. It can only be:

	Worst Sitcom: Max and Paddy The road to rack and ruin 39.75% of the overall vote "Is it just me, or was that completely devoid of jokes? Oh well, at least it's now clear to see who the credit for That Peter Kay Thing and Phoenix Nights should be going to." - Dr David V "I expected it to fall a bit short of Phoenix and TPKT, but not by that much. Christ, it was weak- just twenty-odd minutes of lazy-writing, badly timed slapstick and half-arsed attempts at establishing new catchphrases to slap on the next batch of mugs and car stickers. And wasn't it fucking garish to look at?" - ninestonecreature "I really dislike the phrase "playing to the gallery", but I thought they were seriously guilty of it with this. It was all so terribly lazy - forcing catchphrases and laughing at laddish chat-up lines. It seems that there's actually very little scope for the two characters, because they're too one-dimensional. Carrying a half hour show has also exposed McGuinness as someone with limited ability, whereas he was perfectly capable as a bit-player." - Partridge's Love Child "I'm sorry to say I've given up on this now, just for the sake of my own dignity like, if not Kay's. At this rate I'm going to start believing that he and Vernon are related, this show is that dire." - Silver Surferghost RUNNERS UP: Nighty Night (31.32%), Nathan Barley (28.91%)

Yes, Peter Kay. He used to be okay, before he turned into some horrible 'Look mam, I'm on Parky!' Robbie Williams figure who believed his own hype. Max and Paddy aside, he probably deserves his Tumbleweed for his performance at Live8, where he pretended that the crowd were urging him to sing 'Amarillo'. A conceit even less convincing than when Ricky Gervais claimed they were telling him to do the dance.

Worst TV Channel? Well, it can only be this one:

	Worst Over-All Channel For TV Comedy: Channel 4 School for scum 72.83% of the overall vote "The nomination for Channel Four as 'worst overall channel for comedy' speaks volumes about the moron-targetting, lowest-common-denominator shite that makes up most of its output these days.The schedules in between Peep Show Series 2 and Peep Show Series 3 has been an absolute comedy wasteland.Get it sorted Channel Four, you used to be good." - J.P.Anyon "Would anyone here be happy to work for Channel 4 these days? I think I'd rather take money from GlaxoSmithKline or Nestle." - Neil RUNNERS UP: BBC3 (17.28%), BBC2 (9.87%)

It's quite extraordinary what Channel 4 has turned into. It was once an unpredictable, laidback, naughty schoolboy of a channel, but now it's all too obvious what they're up to. OK, the Red Triangle season in the 80s may well have been a cynical attempt to disguise porn, but at least it meant they broadcast some decent foreign films. Their comedy output featured some turkeys now and again, but every new comedy show was genuinely exciting - you never quite knew what you were getting. People like me, Jonathan Ross, used to like all that stuff too, until I saw where the money was and decided to justify the decay. Am I really the same man who presented The Last Resort? I mean, even when I was doing the early-evening chatshow, I wasn't that bad. Remember when I hosted the show live from a train?

But, hey, they're broadcasting Peep Show, so everything's fine apparently. One decent show in ten years - well done.

Now, the award for Worst Radio Comedy. The real Comedy Awards has of course ditched its radio category, because let's face it radio's sad right kids? Except for my award-winning Radio 2 show, of course (DOES THAT THING WITH HIS TIE). Mind you, this man pretty much sums up what's wrong with Radio 1 at the moment:

	Worst Radio Comedy: Chris Moyles Quack Quack Oops! 51.31% of the overall vote "The only halfway decent thing I ever saw Moyles do was bring back "Mallet's Mallet" on his (short-lived??) "UK Play" show way back in 1999" - Z/SB "Chris Moyles isn't really radio comedy, is he? He's just a DJ who aspires to be humorous." - The Duck Man RUNNERS UP: Quote...Unquote (22.36%), The Milk Run (7.89%), The Now Show (5.26%), The Problem With Adam Bloom (5.26%), Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant on XFM (3.94%), June Loves Janet (2.63%), Just A Minute (1.31%)

No, he doesn't affect my life either, but people voted for him. I'm more concerned about The Milk Run, myself - Radio 1 used to be great at doing comedy (The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Victor Lewis Smith, Fist of Fun), and this is all that's left? Ambient whimsy edited by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers.

Then of course, there's Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's uniformally rotten XFM show. 'Oh, Karl, you're mental! With those things we've written for you and told you to say!'. Now also available as a podcast of course, which Gervais is attempting to pass off as some altruistic gesture, even though it's obviously just another piece of self-promotion. Actually, I think he wins the next award... yes, he does. Worst Stand-up.

	Worst Stand-up: Ricky Gervais Salesman 46.91% of the overall vote "Vessel of rot" - The Mumbler "Looking at the nominations, I can't help but think that the world would be a far better place if The Office had never happened. Still, I guess we'll never know." - Barney Sloane RUNNERS UP: Marcus Brigstocke (33.33%), Ross Noble (19.75%)

Gervais' stand-up was always awful, of course - anyone who watched The 11 O'Clock Show knew that. But suddenly he became famous and all that rubbish got repackaged as Animals and Politics. Ten year old flat lemonade being sold in Chateau de Ponce bottles. All part of the 'Mediocre is the new excellent' lowering of expectations which is killing comedy. Plus, there's all the 'ironic' racism and homophobia, which is alright because he's playing a character apparently. What, like Eddie on Love Thy Neighbour? Are you going to back my campaign to get that repeated then? Come on, be consistent. Hello? Hello? What do you mean 'This is a fishmongers'?

Honorary mentions to Ross Noble, for his studenty monkey whimsy ghastliness, but especially for his habit of pausing and pointing out how mad he is ("I'm like this all the time!"). See also Paul Merton on Have I Got News For You having to explain why Boris Johnson is funny, or indeed Gervais and Merchant providing a running commentary on why Karl Pilkington's so stupid. Just... desperation.

Oh, and Marcus Brigstocke. Markets himself as an 'alternative' to the usual bread-and-butter stand-ups, but appears on all the same shows. Claims to be genuinely angry, but happily appeared on What's the Problem? With Anne Robinson, playing along with the media bollocks rather than attacking it. Has no problem doing a 'mong' joke on his pisspoor BBC4 show.

Right, we'll be back after the break with some more results.

FX: CRACK. MARC WOOTTON SCREAMS.

OK, so we've done his arm�