What does every iPhone owner need this time of year? No, not at iPhone cosy, or a dancing polar bear app, or an iPhone scraper to remove the ice from the screen of a morning. Something much more useful. Picture the scene. I am taking the dog for a walk. The iPhone rings. I try to answer it - but it doesn't work. Another time, while out in London, I need to send a text. It doesn't work. Not because the gears inside have frozen up, but because the iPhone's touchscreen relies on something like a finger to get its screen working. Encase said finger in a glove and the capacitative effect is reduced - it doesn't work. Yet the weather we have had recently really does require gloves. Luckily, for Christmas (thanks Andy and Fiona) I have been given a pair of iPhone compatible gloves . No, really. With these gloves on the touch screen works just fine. So no more tossing up between frostbite and not communicating. Technology to the rescue!

I've always found Jeremy Clarkson very amusing, but rather along 'man you love to hate' lines. However recently I have been saying to myself more and more 'I agree with Jeremy.' I was kindly bought a copy of his latest musings for Christmas and have been reading these, all too often thinking 'Hmm, he's got a point.' Not only do I seem to have almost identical tastes in popular beat combos (mostly of the prog rock variety), we share a sole superstition. Or to be precise we are both not superstitious, but both greet single magpies (he salutes them, I say 'Good morning/good afternoon.') I really don't know why I started - I think it's because I'm fond of the magpie augury - but once you have, as JC (as I like to call him) points out, it's very hard to stop. There's no point saying 'Surely a rational person like you doesn't believe in this rubbish.' I refer you to the great physicist Niels Bohr. When asked why he h...

I have to confess I never read the Daily Telegraph - but if I did, I would stop immediately. At the best I'd suggest what they did in entrapment of Lib Dem ministers was tacky, at worst it was treasonous. Let me draw a parallel. Imagine that you were on a ship that was going through very dangerous waters. The captain and the first officer are married, but there marriage is very fragile. Hands up all those who think it would be a sensible thing for a passenger to send attractive members of the opposite sex to record the first officer voicing his doubts about his partner, then broadcasting said doubts on the ship's tannoy? Hands up those who think it was sheer idiocy, and the person doing it should be thrown over the side? What did the Telegraph editor think he was doing by using sleazy tactics to get comments out of Vince Cable and others that had the potential to damage this country? In what sense is this in the public interest? All too often the news media seem to have a s...

Is Christmas getting just a bit too nauseatingly sweet? Then for all those working Christmas Eve, it's time for a bit of Christmas entertainment the Victorian way: It is Christmas Day in the Workhouse, And the cold bare walls are bright With garlands of green and holly, And the place is a pleasant sight: For with clear-washed hands and faces In a long and hungry line The paupers sit at the tables, For this is the hour they dine. And the guardians and their ladies, Although the wind is east, Have come in their furs and wrappers, To watch their charges feast: To smile and be condescending, Put puddings on pauper plates, To be hosts at the workhouse banquet They've paid for – with the rates. Oh, the paupers are meek and lowly With their 'Thank'ee kindly, mum's'; So long as they fill their stomachs What matters it whence it comes? But one of the old men mutters, And pushes his plate aside: 'Great God!' he cries; 'but it chokes m...

Christmas is a time for inexplicable traditions, and none more so than the box of dates. When I was a lad (and rumour has it this was true in other homes), a box of dates was bought religiously each Christmas. It would then sit, glowering slightly, untouched. Rumour had it one of my grandmothers liked them - but I never saw one eaten with that strange plastic twig provided. Even the fact that the box has to give instructions as to what to do with them is a bit of a give away. It's as if there was a danger, if not told to eat them, of trying to use them as double sided adhesive pads. I think the first Christmas with my own family we bought some dates, because we thought we had to. An old charter or something. But since then we never have. Instead, we have migrated to mixed pickles. For me, Christmas has to have a whole host of different pickles for the cold meat. But sadly the mixed pickles are often still there unopened by June. But why not? After all, it's tradition, a...

Yes, it's that time of year when real men wear thermals and regular bloggers go to pieces. Over the next couple of weeks I'm afraid things will be pretty haphazard here at Now Appearing . After that normal service will be resumed. In the meanwhile, have a great Christmas if you celebrate it (in fact, have a great one if you don't). And if you've got snow, try to enjoy it despite the inconvenience!

Some people claim to be able to remember the first time they smelled a honeysuckle or heard a nightingale sing. But many of my stand-out memories of 'first's are unashamedly commercial, and probably entirely alien to a younger generation that has been brought up with these institutions. I remember my first visit to a supermarket. No, don't laugh. When I was young we did our food shopping in the evocatively titled Home and Colonial Stores. It smelled of spices, and you were served from behind a counter (sometimes by my auntie). Really. The first supermarket in Rochdale (as far as I'm aware) was a non-chain number by the name of Lennons. There was quite an excitement when it was opened. It made the news. It was probably no bigger than a Tesco Local, but it seemed immense, and the concept of helping yourself from shelves into a trolley was simply bizarre. Moving on, I also remember my first encounter with McDonalds, I think at one of the first in the UK that had opened...

In my latest podcast from the Royal Society of Chemistry 's series on compounds, it's time to tell a lye. But we'll try not to be too caustic while you drink your soda. Yes, folks, roll up, roll up, and discover the wonders of sodium hydroxide. Who can fail to fall in love with a compound that can be used to dissolve a body? You can take a listen to the podcast here.

In March 2011, the UK is to see one of the strangest, and yet most appealing book events I've ever come across. March 5 has been declared World Book Night. On that evening 1 million (no, that's not a misprint) books will be given away. Around 20,000 people will each be given 48 copies of a book they would like to champion in giving to other people. Given, as in for free. The idea is that these book ambassadors will give out these titles, encouraging others to read them and to start reading more. I don't know if it will work, but it's a brave initiative. If you live in the UK you can request to be one of the 20,000 by signing up at the World Book Night website . Why only two cheers? I think non-fiction is unfairly under-represented (and not particular well covere by the selection available) - I would have liked to see it 50:50. And for that matter, I think restricting the books to 25 titles to choose between is even more restrictive. The person giving the books away ...

A while ago some pointed me to Novel Rank while emphasing that it was like a drug for authors. You can't help going back to find out how your sales at Amazon are going. Now Amazon itself has come up with another way for authors to become depressed (or joyful if they've written bestsellers). It's part of the Amazon.com facility Author Central. I ought to briefly deviate here to berate Amazon on its inconsistancy. Author Central is a great feature that lets authors add lots of information about themselves - even links to their blogs - that can be easily accessed from their books' pages. But it's only on Amazon.com. It's not available on Amazon.co.uk. This really isn't good enough - get your act together, Amazon! Any road up, this Author Central thingy now features a tab labelled 'Sales info.' Click it and you get all sorts of interesting statistics about your book sales in the US. There are total sales, breakdowns by geographic area and sales brea...

Just occasionally you come across a piece of technology that blows away pretty well everything you've seen before. I'd like to thank someone on one of the Litopia forums for pointing out the specific example below. The video describing it isn't in English, but it has subtitles and is easy to follow. Just to highlight some of the lead features: You never have to replace the battery It will last a lifetime and longer: it's not going to wear out It can be dropped repeatedly and will remain useable The file format used is guaranteed to remain compatible It uses bio-optical technology and neural processing Comes in a wonderful range of covers Uses space saving compression technology to get twice the information in the same space Enough of the build-up: feast your eyes on this:

Purton Church, as I couldn't find a school photo As I mentioned a couple of days ago , I had an excellent day earlier this week at Bradon Forest School in Purton. (Here's a little factoid for you - the church in the Wiltshire village of Purton is one of only three in the country with both a tower and a spire. One of the others is only a few miles from Purton in Wanborough, while the third is at Ormskirk in Lancashire.) I was on the go pretty well all day, and, though satisfying, it was quite tiring. It does make me really appreciate just what teachers manage to do, day in, day out. A visiting speaker like me is roughly in the same relationship to a teacher as a grandparent is to a parent. You generally cause a bit of excitement, because it's someone different, and you have a great time for a brief period, then you hand them back, and go back to your quiet life while the teacher has to get on with it. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against grandparents (or ...

I've had one or two criticisms of the way I stress in Before the Big Bang that cosmology hasn't entirely thrown off its reputation of being speculative. Cosmologists like to think that they are now mainstream scientists, and the big bang theory is as straightforward as any other basic idea in physics, but it really isn't true. I'm not trying to knock cosmology - it's a subject I love - but I think we ought to be honest and recognize how much it is built on assumption, hope and tradition. All science is the pursuit of today's best guess - it can never be about absolute truth - and cosmology has a harder chase than any other discipline. It's not surprising, really. We can't even go and take a close look at the nearest star other than the Sun - a mere 4 light years is currently a distance far beyond our capabilities to travel in order to examine and experiment. Instead we have to rely on light, passing through all kinds of spatial disruption, and passing...

I'm delighted to say that my latest book Armageddon Science is now available in the UK as well as the US. I won't repeat all the details - I gave the bumf about it here , and I cover it here on my website , but you can now rush along to Amazon.co.uk and buy a copy in the UK, if you feel so inclined. To make matters even more thrilling (can they be more thrilling, I here you ask?), if you click on the 'n new' under 'More buying choices' on the right of the Amazon page, you can buy a signed copy. What's not to love? This is the Christmas present that says you mean more to me than the apocalypse. As there is only so much self-promotion I can do without feeling faintly queasy, I ought also to say what a great time I had at Bradon Forest School yesterday. Situated in Purton, a village outside Swindon, this secondary school had a special day yesterday where all their Year 7s had four writing-oriented workshops through the day. There was me on non-fiction writi...

These days, as I drive the daughters around in taxi mode (6 hours in the car last Friday), I tend to hear quite a lot of Radio 1. As I've commented before , they have unfortunately stocked the channel with DJs who think that they are the reason people listen, rather than the music, so said daughters are always flipping away from Radio 1 to find music, rather than be bored by inane chatter. So, in the spirit of the Big Society, I would like to offer my re-designed Radio 1. The BBC are welcome to follow my grand plan, and I give it freely to them. I believe it will make the station much better for its target audience, and will fulfil the BBC's requirement to not just be another broadcaster, but to be a unique public service broadcaster. It will also save them a lot of money - millions of pounds per year. Get rid of all DJs who don't play at least 15 records an hour. Replace with new, cheap, hungry DJs. Don't play any music from bands who are already signed to a record...

I've always been fond of urban legends. When I worked at BA, one of my colleagues, who was a fabled story teller, made up a tall story at a dinner party once (involving a dog being tied to a level crossing gate in Sunningdale), only to find a few months later he went to another party where he was told this as fact. The interweb is particularly good at generating urban legends, because of the speed with which they can be passed around as so-called 'memes'. (I don't like the meme concept, but that's another post.) All too often, people pass on something without bothering to check the facts. Recently on Facebook a number of my friends have started a post that says: Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. The list, which you'll see below consists of fairly popular/classic titles, so that statistic was quite surprising. After doing a bit of searching around, I couldn't find any...

In this podcast from the Royal Society of Chemistry 's series on compounds, I take a look at methane. It's a compound that could do with a trip to the image consultant, what with those images of cows' bottoms and its contribution to global warming. But, like many others, I would be waking to a freezing house this morning without it. You can take a listen to the podcast here.            

I am a great fan of QI . There's nothing better to liven up a boring evening on TV. I have even been known to search it out on Dave when all else fails. But it's hard not to get irritated sometimes by the smug inevitability (and who can do smug better than Stephen Fry?) of some of their 'general ignorance' answers - and hard also not to be rather pleased when they get it wrong. The most glaring QI error I know is they've twice (in my hearing) called Galileo the inventor of the telescope, which is indisputably factually incorrect. But another example demonstrates the meanness of some of their answers. I can't remember the exact wording, but someone (probably poor old Alan Davies) got the dreaded noise when suggesting that UK secret service field operatives are called agents. The QI team came up with some guff that agents were office-bound workers, not field people. However in the last fortnight, both the head of MI6 and several people from MI5 have very clear...

I share with many a concern that we are over-protective of children these days. Some people won't even let their children camp out in the back garden in case an evil lurker gets them. Statistically this is ludicrous. They are much more in danger every time you take them near a road. However, we shouldn't totally ignore risk either. I have to confess I did something with a group of teenagers many years ago that still gives me a cold shudder when I contemplate the dangers involved. I had done some caving while at university, and when the youth club I helped run went on an adventure holiday (this was a few years later) I offered to lead a caving experience. This was straight caving, not potholing, I should stress. I picked three caves out of a guide (I think it was the one illustrated), all easy. The first was very straightforward. A little narrow in places, but basically a straightforward walk into the hillside. The most exciting thing was getting there by car as it meant goi...

I'm currently reading for review the very entertaining book Boffinology (I don't know what US readers would make of this title - I don't think 'boffin' is a word in the States, though to be fair, it's hardly in common usage in the UK). The book consists of a series of articles on quirky aspects of the history of science. I was particularly taken by the piece on clinical stress. Apparently, when first discovered in the 1930s, the scientist in question (you can read the book if you want to know who), did not have English as a first language, and when he published a letter on his discovery in Nature , he used 'stress' where he probably meant 'strain.' (This despite pleadings from a Nature editor to change the term.) The point here is that in engineering 'stress' is the cause and 'strain' is the outcome, but in the medical term, 'stress' was the outcome. The article goes on to describe the confusion this caused when th...

I am quite saddened by the naivety of those who are complaining that the Liberal Democrats are backing tuition fee rises. Before I disappear under a pile of brickbats, let me explain that statement, and first throw in a couple of provisos: I do not agree with the increase in tuition fees. There are plenty of other ways to raise this money that would be better for the country. I think the Liberal Democrats were stupid to sign those pledges saying that if there was a LibDem government they would not increase tuition fees. BUT there is not a LibDem government. A coalition is in government, and the Liberal Democrats are the junior partners of that coalition. Anyone with an iota of brain should be able to understand that this means that the majority of policies will not be Liberal Democrat policies. Nevertheless, the coalition does mean that more LibDem policies will be enacted than if the coalition hadn't been formed, and I believe the coalition is a good thing for the country, whic...

There have been dire warnings in the press that use of the internet is putting the jury system at risk. There seem to be two components to these legal worries. One is jury members discussing a trial while it's underway on social networking, the other is the dangers of jurors researching elements of the trial online. The first of these is a genuine concern, but one that was always there, magnified by the power of social networking. It has always been possible for jurors to gossip with friends and relations about their thoughts on the trial, which clearly has potential dangers in close-knit communities. However, the social networking dimension does magnify the effect, particularly if a broadcast-style network like Twitter is involved. It has to be drummed into the jurors that it is a no-no. But the second aspect is more complex. Unless the legal system believes that jurors have totally blank minds when they come to the court, they will already have a limited set of knowledge ove...

In his classic book The Psychology of Everday Things (see at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com) , Donald Norman shows how the aesthetics of design often triumph over usability. So designers make doors you can't work out how to open, or cooker controls where you need instructions to know which control is for which ring, simply to make them look pretty. He has a section called something like 'it probably won an award', suggesting that the artefacts in question were just the kind of thing the design mafia love and give themselves gongs for, but are practically useless. I have my own suggestion for such an award. It's the spray head on the pictured kitchen cleaner from Marks and Spencer. Very pretty, but frankly it's rubbish. Firstly, at a glance it isn't at all obvious which way round you use it. Though seen from the angle of the photo it's fairly obvious, seen from other directions it's easy to think it sprays the other way round. This is because the press...

This morning on the radio we had General Sir Loudly Blustering, telling us how appalling the BBC was and how it ought to reconsider its role as a public service broadcaster. Why? Because the BBC had dared to show a drama - fiction - in which members of the armed forces were shown doing bad things. That the general should do this reflects what I feel is a very dangerous shift in our attitude to the military. I ought to say straight away that our armed forces do an important and dangerous job, and that we ought to do everything sensible to make sure that they are well treated, especially when injured. However, it really does seem that we are seeing a Princess Diana effect in the emotional attitude that is now attached to the military. This comes through in the distinction between the Poppy Appeal and the charity Help for Heroes. The Poppy Appeal is a sober, thoughtful appeal for remembrance, which raises funds to help veterans. Help for Heroes also has a very worthy cause in raising ...

Our village church has relatively recently had a new stained glass window fitted (the one pictured) and it has made me realize what an undervalued artform stained glass is. If this had been an ordinary painting, hung on the wall, I would have glanced at it once as I passed it, but probably not looked again. But in the stained glass form, time after time I've stopped and looked. The glowing colours just cry out to be stared at (much more so than in the photograph). When you think about it, this is a kind of art with so much going for it - it doesn't just deal with image and colour, it deals with raw light. This is painting with light, and a light the varies with time of day at that - it can be stunning. Back in Victorian times there was huge amount of bad stained glass produced (and some excellent stuff - quite well known artists like the Pre-Raphaelite Burne Jones indulged), which I think gave stained glass a fusty, old fashioned image. I know there has been some excellen...

Ok, it aint pretty, but the boy has passion. And a play button. I do a fair number of talks based on my books - and I have to (modestly) admit they're usually well received. I'd like to share some top tips on making talks work. My experience is with non-fiction, but I hope some of this will have a wider relevence. #1 - Prepare! The exclamation mark is justified. When I see talks that don't go very well, it's often down to lack of preparation. If it's a talk I haven't done before I will run it through around four times before giving it. And by running through, I don't mean flipping through the notes on the train, I mean acting it out as realistically as possible, which means standing up and speaking aloud. It can be embarrassing (especially if you do it on the train), but it makes so much difference. #2 - Get your notes right This isn't one where I can be prescriptive, but it is essential to get your talk into a form that works well for you when...

I heard an academic moaning on the radio the other day that some programme was about Western civilization. 'Why should we single out the West [to talk about]?' (s)he whinged. Why not? Yes, we should be fair and tolerant, but what's wrong with having a particular interest in our own culture and background? Take this down to a smaller scale. I'm more interested in my family than the Blinge family of Clacton-on-Sea. I'm sorry, but it's true - and it would be ridiculous if I weren't. I can understand the importance of being inclusive, and all those good things, but it is equally important that in the process of appreciating everyone else's culture and history we don't lose sight of our own. We have a great cultural and scientific heritage in the UK. We did things wrong. Lots of things. Just like everyone else. Only they get on with their lives and don't beat themselves up for dubious moments in history. (How often do you hear Scandinavians saying...

I used to be very restrained when it came to naughty nibbling. (Things like biscuits, I mean. Good grief.) But I have to confess I had sunk into a bit of bad habit. I felt, after I'd walked the dog, I needed a biscuit or three with my coffee just to get my energy back. And then when it came to my afternoon coffee, well, everyone knows you get low energy in the afternoon... so out came the biscuits again. I may have found a partial solution - there's a company called graze.com that sends little boxes of relatively healthy nibblables through the post. It's a cunning scheme. They supply about 100 different products, of which your box will contain four. You can filter this online, knocking out the ones you don't like, though I left it as open as possible to start with. These range from straight forward things like nuts and dried fruit to interesting chocolate coated goodies and mini flavoured breads. Our first box has definitely been a success. Admittedly there was one...

Let's face it, the University of East Anglia has not had great press of late. The first thing anyone thinks of is the supposed scandal over the climate change emails (supposed as it was rather a fuss over nothing - see earlier post ). But I had an experience there at the weekend that puts the UEA high on my list of good places. I had an invitation to speak at their Saturday Morning science lectures . Aimed at young people (roughly 8+) and their parents, this seemed a great concept... but how would it work in practice? I was deeply impressed. Firstly, the audience really stuck with it. They didn't just have to suffer me, but also had one of the University's lecturers talking on the history of medicine. That meant they were there from a 10am start to 12.30 (there was a half hour break) - pretty hard work for an eight-year-old. Then there was the audience themselves. To be honest, I wasn't sure how many would turn up, but my guestimate was around 300, of whom over half...

We all know what's tasteful and what's not, even if everyone's assessment differs. But where do our individual tastes come from? They seem to come in layers - but not for every application. Take three categories. My taste in cars was, I believe, set in childhood. Strongly influenced by Bond films back then, I would still say my dream car is an Aston Martin. Popular culture seems a strong driver here. (As more, sad evidence, one of my daughters desperately wants a black Range Rover. I can only think this is because 'celebrities' like Wayne Yobbie and his lovely wife Slobeen tend to drive them. As long as it's not because of Jamie Oliver having one.) Musically, my taste was influenced both by school days, where trendy music teachers meant I mostly heard 20th century serious music, and student days, where I picked up prog rock and Tudor/Elizabethan church music. But it really hasn't changed since. As for food, there seem to be three layers of taste (not t...

Well, no, history isn't bunk, it's very important, but you have to admire the power of the statement. There certainly are occasions when history gives a wrong steer, and I think I've just heard one. The problem is, that if you try to predict the future based on experience from history, you assume that things will continue in the future the way they did in the past - but this misses out on the way sudden major step changes can (and often do) totally throw the effectiveness of the prediction. Take one simple example - speed of human travel. Science writer Damien Broderick has apparently cited this as an example of exponential growth. For millions of years we were restricted to walking. Over thousands of years, we got a little faster by using donkeys and horses. Just 200 years ago the steam train arrived, followed by automobiles, prop planes and jets. According to Broderick, “By 1953, not even the Air Force technologists could believe what the trend curves were telling them:...

A while ago I read Stuart Maconie's excellent travel book on his tour around Middle England, called Adventures on the High Teas . Towards the end he reflects on the places he has been, and admits with candour that much though he loves the north of England, where he was born, he actually would prefer to live in one of these lovely southern towns. I can't agree more. I deeply love Rochdale, the town near Manchester where I was born and brought up (now probably best known as the home of Waterloo Road , but also the birthplace of the Co-operative movement, Gracie Fields and more). It really gives me a lump in my throat when I go back. But if I'm honest I do prefer living in southern parts. It's partly the weather, but there's something else that Maconie puts across so well, a different feel, I suppose you could call it. It's not the natives are more friendly - they aren't. But there is something about the places that makes them nicer to live in. It may be a ...

There was quite a lot on the radio yesterday about recordings of silence. It transpires that there is a new CD for the Royal British Legion which features a track of a 2 minute silence. So then they started on about the John Cage piece, 4' 33". If you aren't familiar with the composition, it consists of (you guessed it) 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. I first 'heard' this when at school - one of our music teachers performed it in assembly. It is interesting, it probably is art, though I'm not sure it's music. As it happens, I also sell a CD with a silence track - the hymn CD site I run has a Remembrance CD which features on trumpet the Last Post and Reveille with a 2 minute silence in between, so you don't have to time it. It's a separate track because some people like to go straight from Last Post to Reveille, or otherwise shift things around. (We also do the track as an MP3, free of charge. Feel free to drop me an email if you'd like...

I am not really one to enter into the Windows versus Mac fray. I have dabbled in Windows since Version 1 (tiled Windows, anyone?), and used it in anger consistently since Version 3.0. But at the same time I used to also have a Mac on my desk at BA, and I have an iPhone. I feel no great bias between Windows and Mac operating systems - they both now do the job pretty well - but I happen to know Windows (and before that DOS) a lot more intimately, so feel safer with it. But just occasionally there's a crack in Windows that displays its roots, and then it makes you wonder why Microsoft didn't do a ground-up rewrite. Yesterday, while faffing about in a program trying to decide where to save a file, I accidentally dragged one folder into another. Easily enough done - easily enough rectified. Unfortunately, the folder I dragged was the Desktop. Although the Desktop looks like a friendly enough beast, it is in fact several folders, with underlying instructions how to give priority be...

I was giving a phone interview about my new book Armageddon Science yesterday to a US website, when Buffy the Vampire Slayer came up, the way it does. We were talking about the concept of the Singularity, originally devised by science fiction writer Vernor Vinge and later picked up by futurologist Ray Kurzweil. He believes that by 2040, computing technology will have advanced so far that hybrid human/machine species (probably fairly quickly discarding the biological bits) will push human beings out of the way. One of my doubts about this picture is how primitive robot technology is. And this is where Buffy comes in - and the lesson for fiction authors. All fiction, to a greater or lesser extent, involves suspension of disbelief. We want the reader to get away from 'this is just a story' and immerse themselves. It's a problem for every work of fiction, but never more so than with fantasy, where we have (in the example of Buffy ) to accept vampires, werewolves and the w...

As I've shown before , I'm interested in why different types of music appear good (or not). It struck me the other day, I'm not really sure how we tell the difference between different kinds of music. Specifically, how do we tell, just by listening, that a piece is pop/rock or serious? (I'm using 'serious' for what's often called 'classical' music, as I want to include music from the medieval up to the 21st century, rather than just from the classical period.) One obvious factor is the way pop/rock etc. use drums (or electronic substitutes) and guitars. But of course lots of serious music uses drums, and some pieces use guitars (if rarely the electric variety). Admittedly, though, the need to have a constant drum beat is almost entirely absent from serious music, and guitars are used in a very different way. So that's one distinction. But let's take that away, strip it down. How do we know that an a-capella boy band is pop, but an unaccompa...

There's good news, and there's bad news. The good news is that my latest book, Armageddon Science is now for sale in the US. Whoo-hoo and much throwing into the air of hats! The bad news is that it's not out in the UK until early December (though, of course you can pre-order it). And the even worse news is I haven't seen a copy yet. They are somewhere in the mystery that is translatantic shipment, hopefully due to arrive soon. What's it all about? I've a sneak preview of the opening below. But, in case you feel the urge, you can also pop over to its page on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk . ARMAGEDDON SCIENCE - Chapter 1 Mass destruction – killing on a vast scale – is a uniquely human concern. It’s not that other animal species aren’t threatened by it. Many have been driven to extinction, and many more now teeter on the brink. But unlike human beings, even the most intelligent animals don’t worry about the possibility of being wiped out in a terrible cata...