An anonymous commenter got a bit heated a while ago when I dared to say that there hasn't been a great composer since Stravinsky . I think possibly his/her problem was confusing great music with great composers. Let me explain. I think it is entirely possible for a good, but not great, composer to produce a great piece. But being a truly great composer requires more - a whole swathe of great music and a shift in the nature of music itself from that of his/her* contemporaries. (*Political correctness, I suspect. I don't think there have been any great female composers yet.) Just to stress the lack of need to be a great composer to produce great music, my absolute favourite piece is by someone I couldn't regard as a great composer, as are several more of my top ten. Oddly, I was introduced to my favourite piece by a game. Many moons ago I used to review games for various VNU publications, and one game (I can't remember its name) started with a bit of video giving ba...

'What Next After School?' is a very appropriate question as I've two children who have done their GCSEs this year. It's also the title of a book with a hot new edition on the shelves from Kogan Page , the nice people who publish my business bestseller Instant Creativity and who kindly sent me a copy to peruse. This is a real compendium of guidance for those who are leaving school. I liked the way it didn't talk down to its readers and attempt yoof speak, or too much trendiness - instead it's extremely solid and practical. There's good stuff in here about career planning, getting it right with interviews and application forms, opportunities for further education, gap years and working abroad. I liked the way it gave a good, round picture of what's needed - for instance was very helpful to have a section on dealing with your money (perhaps there should have been a dealing with your laundry/cooking sections too). The final chunk is a 'spotlight on ...

The title 'me-me-me' was supposed to be the sound of a singer warming up, but it's rather appropriate in that I want to briefly explore the X Factor debacle, and let's face it, this is a show that is very much about 'me, me, me.' In case you haven't come across it (or like to pretend so), the X Factor is a 'talent' contest for singers, where thousands of hopefuls are whittled down to a few potential recording stars, from whom one winner gets a lucrative contract. In essence the show splits into two distinct halves. The first, the 'open' auditions and then the live finals, where around a dozen acts get to perform live before the nation. Some, such as the serendipitious Dr Gee , find it difficult to understand the appeal of the X Factor . While I personally don't like the show, as it is hugely manipulative of the audience, I can see why it's popular. The two halves have a totally different attraction. The first is a direct descen...

You may remember Stig of the Dump . I have a feeling that some of the small children who live near us think that we live not in a rubbish dump, but in our garage. It's not a totally mad assumption on their part. Our house backs onto a sort of mews lane, and our garage is situated on this lane, rather than the road our house is on. So when we go out in the car, rather than on foot, we walk down the garden, pass through the garage and emerge through the garage door. This makes it quite a reasonable hypothesis that we've spent our time sitting in the garage before we opened the door. It would certainly explain the strange looks we sometimes get from the smaller children. However I ought to stress that they are wrong. We do not live in that garage. No, really, we don't. (I must move that lawn mower, it's getting in the way of my computer keyboard...)

The news has been full lately of analysis of why many sources have been slow to donate to the Pakistan flood disaster. To be fair, the UK general public has been generous with over £30 million given already, but apparently worldwide, giving is lower than expected. Speculation in the media has been about the assertion that a flood seems less of a disaster than an earthquake (say) because it happens slowly and the thought of 'a bit of water' isn't as distressing as 'the earth open up and shifting.' Another possibility I have heard is that the TV reports haven't been showing enough close-ups of people, concentrating instead on sweeping shots of flood water where people appear small on the screen. The theory is this prevents personalization of the disaster, and if we think of it as impersonal, we don't identify. It's the same reason that many charities will tell you individuals' stories, rather than give the whole picture. I think there is one piece ...

I know some people consider me a grumpy old man, and I'd be the first to confess that (having reached a certain age) grumpiness does come fairly easily to me. But for all its hazards, pitfalls and lack of cash, I love the writing life. There are few things more satisfying than seeing your book on the shelf in a shop, and thinking 'I did that.' Or getting a nice email from someone who has read one of your books and got something out of it. I even enjoy some of the more grump-generating aspects of the whole process of being an author. Many don't like proof reading, but I get a small buzz out of fine tuning the book... and by the time we reach the proofs stage I've almost forgotten what's in there, so it's a nice surprise when it's really quite readable. But there are two stages of the process I dislike. One is writing proposals. This is primarily because they are such hard work. You have to put in some research, some writing skills, all the effort invo...

It's popular to knock the music of the 70s, prog rock and similar stuff - but actually there was some superb stuff back then. So for those who want a heady trip down memory lane (or an introduction to a serious band from before you were born that is worth listening to), I would like to occasionally revisit some of my favourites. One of my more obscure loves was Curved Air . This was anything but your usual lineup. The main features were a surprisingly good violinist (Darryl Way), a great keyboard player (Francis Monkman) and an unusual female vocalist in Sonja Kristina. (Oh and a guitarist and a drummer.) They are probably best known for the cod baroque/rock piece Vivaldi on their first album Airconditioning , but it was their downright strange and mind bending sound on many of their other tracks that makes them unique. Personally I'd go for the second album (inventively called Second Album ) for the very best of Curved Air. Here's their bestselling hit from that albu...

Many moons ago, when the world was young and children nonexistent, we had a family outing to Washington D.C. to stay with friends who were living there. I can promise we did not set out to offend, yet looking back, in just two days we managed to get in trouble with military police, risked seriously offending the locals... and committed what surely is an offence with a kite. The military police episode verges on the farcical. We were driving to Arlington Cemetery and took the wrong turn, driving into the military base next door. So sure was our host of his navigation that we swept past the security gates without a second look (no doubt these days we would have been shot). But having found out we were in the wrong place, on the way out we stopped by military police with big guns, asking what we were doing and how we got there. They couldn't understand how we had got in without being questioned, but eventually took pity on us as foreigners. As for being offensive, we later visited...

Here's something completely different if you're anywhere near Birmingham (UK) and have an interest in science and/or fiction. As part of the British Science Association's Festival, we're holding an Open Mic event where you can come and read your science-inspired stories and poems. It's free, and there are great prizes including a Focus magazine subscription and champagne. The judges are me (a popular science writer), Tania Hershman (who writes science-inspired short fiction) and Sue Guiney (who writes science-inspired novels and poetry). What's with this 'science inspired'? It can be science fiction, straight fiction that happens to have a science setting, like Lab Lit, or fiction and poetry that started with inspiration from science. It'd be great to see you. The event is on Wednesday 15 September at 7pm in the Old Joint Stock Function Room. That's location 14 on this map , and you can find more about the festival here . Go on......

A manuscript (which Blogger refuses to insert the rightway round) I have just finished a book. I don't mean the one I'm reading, that's not a huge step forward for writerkind. I mean the one I'm writing. In a way there's a sense of anti-climax. It's not like I just wrote the last word, typed THE END and sent it off. I finished writing it over a month ago, and since then have been editing and editing to make sure it reads well. What I've just done is my last pass through it... but even so, there's a sense of satisfaction. Satisfaction tinged with dread. Because now I'm waiting for my editor's verdict. It has always been positive. Every book needs a few tweaks, but usually the feedback is good. Even so, like many authors, I suspect every time I send in a manuscript that I am going to be found out, and it will come back with a big red REJECTED stamp on the cover. (At least, on the virtual cover. These days submitting a manuscript is just a m...

I tread carefully here, for I am about to suggest that young people are sometimes naughty. As I got berated for daring to say that yoof aren't necessarily as caring and sharing about the environment as the media tells us, I prepare myself for a hail of insults. But I ought to stress that I'm talking pre-teens here. When I was young, the playground was in some ways a more dangerous place than today. Thinking back to the play equipment on the recreation ground that was wonderfully sited in a field that ajoined my garden when I was 0-11 (it has now been built over with houses - bad move, Rochdale Council), most of the apparatus would now be condemned as too dangerous to play on. There was one piece of equipment that was actually removed as such while I was there - a long bar with seats on, suspended from above at both ends, so it rocked back and forth. The trouble with this was that the ends of the bar were roughly at head height, and it had a huge amount of momentum once goi...

Most people I know are either cat people or dog people. There's the odd exception like the venerable Doctor Gee who seems equally fond of both (though I think he favours Heidi), but most have a preference, often strong. This view is more than reflected in the animals themselves. Let's face it, dogs don't like cats, and cats don't like dogs. In a big way. So this gives me a distinct dilemma when I take Goldie for a walk. We are strolling along, Goldie on the lead, and a cat hoves into view. Immediately she tries to run after it, making whining noises. 'That cat,' thinks Goldie, 'should not be here. And it's my business to make sure it isn't for long.' Now I have two options at this point. I can pull here away with the mildly offensive sounding command 'Leave it!' (Not really anti-cat, it's just the standard 'leave something alone' command.) Or I can give her a bit of free rein, let her chase towards the cat, which runs a...

A string of somewhat trollish comments in my previous post criticizing opera reminds me that music can raise strong emotions. One emotion that music rarely does well is humour. Generally musicians tend to the twee or downright painful when trying to be funny. Which is why I want to make sure no one forgets P. D. Q. Bach , the last and least of the children of the great J. S. I don't think I give too many secrets away in saying that P. D. Q. is the invention of Peter Schickele, self-styled professor at the University of Southern North Dakota, Hoople. Schickele has put on a number of concerts and produced a range of recordings over the years celebrating P.D.Q.'s fictional musical output, which strays through many musical styles. Sometimes he can write a piece of some length and complexity without a single original musical theme in it, wonderfully stealing from left, right and centre. At other times he sets a piece for unlikely combinations of instruments like his Pervertimento...

In the last few months I've read not one, but two biographies of the remarkable early late 19th/early 20th century engineer Nikola Tesla: Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney and Wizard by Mark J. Seifer. Although there is no doubt about some of his achievements, Tesla has a reputation of being a man of mystery, and has been taken up by New Agers for his dramatic claims to be able to broadcast power around the world, produce beam weapons and contact aliens. I hoped that these biographies would help me separate the wheat from the chaff in Tesla's attainments, but in both cases I had to apply a lot of selection to what I read, because the authors both seem to hero-worship Tesla and take as gospel most of his scientific ideas that might politely be described as unlikely (or accurately as downright weird). If you haven't heard of Tesla, be assured he wasn't just a crackpot. One of the SI units is named after him - and for a good reason. He was a superb engineer an...

Yes, it's another element that no one has got round to giving a name to (other than 'ununquadium' - just 'one-one-four-ium) - but I've just covered it in my latest podcast. Is this just something for chemical trainspotters, who can tick it off in their little 'I made it' book? Or something more significant? Find out the truth about element 114 in my latest addition to the Royal Society of Chemistry 's series of podcasts Chemistry in its Element .   Take a listen , or select ununquadium from the list of my element podcasts below:                                             Powered by Podbean.com                

There are times when it’s good to read something completely different. It clears out the mental pipes. And it’s hard to imagine anything further from my usual diet of non-fiction with the occasional murder mystery or science fiction novel than Dance Your Way to Psychic Sex . It’s certainly a title that grabs the attention – and it gives a focus that won’t be lost throughout the book. This is the kind of read where you just want to go on and take in a little bit more of the strange and wonderful revelations. Set largely in Hebden Bridge, a small town in West Yorkshire, this is anything but a Hovis commercial book. The characters are much more metropolitan than rural tyke. Although surrounded by other quirky individuals, at the heart of the story are two damaged characters, Henrietta and Leo. She has OCD, is a single mother and is escaping from a bad experience in a cult to find some kind of peace and stability in an everday working life. He is a magician, specializing in mind tricks...

As I think I've mentioned before, I think, one of the stranger websites I run is a sort of karaoke hymns site . The idea is that there are decreasingly few organists out there, so this site provides CDs of an top flight organist playing the accompaniments to hymns (also some excellent solo voluntaries), which can be used to sing along to. It's not as good as the real thing, but it's better than not having an accompaniment, and they are quite popular. There are just three tracks that aren't keyboard music. This is because we have a Remembrance CD , which apart from appropriate hymn accompaniments includes various national anthems plus the Last Post and Reveille on trumpet. These two tracks feature frequently in remembrance services and military events. The third track, though is something particularly special. This is our very own postmodernist track. It's 1 minute 52 seconds of silence. No, really, a CD track (also available as MP3) that is just silence. However...

A while ago I had a slightly surreal discussion with a radio presenter and the boss of the UK Space Agency. Us two science types were trying to educate said presenter in one or two basics of solar system science. At one point I asked the presenter a simple question. If you were looking at the full moon and held a coin out at arms length, which coin would be roughly similar in size to the apparent size of the moon? What would you answer? The most popular answers are 2p and 10p. Some opt for 5p. In fact it's a bit of a trick question. There are no coins small enough to be the same apparent size as the moon when held at arm's length. The nearest approximation is a hole punch hole. If you hold a piece of punched paper out at arms length, that little hole is about the same size as the moon appears to be. This explains why photographs of the moon are so disappointing unless you apply a serious zoom. The photo here is a hurried snap taken on my phone because you don't often ...