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...