The use of statistics (and numbers in general) in news reporting is often a cause of concern. Sometimes, you really wonder if there is anyone with a brain involved in the process that goes from observing a piece of news, through writing the script to presenting it. This comes through particularly strongly when numbers that make the eyebrows raise are thrown about with no thought and no comment. This morning, I heard on Newsbeat on BBC Radio 1 (don't ask) that it has been estimated that there are around 2 million potholes on Britain's roads, and that it will cost over 10 billion pounds to fix this. Story done - on to some bit of pop trivia. But just a minute. Didn't anyone even think to do some basic sums here? If 2 million potholes cost £10 billion to fix, that's £5,000 a pothole. Now, okay, some will be expensive because of the difficulties closing lanes on a motorway or whatever. But the vast majority seem to involve half an hour with a couple of fat blokes and a ...

Because of a certain book (don't worry, I'm not going to mention Inflight Science . The fact that it is now available on Kindle, or that it had a wonderful review by Alain de Botton in the Mail on Sunday will not be mentioned... damn) air flight is in my mind at the moment, so I feel it would be useful to share a couple of videos for passengers produced by Air New Zealand. There's a real problem getting people to pay attention to the safety briefing. So what did ANZ dream up? How about naked cabin crew doing the briefing? Okay, they've got body paint, but still... Now that's quite subtle. You might not even notice they're naked. So undeterred, our friendly kiwis decided to drop subtle and go for the tasteless zone: Ah, who said the age of sophistication in the air is dead? T hanks to The Register for pointing out these videos.

A genius in captivity The whole concept of genius is a very arbitrary one, something that struck me very strongly while reading Genius - a very short introduction for review. Part of the problem seems to be that the same label is applied to (say) the arts and the sciences, yet the criteria are very different. To be a genius in the arts seems based on public acclaim and on the need for that acclaim to last - yet it is ultimately purely subjective. The author of the book clearly thought, for example, that Virginia Woolf was a genius - something I found totally mind-boggling. Genius in art is ultimately a matter of fashion. In science there are very different criteria. If artistic criteria were applied, you would probably label Stephen Hawking a genius, yet most of his colleagues would simply see him as a very good scientist. However, when you find a real scientific genius like Newton, Einstein or Feynman it's very hard for anyone to argue because it's not such a subjectiv...

With 10 day to go to the publication date on my new book, Inflight Science , it has been a rather interesting weekend. It all kicked off with a very large review in Saturday's Times , naming it 'book of the week' ( Times subscribers can read the review here .) I've always had the opinion that reviews are great for making a book visible (and for providing nice quotes for subsequent editions), but don't necessarily get copies moving off the bookshelves. Out of curiousity I recently monitored the sales (well, the Amazon ranking) of Angela Saini's excellent Geek Nation . The reason I did this was because the book was getting a lot of media coverage - significantly more than a typical popular science book - and I was interested to see how this impacted on sales. Large (and very positive) articles in serious newspapers seemed to only make small blips in sales, where an appearance on Radio Four's Start the Week really pushed the book up the rankings to the upp...

I have been a fan for a long time now of Ross Horsley's My First Dictionary . The concept is simple but wonderfully subversive. Horsley, a librarian, takes images from an old children's dictionary and gives them a whole new piece of text that is twisted and darkly funny. These sometimes disturbing (but always entertaining) images have been appearing for some time on Horsley's website - do take a look. I recommend either using the alphabetical listing down the side or starting with some of the older ones, as some of the best are in the early contributions. However, for those who prefer to savour their reading on paper, there is now a book version, which I found even better to peruse than the website. Highly recommended if you aren't easily shocked and like dark humour. It's perhaps a badge of honour that at least one US bookshop has had requests from a couple of customers to have it removed from the shelves. It's that good. You can see more about the boo...

I am appalled, if not surprised, by the reporting of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan. I ought to begin by saying that I'm not playing down the significance of the incident (although it is tiny in comparison with the impact of the earthquake and Tsunami on the country). It was a serious event, and it shows that this kind of reactor, which doesn't self-damp when left to its own resources like modern reactors, should be phased out as quickly as possibly and should never have been used in an earthquake zone. However, what really gets to me is the way radiation itself is reported. We are told that radiation levels somewhere have increased - but how much? And what does that increase mean in context? The reason these questions are so important is that exposure to radiation is a perfectly normal part of everyday life. It's bad for you, it's true - but lots of natural things are. Even if you sat in a box that totally isolated you from every drop ...

A couple of days ago I watched M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening for the first time. In a sense it was a reasonably good film. I can say this because I said I'd watch the first 10 minutes then go to bed, and stayed up for the whole thing. However it was extremely flawed, not just in the hokey main premise, but in the creaking ending that could have been seen coming a mile away. How far this is from Night's (as I like to think of him) masterpiece. What I hadn't realized until I looked him up on IMDB was that he was also responsible for the truly awful Last Airbender - this is a man on a serious downhill curve. But surely he can do better again. I challenge anyone who has seen The Sixth Sense to argue that this isn't a brilliant movie. (If you haven't seen it, get hold of it this week. But don't let anyone tell you what happens first.) This has one of the most cleverly crafted structures, building to a stunning reveal I've ever seen in a film. Howev...

One of the best bits in the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the moment when then starship Heart of Gold, powered by the infinite improbability guide, arrives at a planet. Because of the residual improbability, a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias are created hanging in space to plummet to the surface below. The sperm whale excitedly and optimistically names the phenomena it is experiencing until it goes splat. But the bowl of petunias simply thinks 'Oh no, not again.' That is sheer genius, and a comfort when I think 'Oh no, not again,' as I did when I saw a headline from the online BBC News that read Physics threat to religion . Here we go a Dawkins-ing, I thought. But what a strange headline. Physics threat to religion. Is a fundamental force going to break religion apart? Is the sheer existence of quantum theory too mind boggling for God, who has given up and gone home? When I read the article I was more than a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a good Da...

I like cars. I even like Top Gear . I'm sorry, I know it's not green or politically correct, but I do. Not in an obsessive, knowing the difference between a Ferrari AK47 and a Maserati B52 sense. But I'm rather fond of cars and play the 'what I'd buy if money were no object game' with the best of them. But sadly I've had to add another marque to the list of cars I wouldn't touch with the proverbial barge pole. I'm not going to bore you by going through the whole list, but you know the kind of thing. I would never, for example, by a BMW because of... well, the kind of people who buy BMWs. (Except you, of course, if you have a BMW. You are clearly an exception because you read this blog. But think about buying something else next time, okay?) Up until recently I rather liked Audis. Okay, they're just tarted up VWs, but they are often very nice tarted up VWs. Unfortunately they then came out with their new lights. I'm sorry, I can't take...

Mark 1 cover  The advance copies of my new book Inflight Science have arrived - expect one or two references to it as we build up to it going out to the world on 7 April. Despite this being book number 36, I confess that the excitement of holding a new book in your hands doesn't go away, and I've got big hopes for this one. It certainly has one of the best covers I've had, which has undergone an interesting tweak. The original version of the cover was all drawn, while the new version incorporates photographic material as well. When I heard this was being done I was a bit dubious, but in fact I hope you'll agree that it somehow makes it crisper and more attention grabbing - it certainly looks great on the finished book, with the red lettering embossed on the surface. Final cover I had the rare opportunity to yesterday to get some unbiassed and pontentially highly critical opinion on it. I was doing a talk at the Piggott School in Wargrave. (One of two talks ...

Okay, someone in Sheffield has kindly produced the poster than I clearly have waited my whole life for. I don't quite understand all of it, as it shows some politician or other, so I have cut that part off. But even so, the message is clear from the text part. So be clear next time you invite me to come and give a talk. There is risk. But isn't it worth it?

A country house in need of rescue I was watching the quite entertaining Country House Rescue the other night, where bossy hotel and events expert Ruth Watson goes and tries to persuade mildly bonkers country house owners to become more commercial if they want to stop their properties falling around their ears. So far so good - and I particularly love the derivative background music, which has influences both from the computer game Seventh Guest and from the Harry Potter movies. However, I have two problems with the content of the programme. One of these applies to almost any of this kind of output. They appear to be made for people with an attention span of 10 minutes. Every time there's a commercial break there has to be a recap when we come back. We were just watching it, guys! We can remember what happened 2 minutes ago. What's more, many of us are watching it on DVRs and have whizzed through the adverts, so in practice, we only have to remember what we heard 15 s...

On Friday I took part in that leading internet literary radio show, Litopia After Dark . One of the other panelists was Simon Flynn, MD of the excellent Icon Books (I have to say this, as they're publishing my next book - but I would have said it anyway, honest). In the show format, each panelist has to have some subject to witter on about, and I found Simon's topic absolutely fascinating. The more I thought about it, the more remarkable it seemed. What he was suggesting was there may well come a time when an ebook platform like the Kindle or the iPad provided the same service for books as the Spotify subscription service does for music. If you are not familiar with Spotify, it's simple but impressive. You pay a subscription per month (£9.99 in the UK), and for that you get all the music you want to listen to. You don't buy the music, you just consume it as part of your subscription. (There is also a free version, but this has ads and you can't use it on mobile...

Discovering just how late my train is (taken before the piece was written) Just occasionally I find an iPhone app that's so good I want to bleat on about it. I recently highlighted Evernote , of which I am growing increasingly fond. I'm writing this on a train to Cardiff (we've just arrived at Bristol Parkway if you're interested), yet when I get home it will be waiting for me on my desktop PC, without my doing anything, ready to copy straight into my blog. But the app I want to rave about a little is the UK railway timetable app shown here (I know, not much use if you are in New York, but hey). It's one of the few apps I've paid for and I don't resent a penny. Of course it does the obvious things like looking up train times, but there's so much more. I can check departure boards at any station. I can choose one of those trains and see just how it's progressing. I can even ask for the next  train home from 'here' with a single touch....

What, another exciting Royal Society of Chemistry podcast? Be still your beating heart as I contemplate the wonders of silicon dioxide, from sandy shores to concrete, from beautiful glass to quartz crystal timers. You know you want to listen. Go on. Take a listen!

As I've indicated previously , I am not averse to a cooked breakfast. In fact I'd go as far as to say it's one of my favourite meals. When all else fails I have even been known to resort to one of those breakfast-in-a-bun things, though they are second best. (if you must have one, I'd highly recommend the Marks and Spencer Cafe 'all day breakfast ciabatta'. It's small and overpriced, but very tasty. Even better with a touch of brown sauce.) Alongside the usual plate of goodies I like to see a piece of toast. And this is where things go wrong at many of the supermarket style eateries and some hotels, where all the breakfast components are laid out in a buffet. The better establishments prepare toast to order, but lesser places make toast ahead of time and leave it under an infra-red lamp. Result: it's limp and nowhere near hot enough. The essentials with toast are that you can hold a piece in your hand by the edge without it flopping about, and that it ...

 I have been lucky enough to have some wonderful reviews, but let's face it, however brilliant your book you may also get some painful ones. For example, Catch 22 is some people's favourite novel, yet I detest it and would produce a blistering review were I to be writing it up. So what shouldn't you do when you get a stinker? Don't take it to heart - I know this easier said than done, but bear in mind a review is a personal opinion, not fact. You can revel in the fact that not many people read reviews any more. Then you can play the 'out of context' game. Find some snippets of the review you can use in a positive way on your website. So, for instance, if it says: 'Absolute rubbish. This is a brilliant novel compared with a heap of used toilet paper, but nothing else.' put 'a brilliant novel...' on your website. That'll teach the reviewer. Don't email the reviewer - unless it's an online review containing a factual error that ca...

Albert's the one on the right It has been 106 years since Albert Einstein came up with his formulation of special relativity and his early contributions to quantum theory. Yet for everyone but career physicists, relativity and quantum theory remain fresh and exciting. This feels like modern science. It is 111 years since Schoenberg wrote Verklärte Nacht, yet this piece of music is still fresh, and to many quite challenging in its approach. This feels like modern serious music. Yet if you look at novels from this period, they seem very old fashioned indeed. And most people, frankly, would find the vast majority of them dull. There is certainly no way you can really represent a novel from the 1890s as feeling like a modern novel. One way to look at this is to say that the novel form has developed a lot more since that time than science or music. But my suspicion is that it shows that literature (as opposed to story telling) is a lot more ephemeral than these other fields. Gr...

Until recently I thought I had nothing in common with veteran politician Tony Benn (except for once being in the same building in the 1990s). But now I discover I do. We both are rather fond of Doctor Marten's shoes. They have three things going for them. They're very comfortable and hardwearing. It's no surprise that a lot of policepersons wear them to pound the beat. Secondly, they're safely dangerous. You know what I mean - like theme park rides. They give you a thrill without the real danger. For me Doc Marten's do this in part because of their period associations with naughtiness and in part because they're quirky, a bit different. Finally, they're morale boosters. You don't walk in Doc Marten's, you bounce. Not literally, but with an enlivening of the spirit. I got my first pair almost for a joke. They are classic black bovver boots, which I only bought because they were selling them off for £10. To begin with I never wore them, but then ca...

It's almost impossible to write a whole book without the odd mistake creeping in. But what really winds me up is when you have a book that isn't printed yet, but has gone past the point of no return, then find out that something you put in it (believing it to be true) is wrong. So here I am, innocently reading for review a book called What if the Earth had two Moons? when I come across a denouncement of the usual explanation of why the tides are the way they are. As an author, when you can point out a commonly held misunderstanding, it's very satisfying. So, for instance, when I was able to write in The Man Who Stopped Time that most websites and many books got it wrong in ascribing the mechanism for us seeing cinema as moving pictures to 'persistence of vision' (a Victorian concept that was just plain wrong) I felt rather smug. But here was a book denouncing the explanation I'd given for the tides in a book due out this April. My version of the tides (n...

Do our Members of Parliament get on-the-job training? I hope so. After all, these people were, until the election, doing perfectly ordinary jobs, then all of a sudden they are making decisions about foreign policy or education or science. I'm afraid it's not enough that 'common sense' prevails - because common sense is often demonstrably wrong. So what's the alternative? If there isn't already, I think there should be compulsorary training, perhaps one day a week during the parliamentary term, and full time during parliamentary recesses. (We'll allow them 25 days annual leave.) This could cover a wide range of foundation topics, but obviously anyone getting a departmental post (however junior) should have a crash course in the appropriate subject. Perhaps then if an MP tried to drum up support for (say) public funding of homeopathy, or demonstrably didn't understand the mechanisms of nuclear fusion and fission as applied to future power plants they c...

Whenever we get stories on the news about the recession, there is always stress on the need for companies to create jobs so more people can be employed. I can see why this is important - but what I don't understand is why they don't also mention the benefits of people employing themselves. I left British Airways in 1994 to set up my own creativity training company and later to get into writing . Since then I haven't been a drain on the state,  and I have been paying taxes and all those good things. But I don't employ anyone (except myself). I do work with several others, but we all have our own companies. They are resources I can call on if I need several trainers for an event (say), but I don't have all the hassle of employing people. Now I'm not getting into hyper-Tebbit mode and saying everyone should get on their bikes and work for themselves. It doesn't suit everyone - that's fine. But I do think we could do with a bit more recognition, when th...