At tract ive? In 14 years at our previous house, thanks to its relative isolation, we never got Jehovah's Witnesses at the door once. Now, in a more cosmopolitan area, we get them regularly. In my head, beforehand, I am happy to engage them and challenge them on their own level - but somehow when they turn up I crumble. So there was that jolly smily person with the neat opening line: 'Do you ever think about the Lord's Prayer?' And all I could do was mutter (after a bit of a pause) 'I'm afraid I'm at work.' So, with their usual politeness and lack of pushiness, they gave me a tract and left. In fact the one occasion when I've desperately wanted to invite Jehovah's Witnesses in (for the only time in history it was two incredibly attractive women), I was at home ill with flu and had to send them away. Usually the tract goes straight in the bin, with the usual observation about look and feel. I don't know why it is, but material like...

Before getting into popular science books I wrote a number of business books on being more creative in business. Not how to paint a nice business-related picture, but how to generate ideas and solve problems in a business context. My book of creativity techniques, Instant Creativity , written with Paul Birch is still a steady seller and I thought it would be entertaining to give you a little technique from it to try out. You can do this individually or in a group. Pop over to an 'on this day' website - if you don't know one, try the BBC's or this rather encyclopedic site . Pick out two or three entries that appeal because they are bizarre, exciting or just make you think of something. Typically the dates in such lists represent an event in history, or the birth or death of a person. Imagine yourself present at the event, or being that person. How would you look at the problem? What would you do about it? What different perspectives would you get from being at the e...

I admire the work James Randi does in debunking fake mentalists and demonstrating how easy it is for trained magicians to pull off the same stunts, though I do find that his in-your-face words can have something of a Dawkins effect - they can put people off by being insulting. I've recently read his old but still entertaining book, Flim Flam (tip - the Kindle version is a lot cheaper than paper equivalents). It is an effective dismemberment of various claims to supernatural and paranormal abilities and events. It might seem at first sight he over-analyzes some cases. For example he spends page after page on the detail of the Conan Doyle fairy photos. This might appear unnecessary, because those pictures are so obviously fakes - the images of the fairies are quite clearly paper cutouts. Yet Randi usefully examines the different ways those who were apparently taken in by these crude fakes supported their beliefs and ignored the obvious. However, I do notice one thing. Randi is u...

I was listening the other today to someone from the Royal Mail moaning about competing services cherry picking and doing the lucrative postal deliveries inside London, while the poor old Royal Mail had to do all the difficult expensive stuff. And this had to be the case because of the need for a universal post, which 'everyone agrees' is essential. Well, I don't think everyone does agree. I, for one, don't think it is essential. Think about it. Would you expect to pay the same price for a bus into town and to get to Edinburgh? Hardly. Why should mail be any different? We understand we need to pay more to send a letter to, say, Hong Kong - why shouldn't it cost more to send it somewhere far distant and expensive to reach in the British Isles. Yes, you might say, but what about the poor people who live at the furthest reaches of the UK? What indeed? They have every right to live there. But I'm not sure they have a right to expect me to subsidise their pos...

Stonehenge when I first visited and you weren't kept out Every now and then there is a scheme to send the A303, the main road that passes Stonehenge, through a cutting or a tunnel. The idea is that it means those visiting this stunning ancient monument don't have to see traffic rumbling past. However, I think this suggestion gets things totally back to front. First of all, it's silly to think that somehow you would be able to lose yourself in neolithic times if only the road were hidden. That might have been the case in my youth, when you could wander around the stones to your hearts content. But now you are kept a good distance away by a fence (unless you have some ridiculous druidical religious belief (largely made up in a pub in London in Victorian times - I've seen the plaque), in which case you can trample all over the ancient monument that has nothing to do with your 'religion'). This forces a visit to Stonehenge to be a 21st century experience, so ...

Brympton House, location of the festival - gorgeous building I spent Sunday at the Brympton Festival near Yeovil. It was an interesting experience. This was the first attempt at this festival and inevitably the organizers were on a bit of a learning curve. It was a lovely venue and a very warm and friendly experience (the festival is still running until Thursday with some excellent speakers to come, so do get along if you can). And, unusually for such events, there was brilliant food. But the organisation was a bit mixed - part of the problem being, I think that the programme was too complicated and also because day ticket holders don't seem to have had to pre-book events, meaning the organisers had no idea who would turn up at any particular talk. Numbers were quite low overall, and I did wonder just how many literary festivals the UK can support - I would say this one deserves to keep going more than a fair number of festivals that I have attended, but there has to be a po...

I have never subscribed to the adage 'treat them mean, keep them keen.' The suggestion that this is a good way to deal with a member of the opposite sex, presumably because they will take you for granted otherwise, has always seemed to me to be fine if you are effortlessly attractive, but not necessarily helpful for ordinary mortals. I am fascinated to discover, though, that this approach extends beyond humans, and indeed living creatures, to companies. The example that has brought it to mind is Apple. There is no doubt that Apple is a marmite company - one that you either love or hate. If you hate them they are the kings of style over substance, peddling overpriced technology that doesn't do anything more than the cheaper stuff, but that has a strange hold over the media, and that is particularly good at product placement (just take a look at an episode of Neighbours and you'd be convinced there is no other make of computer). If you love them, they are the ultimate i...

Once upon a time you knew, on the whole, that if a book had been published (unless it was written by a celebrity) that it would be of a certain quality, because the whole of the publisher's might from copy editing to proof reading had been applied to it. Of course there were always the products of vanity publishing, but you ignored those by the plague. Now, though, there is a middle ground - the self-published book. Because it is so easy to pop something onto Kindle (say), these are appearing in large quantities. So what to do? Ignore the self-published books, stick a toe carefully into the water, or plunge in neck-deep? I certainly wouldn't totally ignore self-published books. Think of the parallel with jams. I could always buy Bon Maman, and be sure I was getting the same high standards all the time. But equally I could pick up something at a farmer's market, lovingly crafted that may well taste much better. Or could have gone off. Or could have a dead mouse in it. Th...

When I wrote The Universe Inside You I wanted to include a series of experiments to try out as I had done in Inflight Science . The difference was that many of these experiments were going to involve using your body as a lab, with quite a few using the brain. It seemed the best thing to do would be to put together a website with those experiments that aren't so easy to do on the kitchen worktop, as opposed to (say) dropping antacid tablets in vinegar or extracting DNA (both in the book). And while I was at it, I could provide a more detailed 'further reading' section with links to other books, as a good few people had suggested that Inflight Science should have had suggestions for finding out more. The outcome was www.universeinsideyou.com - I originally intended this purely as an adjunct to the book, but I've showed it to a sample of people who assure me it is quite interesting in its own right, so on their recommendation it's worth taking a look even if you...

When I give talks on the universe I often get questions about black holes. Everyone loves a black hole. They are the movie stars of the cosmos with a whole mythology of their own, which is pretty amazing when you consider that they are basically theoretical concepts that have never been directly detected (although we have good reason to believe they're out there). Here's a quick black hole primer, if you haven't quite got the hang of them: Although quantum physics is mostly about the very small, there are some hypothetical large scale quantum objects. Perhaps the best know is the universe at the point of the Big Bang - but it is pretty much rivalled by the black hole. In a crude form, black holes were dreamed up in the 1700s when British astronomer John Michell imagined the way escape velocity - the velocity needed to get away from a planet - getting bigger and bigger as the planet got more massive. With a heavy enough star, Michell realized, the escape velocity would...

There seems to be a trend towards the use of infographics in blogs. I think what has happened is that people realize that us bloggers are lazy types, and if someone gives you a pretty graphic to use for free, then they are happy to do so. The blogger gets a nice look, while the graphic owner gets a little push. Those nice people at Icon Books have produced one for The Universe Inside You . Not only am I going to share this with you, but if anyone wants to reproduce it, they are very free to do so. I just ask that you link from the post either to the book's page on my website or the book's own website . Here it is in all its glory (if it doesn't fit on your screen, click on it to see a suitable sized image):

Eeh, by eck, it's t't mill. Beam's gone skew on t't treadle! Many years ago, while still at BA, I had the misfortune to cross the Atlantic sat between two large ladies. They were GI brides who had decamped from Newcastle to Texas in the 1940s and were now returning to the States after a nostalgic visit to the North-east of England. The worst thing about sitting between them is that they talked across me for the entire flight. I tried to swap seats with either of them without avail. They seemed to find it amusing. The one slight consolation for being in this trap was listening to their accents. Although they had been in Texas for a good 40 years, there was still a strong Geordie twang amongst the American drawl. It was an unusual mix, to say the least. The reason I bring this up is that I sometimes get asked about my accent, and I think people get the question the wrong way round. As I've mentioned before, I come from Rochdale , in the North-west of England....

 One of the great rites of passage of childhood was the loss of innocence provided by the waterproof watch.  Back in the 1960s there was much less care with the meaning of such terms and many a proud owner of a 'waterproof' watch emerged from a first venture into the sea or swimming pool to discover that their prize possession was full of water. I can still remember that feeling of horror. Now there are much tighter restrictions over the use of the term 'waterproof.' That’s not a bad thing - but it brings up the confusing distinction between devices that are waterproof and those that are water repellent. There can be no doubt that with mobile phones and other portable electronics playing an ever more important role in our lives, we want to prevent our gadgets from being damaged by water. You only have to see the contortions of someone using a phone outside in the rain while trying to keep it dry to see the importance of this. But what protection do the two categories ...

As a writer of non-fiction I can't help but harbour a little chip on my shoulder. Real writers, it seems, do fiction. This must be true - look at how many more prizes there are for fiction writers than non-fiction. What's more, compare the amount of publicity the big fiction prizes get against the handful of non-fiction, not to mention the fawning coverage from presenters in the media. Let's face it, non-fiction writers are second class citizes of the literary world. So (even though the above is highly tongue in cheek - because I don't agree with the people who set up these prizes, and the literati in general) I'm rather pleased to say that my first piece of real paid-for fiction has been published. It's in the Communications of the ACM, and I'm rather proud of it. Unfortunately as this is paid-for journal, unless you are a member, you can't look at it apart from the abstract (yes, it's a short story with an abstract. This is a journal, after ...

My actual email inbox a few seconds ago Anyone looking at my desk would realize in an instant that I don't suffer from OCD. You can't tell if the pens are all neatly arranged parallel to each other, because you can't see the surface of the desk. But there is one aspect of my business life where I am compulsively tidy, and that's my email inbox. I really can't understand people who moan that they didn't see an email because they have about 3000 items in their inbox. Having an empty inbox is painless and very effective. It doesn't mean you have to check your emails every ten minutes. Just that whenever you do, you empty it. Completely. I use a kind of triage system. Junk gets binned straight away (that's 90 percent gone). Anything that needs a reply, and that I can reply to immediately, I do there and then. (Not got time? Don't look at your emails. Do it when you've got a few minutes.) Anything that needs action but that I can't deal w...

I am confused by bank holidays. I think, in part, it's because I spent 17 years working for British Airways. An airline really has to ignore bank holidays. You can hardly bring all your planes down around the world every time a country has a public day off work. You can just imagine the announcement over the PA. 'Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I'm afraid a bank holiday has now started in Surrey, where I live, so I will be making an emergency landing on the island of Bdong. I'm afraid I can't possibly work on a bank holiday.' What I find bizarre is that outside the airline world, it often seems to be the most important organizations that down tools, while others that are less essential on a day-to-day basis carry on regardless. Today, if you hadn't guessed, is a public holiday in the UK, as it is in many countries. This means I can't: Go to my doctor's surgery (sorry, you can't be ill on a bank holiday) Go in a bank (we...

It's out! It has rather crept out in dribs and drabs - but today is the official publication date of my new book, The Universe Inside You . We start with looking at your body in the mirror. Usually you might think 'I need to lose a few pounds.' But that's not the point. Really look. What you see in front of you is one of the most amazing things in the universe. I wanted to start from your body and use that to explore science, both the direct science of what is in there and everything that contributes to making that body you. So we explore the brain - using optical illusions amongst a whole range of experiments, and all the unexpected science in your body, like the amazing zoo of bacteria - you have 10 times as many bacterial cells as human in there. But also we get a chance to see how the science of the universe impinges on your body. We see how light from the Andromeda galaxy 2.5 million light years away stimulates your eyes. Those photons of light have been on ...

When I run business creativity training sessions the participants often come up with great product ideas, which I encourage them to go and do something with. I came up with an invention the other morning which I am giving to the world - feel free to go out and make your fortune with this. After my stint at the Edinburgh Science Festival I was having breakfast at the hotel before heading off through the snow, rain and howling winds (come on, it was Scotland) to get to the train. It was a good breakfast, though it did suffer from some of the food snobbery issues I have highlighted previously (they did allow me brown sauce, though). But here's the thing. The toast, as it almost always is in such circumstances, didn't live up to the rest of the meal. They brought a basket of toast, which then sat on the table through the meal. The trouble is, you need to butter toast when it is piping hot. It's only then that the butter sinks invitingly into the bread. Leave it to cool f...

Yesterday morning I set off from Swindon station at silly-o-clock to head up to Edinburgh to take part in the excellent science festival. My venue was to be the splendidly named Scottish Storytelling Centre, and my topic Build Your Own Time Machine . I'll admit it was a long journey, but one I would much rather do by train than any other way - I got loads of work done on the journey, and everything ran smoothly (we even arrived early), though I was a little confused by the new Kings Cross. After a spot of recuperation at the splendid Hotel du Vin (accommodation provided by the festival) - even if I was slightly unnerved to be put up in a former asylum - I headed off for the venue. I think it's fair to say it was a brilliant talk. That sounds even more big headed than you might expect from me, but what I mean is it was a capacity crowd, they were a wonderful audience and the Q&A at the end was one of the best I've ever had, with great questions, some decidedly insi...

I'm currently reading the popular-despite-not-being-released-in-the-UK-yet Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer (any relation to the great Tom ? We ought to know). As someone who has helped people with creativity for over 15 years it is really interesting to see the approaches that have been pragmatically adopted for so long get some scientific basis with brain studies to support what those practising in the field have known for a long time. However, Mr Lehrer does make one big error (admittedly following an academic who did the same thing). He isn't very impressed with Alex Osborn's method of brainstorming as a way of generating ideas. But the thing he totally misses, as so many do, is that Alex Osborn didn't devise brainstorming as a method for coming up with new ideas. It was simply a way of collecting ideas that ensured they weren't evaluated too soon and shot down before they could be thought about a little more and developed. What Osborn always...