This is one for the real SF nerds. It's a collection of articles, framed around reviews but giving more opinion on what makes a good science fiction story than would be common in a review, written by James Blish in the late 50s and early 60s. Fairly obscure stuff, admittedly - I've only heard of about 10 per cent of the stories and half the authors mentioned - but it is still interesting both from the insights Blish (writing as William Atheling Jr.) gives and from the sheer vitriol he pours on stories he doesn't like, even from revered names such as Asimov and Bradbury. Part of the usefulness to would-be writers of science fiction is that Blish underlines some of the pitfalls they face, whether they be basic writing errors (he tears into a couple of newish authors for the wild variety of alternatives to 'said' they use in reporting dialogue, a classic beginner's mistake) or problems that are specific to the SF genre. The only one of Blish's complaints I woul...

We've just had the latest report for the government to ignore on the National Food Strategy. You can see the BBC coverage of it here .  I absolutely agree with finding ways to encourage people to eat healthier food, and I have no particular aversion to taxing sugar and salt in manufactured food. Don't get me wrong. I love the occasional burger and chocolate biscuit and suchlike. But I'm all in favour of keeping the junk in moderation, and clearly a lot of people need help with that. So it's not a case of disagreeing with the report or its findings. But I do think they have been guilty of misuse of statistics in presenting their results. I had a look at the review's report (176 pages in the 'evidence' part alone, though it's not quite as scary as it sounds as each page is essentially a slide, often with graphics). The evidence is divided into two main sections: nature and climate, and health. My issue is with something in the health section, though I do ...