There has been a lot on social media recently about the remarkable AI 'writer' ChatGPT . Many of my contacts are either academics or writers - and in both fields there has been concern about the ability of such AI software to interfere with their work.  As far as academics are concerned, the software arguably calls into doubt the value of the essay as means of assessing student knowledge (particularly the short exam-style essay, which some universities still allow to be submitted online). And some writers have worried that their jobs are at risk if, for example, a news outlet can get ChatGPT to knock up a story for free. My assessment is that the software is extremely impressive - but it has limitations that are likely to continue for a long time. Even with these limitations, it certainly could make inroads into student essays and poorly churned out journalism, but is unlikely to be a significant threat if some degree of insight or fact checking is required. Let's take a lo...

I enjoyed this book, but feel it has a relatively narrow audience that would have the same connection to it, hence the three star rating. Robin Ince is quite clearly addicted to buying books with an almost random enthusiasm, and this book is arguably more about that addiction than about the hundred bookstore tour he did that is the hook the book is hung on. My personal taste in books overlaps to some degree with Ince's - we both bought copies of Alan Frank's Horror Movies early in our book buying lives (sadly I don't seem to still have my copy, though I do have some equivalent titles on science fiction films, vampire movies and more). We both are likely to find, say, the Maleus Malificorum resting alongside a book on quantum physics next to an Edwardian hardback copy of Bessie Marchant's The Girl Captives on our shelves. I very much enjoyed the selection of books Ince discovers on his travels (often in charity shops as well as proper bookshops), and added a couple to...

This time of year I tend to read a much wider range of  books, so expect some random reviews. But one thing that will always feature over Christmas is a mystery - whether it's revisiting M. R. James ghost stories for the nth time, or a Christmas-themed murder mystery. This book certainly fits the bill with its deliberate reference to Agatha Christie's title, and Christmas thrown in. The setting is somewhat less exotic than the Orient Express - here it's the sleeper train from London to Fort William - but there's the same opportunity for a tight band of suspects and there's the convenience of a train that gets derailed in a snowstorm, isolating the suspects and the detective - in this case a newly retired Met detective inspector, heading up to Scotland because her daughter's about to give birth. Where this differs a lot from Christie is the impact of modern technology. So the detective, Roz Parker, is agonisingly kept up with the complications of her daughter...

Until relatively recently, I rather looked down my nose at Agatha Christie, but having now read the likes of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Five Little Pigs , I've realised there's a lot more to her writing than comes across in TV and film adaptations, so I recently picked up a copy of The Thirteen Problems from my local(ish) independent bookshop and was not disappointed. This is the very first book to feature Miss Marple, but rather than providing a single, book-length mystery, this 1932 title includes 13 short stories. The premise is that six people are gathered in a house and each tells a story of a mysterious happening in their past, challenging the others to solve the mystery. The guests somewhat reluctantly include the initial host's elderly aunt Miss Marple, who ends up solving every mystery. (This is then repeated at a dinner party, plus an individual consultation, to make up the total of thirteen.) What I found fascinating as a big Sherlock Holmes fan was that, ...

Image from Unsplash I gather from the i  newspaper (3 December) that music business millionaires are bemoaning their inability to have their Christmas songs thought of as classics by the public. Tom Chaplin of Keane is quoted as saying 'Getting a song in the [Christmas streaming] chart is like breaking into Fort Knox'.  I accept that streaming has made it more difficult to get your Christmas song into the canon - but, honestly, my suspicion is that the majority of songs on offer simply aren't good enough to make it. Once you get compared with the best of all time, it inevitably becomes a lot harder than it is if you are only being put up against the best from this year's crop. It's a bit like a serious music composer complaining that Monteverdi, Mozart or Vaughan Williams still get a look in. But is that really a bad thing? The fact is that songs do get added to the best of the bunch if they really stand out as far as the particularly odd calculation of what makes a...

Image from Unsplash I'm a big fan of the podcast Cautionary Tales by 'undercover economist' Tim Harford . In one episode, Tim tells us that his daughter prefers Halloween to Christmas because Halloween is more about community coming together, while Christmas is just for the family. This made me feel rather sad, but the good news for Tim's daughter is that this doesn't have to be the case. If Tim's family would like to go to a carol service - or a carol singing event - they'll get plenty of that community feel. Of course, Tim and family may well be amongst the majority of Brits, according to the latest census results, who aren't Christians. And that's fine. If they were on holiday in an exotic location, they wouldn't avoid the local culture because they don't share the locals' beliefs. Similarly, it's entirely possible to enjoy the atmosphere and community spirit of a carol service without having any belief. And singing those tunes th...