Two remarks at the outset of the year 5 AB (After Bush):
The first is that the number of writers in the world is now outstripping the number of readers, a trend exarcebated but nor created by bloggers). We will soon be reaching the stage when writers will have to pay readers to consent to read their outpourings. Would you, for example, be willing to pay to read the foregoing? I certainly wouldn't.

The second point, vaguely related to the first, is that for a supposedly hard-boiled and cynical generation, instantly suspicious of any public utterance, we get down on bended knee as soon as a FIGURE is mentioned. Take the previous paragraph: in the unlikely event that anyone has actually read what I stated, they will no doubt take it in the light-hearted spirit in which it was written. But if I were to say that there were 15,230,189 registered bloggers in the USA and that a survey showed that 12,500,000 persons read other people's blogs, you would immediately stand to attention. This is a FACT!! But surely anyone can make up a figure - and then double it. Who's going to check?

I know there's something a little cheap in inveighing against popular successes, but I can't believe I am the only one to be astonished by the extraordinary reception of The Da Vinci Code.
Good luck to Mr Brown, of course, but what an atrociously written book. Even in terms of suspense, it was perfectly obvious half-way through who the villain was.