I usually try to select weekend reads that are free to access, but this week I’m breaking that rule. My choice this week was written by the sickeningly talented Will Storr, edited by the Pulitzer honour Deborah Plum, and published by the startup I helped to fund, Matter. It tells the story of Alexander Litvinenko’s death, from the events in his life which lead up to it, to the extensive investigation and decontamination programme which followed it. This is one of the most absorbing bits of longform journalism I’ve read in absolutely ages, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

It isn’t free, but it is cheap – and worth several times the price. I highly recommend it, and I’m very proud to see my name at the bottom of it!

Even I have to admit that body odour is a strange topic to choose to feature in a series like this, and yet these two stories were just too interesting to miss.

First, I’ve chosen a Smithsonian article by Sarah Everts about the advertising of early deodourants and antiperspirants to a somewhat sceptical American public.

Second, I’ve picked a story by Gendy Alimurung in LA Weekly. It’s a fascinating story with some depth and complexity about a homeless man who, even once he is housed, chooses not to bathe.

The totally different angles that these stories take on the very intimate issue of body odour is very interesting, and I hope you enjoy reading both of them.

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them!

I really liked The Inbetweeners, so I was very interested to read this blog post by Iain Morris describing the creative process behind the show. It gives a fascinating insight, and is well worth reading this weekend.

Best Kept Secret is the third book in Jeffrey Archer’s series of indeterminate length, The Clifton Chronicles. I reviewed the first volume, Only Time Will Tell, in September last year and gave it a broadly positive four-star review. In October, I gave the second book, The Sins of the Father, a broadly negative two-star review. Between then and now, Archer has hinted that his quintology might just become a septology or even an octology.

This is a bit surprising, because it feels to me like he’s lost interest. He’s now all but abandoned the idea of multiple intersecting plots told from multiple points of view, and is using a pretty straight narrative. He’s abandoned the exploration of different social settings, contrasting the working class Cliftons with the wealthy Barringtons, and keeps the plot firmly rooted in wealth throughout. He’s abandoned many of the most interesting characters, paying only the briefest visit to the protagonist’s mother, for example. He’s abandoned detailed characterisation, relying on new stereotypical new characters about as deep as the paper on which they’re printed. And he seems to have lost all enthusiasm for driving the plot forward.

This volume picks up precisely where the last left off, and hence starts by resolving the inane cliffhanger about a House of Lords vote which, as discussed at length elsewhere, could never have occurred in the first place. The resolution isn’t immediate. It’s strung out for a quite ludicrous amount of time. And after that, we’re launched back into a tale of increasingly unlikeable people being portrayed as saints, and fighting off attacks from people portrayed as two-dimensional villains, against backgrounds with which Archer is personally very familiar – politics and the law, in the main. The villains’ cause is, as ever, aided by utterly moronic decisions by the saints. But, after things hang in the balance for a while, the resolution favours the saints. Mix in some filler passages with plot of no consequence, rinse, and repeat ad nauseum.

In my last review of this series, I suggested that books in a series should be either: self-contained, with interesting broader arcs between different types volumes; or part of an epic tale, with smaller arcs satisfying the conditions of the publishing format. This volume, even more than the last, fails to fill either of those conditions. There’s barely any semblance left of an arc reaching back to the first volume, and there are no satisfying arcs within this volume alone. Once again, the amount of plot in this volume that actually contributes to moving the story of the series forward is no more than could be summarised in a couple of paragraphs.

Each of my previous reviews of this series has singled out a ludicrous incident within the plot to demonstrate my dissatisfaction. This time, I’m spoilt for choice. I’ll have to plump for the court case in which a will is challenged. According to Archer, the case is on a knife-edge, with the judge unable to decide whether to place more weight on the opinion of a doctor who never met the writer of the will but contests that ill people can never make wills, or a doctor who actually examined the patient. That Archer spins this out for so long, and comes up with an suitably insane resolution in the form of a crossword, just about out-crazies the brazen way in which he adds a bizarre cameo appearance by Princess Margaret… in Argentina. I’m not even joking.

And yet, even that isn’t the craziest thing about this increasingly infuriating series. No, the most insane thing is that, despite it all, I know I’m going to buy the next volume this time next year. And, in the end, that probably says more about this series than any review I can write. And yet, I still can’t bring myself to recommend it.

The infuriating cliffhanger at the end of this volume, which is considerably less well introduced and for which the resolution is many times clearer than in the previous volumes, only adds to my suspicion that the series would be improved by the story skipping a decade or so. I think that would give some hope of reinvigorating the plot, and maybe Archer’s enthusiasm for it. I’ll live in hope.

Best Kept Secret is available now from amazon.co.uk in hardback and on Kindle.

Microsoft has been having a tough time of late, with sales of both the Surface and Windows 8 reportedly below expectations. Many millions of words have been written over the years about Microsoft’s woes, but Kurt Eichenwald’s article for Vanity Fair last summer gave a particularly thoughtful, well written and absorbing account of where it all went wrong for the firm. And for that reason, it makes a great weekend read.

For this 2D post, I’ve chosen to present two different points of view about pragmatism.

In Prospect, Alex Worsnip sets out his position that “‘pragmatism’ means sacrificing moral aspirations for something else” – and that the “something else” might not be all that desirable. In politics, he argues, pragmatism is nothing more than a technique for presenting an argument which defies dissent. At least with ideology, there is something to argue against.

In The Global Mail, Eric Ellis takes the argument about pragmatism away from the purely philosophical and into the physical present, looking at the Dutch approach to climate change. When much of your country lies below sea level, there’s little point debating the ideology of climate change – the only pragmatic course is to act. This has lead to the extraordinary position of virtual unanimity between politicians of all colours and the population at large over spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tackling the problem. Perhaps if people could be convinced to be a little more pragmatic over other politic issues the world over, then we’d be able to achieve far more.

I really like both of these articles, and the combination of the two has made me think a bit differently about pragmatism. Previously, I’d thought of it as a benign way to reach an end result. Now, I see far more clearly both the power and the danger of defaulting to pragmatism.

I hope you enjoy giving them a read!

2D posts appear on alternate Wednesdays. For 2D, I pick two interesting articles that look at an issue from two different – though not necessarily opposing – perspectives. I hope you enjoy them!

On the 25th March – approximately a lifetime ago in internet terms – the GMC published guidelines for doctors’ use of social media. The guidelines come into effect later this month.

Publication of the guidelines caused something of a social media uproar, particularly around the anonymity clause. The brilliant Anne Marie Cunningham, who has written and spoken a lot about social media in medicine, has hosted a particularly fascinating conversation about this on her blog, with well made points on both sides.

With all the high-quality discussion and carefully thought-through points flying back and forth, I’ve taken a back seat on this one. I’m not sure that I have all that much that’s new to add, and I don’t blog all that much about medical matters any more. But a nagging feeling in the back of my head says that this is exactly the sort of debate I would once have jumped into with both feet, and the focus hasn’t been on the part of the guidelines to which I most object. So here goes.

In all guidelines, I’ve always been lead to believe that definitions are crucial. For a guideline to be effective, let alone for it to be enforced, it must be clear what it covers. And yet, the GMC’s definition of social media is absurdly wide:

Social media describes web-based applications that allow people to create and exchange content.

Later in the guidelines, it is clarified that this definition includes non-public, professional social networks too. As I’ve discussed this issue with tech friends and colleagues over the last couple of weeks, this definition has caused several to – literally – laugh out loud.

It, of course, includes all manner of things that are not social media, and essentially describes any form of cloud-based application. If we interpret this guidance as written, then from 22nd April patient-identifiable information can no longer be uploaded to web-based GP note systems, or to HPZone used by Public Health England to track outbreaks, or indeed transferred via NHSMail, the restricted-level security email system designed exactly for that purpose. Use of Choose and Book will be against the GMC’s rules. All of these are online applications which allow people to create and share content. All are clearly not supposed to be covered by this guidance.

It can be argued that even if the definition as written is unclear, it is perfectly clear to most people what it is supposed to refer to. I don’t buy that, for two reasons. Firstly, what’s the point in publishing the guidance at all if we aren’t to interpret it as written? Some might say that the definition has to be broad in a fast-moving environment, and that the guidance would quickly be outdated if it were too pinned down.

Which brings me to my second problem: you may understand it, but I don’t. I actually don’t know whether this guidance applies in edge cases. Office 365 and Google Drive are both web-based applications which allow the creation and exchange of content. Applications like these are almost certain to replace locally hosted applications like the Word and Excel of today within this decade. Indeed, some organisations have already made the switch.

Is use of these outlawed by the guidance? I can see arguments why it, perhaps, should be. There are inherent risks about patient confidentiality in these systems. But to ban their use for patient identifiable information is a big statement, and I suspect that they didn’t actually mean it. But I’m far from certain.

To me, the nub of the problem here is that this is guidance on using a particular medium – and one that is ill-defined, at that. Publication might feel relevant now, and everyone from the BMA to the RCGP is helping people to understand how to use this medium safely. But I don’t think this is the place of a regulator. I’m acutely aware that others will strongly disagree with this position.

By and large, I think the GMC should stick to outlining principles. I no more expect to see supplementary guidelines on social media use than I would on letter writing or telephone conversations. Although, if – like many hospitals – you’re using a VOIP system, it could be argued that these guidelines apply. Just like the GMC does with those two media, I think case studies would have been a better way to illustrate the application of principles, rather than a list of inflexible “rules”. I don’t think it’s sensible or advisable to try and give over-arching “explanatory guidance” about an area of life which is changing so rapidly.

After all, these are only supposed to be explanatory. They are not intended to introduce new regulation. Though, to my reading, their poor formulation does lead to new regulatory burdens being placed on doctors.

When the last Good Medical Practice was published, Twitter had barely been conceived, and Facebook had yet to open to the general public. These guidelines aren’t clear now, so goodness knows what we’ll think of them in seven years’ time. I think they should be withdrawn.

On Wednesday, Iain Banks revealed that he has terminal cancer, and likely only months left to live. I’ve long been a fan of Banks’s mainstream novels, and believe him to be one of the UK’s greatest literary talents. My thoughts are with him, his wife, and his family.

As this sad news reached me, I recalled an old interview I’d read online with Banks about how he writes. I’m always fascinated to read about authors’ methods, and this is ground Banks – like any prolific author – has trodden in promotional interviews many times over. For some reason, this short 2008 interview by Nick Ryan, originally for The South China Morning Post of all places, stuck in my mind. And so that’s my recommended read this weekend.

Melanie Phillips has been on Question Time twice as often as all scientists put together over the last 18 months. There is still this feeling of “Why would you put a scientist on a current affairs discussion programme?”

Mark Henderson, formerly science editor at The Times, but now with the Wellcome Trust, makes this interesting point in a piece about the media coverage surrounding the discovery of the Higgs boson. It was published in the eighth issue of the marvellous Delayed Gratification.

Writing this review feels a little strange, almost like reviewing the work of a friend, despite the fact that I’ve never even met Paul Carr. Shortly after the turn of the century, his email newsletter, The Friday Thing, became the first I ever parted with cash to receive. The subscription was something like £10/year, and it was well worth it.

I remember when Carr branched out into publishing, and I bought some of their early publications, including the book of paramedic Tom Reynolds’s blog. I bought some of the Amateur Transplants stuff which they published, too. And then I sort of lost track of Paul’s career, until last year, when I discovered NSFWCorp – and promptly subscribed. It’s clear that he has an uncanny ability to make me part with my hard earned cash.

Bringing Nothing to the Party was published back in 2009, but I’ve only just discovered it. It tells the “inside story”, from Paul’s point of view, of The Friday Thing and its successors, as well as the dotcom bubble as a whole. It’s a very personal autobiographical book, also describing his love life in some excruciating detail.

I like Paul, so I’m probably predisposed to liking this book. And, indeed, I did. I think it’s really well written. By his own admission, at this stage in his life Carr was a bit of an unlikeable idiot, and yet he manages to pull of that brilliant trick of using well-judged self-depreciation and humour to make a thoroughly unlikeable character sympathetic. It’s genuinely funny, and made me laugh out loud at points. And it’s also genuinely insightful. It’s fascinating to read the sort of things that were going on in the tech startup community during these heady days.

This clearly isn’t a heavy-weight, profound, life-changing book, but it has no pretentions in that direction. It’s a short, fun and funny autobiographical tale, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Bringing Nothing to the Party is available now from amazon.co.uk in paperback and on Kindle.