As part of our wandering approach exploring film rental the latest instalment to drop on the door mat was John Carpenter's Dark Star. It's a weird black comedy about a bunch of bored stoners, some sentient bombs and strange beach ball aliens aboard a deep space planetary destroyer. As …

I finally finished Bad Science last night, written by the excellent Guardian science reporter Ben Goldacre. It's a tour-de-force of rage against the combined forces of exploitative quacks, big pharma and of course the media. Throughout the book he lays down the basics of the scientific method and how it …