As an exercise in horizon expansion, why not go into Books Etc. and get three books you might not normally have picked up for the price of two books you might not normally have picked up?

Today, that's what I did. I was in the shop, and browsed, and checked out the books by reading the back cover and opening to a random point and reading a couple of pages. If I liked what I saw, I added it to the selection.

With the exception of book no. 3, which was recommended to me and I spotted just as I was getting desperate for a third item.

Oh, the books? They are:

• How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen
• Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
• Raw Spirit by Iain Banks

I believe, on the occasions when I actually bother to think about it, that books are the major fuel for the furnace of the intellect - whether entertaining or challenging or both, as long as they make you think, they are the high-powered kerosene for the turbines of our minds.

Whereas reality TV is ground-up sheep's bones mixed with vomit, upon which the engine barely runs at all, but coughs and judders and emits big clouds of choking foul-smelling black smoke.

I won't go into what the tabloid papers are.