An old friend and colleague came to visit me yesterday to discuss her new publishing project, Pocket Issue books. This a series of well-written, beautifully produced (with illustrations by my favourite cartoonist Andrzej Krauze), well-priced at £4.99 books on well-chosen subjects of contemporary interest.

The problem is that support from the book trade is unlikely to exceed a few hundred copies, the cost and energy for marketing is very high, and thus expenditure will almost certainly exceed income unless she can find alternative ways of generating significant sales. Any ideas would be welcome - and even a few orders for the books.

The Google heist posting of last week is still generating considerable comment here and elsewhere. I am being characterised variously as a fool, a child, a luddite, a crook, or a counter-revolutionary. Hey ho. At least it has generated debate, not least as to whether physical property has greater rights to protection than intellectual property. I don't know but somehow this photo from Book Expo America courtesy of Publishers Marketplace says something about the relative sizes of Google and a very large publisher.

And while on Google matters, I was checking out the excellent Google Scholar platform, which is an example of how search engines and publishers can work together within copyright to allow readers to find what they want, scholars to communicate better, and still have a viable business model.

But that's not my point. I noticed the tag line, 'Stand on the shoulders of giants'. This comes from a letter by Isaac Newton to his contemporary Robert Hooke:

'If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.'

The quotation is frequently used as an example of scientific humility. It transpires that Hooke was one of Newton's greatest rivals and enemies and was rather small and deformed. Read the quotation with the emphasis on the word 'giants' and you will see that Newton and his quotation were not in the least bit humble. Truth is a strange thing. For more on Newton try this paper by Nobel-prize-winning physicist Sheldon Glashow.