I have an embarrassing confession to make. I’ve never subscribed to a daily newspaper (this isn’t the confession – it comes later). I don’t know why, it has just never appealed. Instead I enjoy the occasional newspaper when I get the chance to have a coffee or breakfast out, so typically I read one ever week or two.

As a newspaper reader I’m a bit of a floating voter. My default is to go for the Guardian, but I will happily divert to the Independent for a change, or the Times if I want to give my brain a bit of a rest. If there’s nothing else available I will read the Telegraph – I’m not so much put off by the politics, as by the fact it’s the only British serious newspaper that hasn’t gone tabloid. I can’t be bothered with a broadsheet over breakfast, it’s just too messy.

Anyway, and here comes the confession, I had a coffee today and realized as I flicked through my paper that I was feeling disappointed because it didn’t have anything free with it. I don’t know what it’s like outside the UK, but here it’s now very common for serious newspapers to come with a free CD or DVD.

This took me aback. I used to really slate my children because they chose their magazines for the free stuff on the front rather than the content, yet here I was, effectively doing the same thing.

But maybe there’s something to learn for those of us who write about science. Maybe we should be looking for the free giveaway. Science teachers have always had it easy in this respect. Chemists can throw in an explosion, physicists something electrical, biologists something fluffy or gross. But us writers generally stick to words.

It doesn’t have to be lowest common denominator stuff. In fact, I suppose it’s what popular science writers do to some extent – we throw in a free gift of some warm and cuddly “people information” like biographical detail or context to soften the science. But I’m sure there’s more we can do.