In the novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens gives his views on education. His character Mr Gradgrind believes in ‘facts’ and is suspicious of the imagination. All we need to know about the world, he maintains, can be reduced to simple facts. Dickens shows that such a philosophy leads to the impoverishment of the mind and to the weakening of ethical reasoning. Today it seems that the descendants of Mr Gradgrind are still in charge. The main psychiatric library where I work has been closed. It is argued that we can obtain all the ‘facts’ we need from the internet. The notion that books might have more to offer than prosaic detail, that they reflect the rich diversity of human experience, seems alien to the modern-day Gradgrinds.

This section of the Journal is primarily written for readers; I hope on this occasion I can crave a little time for our contributors, our hard-working authors. It is not easy getting papers published nowadays and yet it remains even more of a priority that when the phrase ‘publish or perish’ first burst into public consciousness when coined by Logan Wilson, a former President of the University of Texas, in 1942. I have long felt that the process of getting original work into print is like the process of parturition, and I feel this in much more than a metaphorical sense. From the silent ecstasy of conception of data-driven thought through to the revelation of birth in the pages of a journal, we usually have a 9-month journey of worry mixed with calm, disappointment interleaved with satisfaction, and rank despair followed by the ringing tones of joy. In the first 3 months the submission process is accompanied by uncertainty and some nausea after reading the rude dismemberment of delicately constructed text. Later, the paper seems to generate movement and life on its own, and in the last phase when it has fully engaged the attention of the editors you know that the moment of birth is near. This month we have kept our promise to publish our UK authors' papers accepted by June before the end of the year – indeed, you will note we have done better – and hope that our international contributors will not feel disenfranchised.