The BBC has spent a lot of time and effort on its website. Douglas Carnell looks at whether it has paid off

Hypertext is interesting stuff, but it poses some problems for the reviewer. Its content varies according to choices made by the reader, who defines the text moment by moment. Meanwhile web publishers continually update their content. The web starts with you, which leaves the author of plain text wondering where to begin.

I can only start with the truth: the idea for this review was born when the editor of the BMJ logged on to the BBC's website for the Wimbledon score last Sunday morning, and the first thing that struck him was a picture of a surgeon and a collection of medical career information, pegged to the BBC's impressive longitudinal series “Doctors to …