A POEM a week for the BMJ

Richard Smith may have got carried away in his editorial (2 November, p 983) when he dropped in the statement that many doctors receive “their own weight in journals and newspapers every month.” This would mean (says a reader) that on the basis of the weight of a typical BMJ the average 75 kg doctor would receive 13 journals or newspapers a day. This seems unlikely. However, many readers weigh less than 75 kg, especially our petite, female readers, and Dr Smith claims he has photographic evidence of at least one cockatoo (weighing <1 kg, he says) reading the BMJ.