The first thing I hear when I arrive at a private club in London to meet Richard and Judy is Richard saying excitedly: "It looks as if he is doing a poo!", to which Judy responds, as you would hope she would respond, this being Richard and Judy, by flicking her eyes heavenwards and saying: "Richard!", so I say it too. "Richard!" I say, if only out of the sense that unless all exasperated, middle-aged women stick together and flick their eyes heavenwards, the Richards of this world would run riot and then we'd all be in trouble. They'd be jumping out from behind the aisles in the supermarket, broadcasting details of your hormonal ups and downs and menstrual quirks and offering conception advice along the lines of: "When we were trying to conceive, I would douse my balls in icy water before intercourse". So I say: "Richard!" and flicker my eyes heavenwards, even though I have no idea why we are Richard!-ing today. Heavens, if you're given the opportunity to do a Richard! you just run with it, surely? How many people have the opportunity in their lifetime? Still, why are we Richard!-ing?

Richard and Judy have signed a five-year deal with WH Smith after their Book Club proved such a success for the firm - shifting around two million titles since its launch last year.

"How tiny and random are the events that shape our destiny". So begins Rachel Hore's intriguing Richard and Judy recommended read, which is layered with a series of mysteries, some more supernatural than others.

We know the pressure is on banks to come up with less risky revenue streams, but JP Morgan Chase's move into the book club business is a little curious.

Science hasn't been in the best of shape on British television recently. Equinox seems to have disappeared into some broadcasting black hole, Horizon has been steadily regressing into second childhood and mainstream offerings – such as Bang Goes the Theory – appear to be pitched at a hyperactive seven-year-old out of his skull on SunnyD. There are sporadic efflorescences of the serious on BBC2, but if you want something sustained and detailed your last best hope is BBC4, a little cranny in the rock that sustains some flourishing micro-cultures of straightforward instruction. And even here there are signs that the evolutionary pressures are having their effect. In The Cell, for example, Dr Adam Rutherford referred to Anthony van Leeuwenhoek as "a lens geek", to Robert Hooke as "the go-to guy when you had very small things to investigate", and concluded a little aside on Robert Brown's unique double contribution to physics and biology with the exclamation "Respect!", possibly the least convincing attempt to sound "street" since Richard Madeley channelled Ali G on the This Morning sofa.

As the 10 titles chosen to make up the Richard and Judy Book Club 2009 shortlist are unveiled, organisers are playing down suggestions that the scarcity of people who followed Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan from their Channel 4 tea-time slot to the digital UKTV channel Watch will damage the Book Club image.