(from Astronomy & Geophysics, 44, 2.9, 2003)

You may be aware that I have been, and am, a bitter critic of the way A&G was introduced. QJ was one of my favourite publications of our Society and I regret its loss very keenly. As to A&G itself, it initially suffered from a number of coffee-table faults. These faults have now been attended to and A&G is now much more professional. Most importantly, you have of late been successful in attracting much better quality articles.

Now you have done a signal service to our discipline by commissioning and publishing the discussion on "plumes". It is a standing vice of geophysics not to argue against unpalatable facts and arguments, but simply to ignore them and carry on as if they did not exist. It is hardly to be expected that a single issue of A&G will correct this tendency, but it will make a dent in it. Perhaps we shall hear less about "the nucleus" of a comet, and "the Oort Cloud".

Anyway, I do congratulate you and hope that this initiative will be the first of many urging geophysicists and astronomers to wake-up to neglected facts and theories.

Professor Emeritus P.B. Fellgett, FRS,
Little Brighter,
Bodmin,
Cornwall,
U.K.