It’s rare to find e-learning in a mainstream book but an exception occurred recently with the publication of ‘Made in Brighton’ (208pp, Virgin, £14.99) by Julie Burchill and Daniel Raven. According to Chris Paling, reviewing the book the The Guardian (7^th April), it celebrates the city’s cool beauty and bemoans its lack of plumbers. Part memoir, part polemic, it purports to take a ‘cold, hard look at the changing face of Britain, using the seaside vista of Brighton as a focal point’. Burchill covers her favourite topics – class, sex, drugs, celebs, money – while her husband, Raven, produces a sharp diatribe on the rise of new media which, in recent years, has made Brighton one of its key ‘homes’.  Included in this is his description of ‘Charlie’, a boss of one such Brighton-based new media company.

Comment:  Since Raven spent some time working at the e-learning producer Epic, in Brighton, there is some speculation about the source for the revelations in the book – and especially about the real identity of ‘Charlie’. Some sources suggest that at least one former Epic senior executive is less than delighted with his published alter ego.