Hello again. The past couple of weeks have been insanely busy with other work, hence my temporary absence from the parish. The estimable Tom Smith has been holding the fort with aplomb and putting my absence to shame. Thank you, Tom.

Oh. For. Fuck’s. Sake.

I have just wasted half an hour of my life that I’m never going to get back again, watching the BBC Panorama programme on drug access and NICE.

Now 30 minutes is far too short a time to even attempt a serious programme about healthcare rationing if you’re clever and thoughtful (even though the BBC evidently believe that the attention deficit disorder generation, weaned on Ritalin and fast edits, can bear no more), so a serious programme is what we didn’t get.

While blogging last night (www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node/149), I didn't yet know that NICE chair Professor Sir Michael Rawlins would be writing a piece for the Health Service Journal website (www.hsj.co.uk) today, and merely went from what was in The Observer's interview / feature. Nor had I then seen NICE chief executive Andrew Dillon's comments to BBC's Panorama, trailled in today's Independent (www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/medici...).

Hello again, after another unwanted and unexpected workload-enforced interregnum of absence. What a lot of medals Team GB have got. It's great! There may be hope for the obesity crisis yet if this turns sport and exercise back to something we as a nation do rather than something we just watch (with all the associated pornographic connotations).

The curse of the TLA (three-letter acronym) is a heavy shadow hanging over the wonderful world of the NHS. In particular, dual definitions can be fun.

Evening, all. You will find Tom Smith's latest Health Policy Today now online, reflecting on the policy and political misunderstandings of the book Nudge. No, I haven't read it yet and so am not going to opine about this. (Tom has, though).

Good evening.

Today we have new Maynard Doctrine (www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node/137), looking at the issue of variation in nursing practice; and Health Policy Today (www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node/138), which notes the story in the Daily Telegraph that Conservative Freedom Of Information requests have found that 1/3 of PCTs are not intending to consult with their community.

Oscar Wilde inverted the well-known Temperance Movement slogan to produce his formulation that "work is the curse of the drinking classes" - which is to say that workload has rather got in the way of recent updates to the site. Apologies if you've been franticaly hitting refresh and waiting for us. We are back. However, please note that the near-daily updates may be a bit more sporadic during August, for obvious reasons.

Good evening - good, that is, if the thunderstorm has passed you by yet, taking with it the louring humidity. The initial rainfall was dramatic and short - which is as good a segue as I can manage to the thoroughly good news that Film Four are this week running a series of classic Ingmar Bergman films, which share both those qualities. Those of an insomniac disposition can acquaint (or re-acquaint) yourselves with The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Smiles Of A Summer Night, Persona, Summer With Monika.

This afternoon, while I was tasting some wines in Meursault and Volnay, I was having 'that discussion' with the winemakers about how crap New World wines are. Now I say discussion, but actually it's the receiving end of a lecture (it's almost like they're blogging at me or something ...)

No, the lecture is a joke anyway. These are by no means stupid people: they recognise that there are talented artisan winemakers in every wine-growing part of the world.