(One of the great experiences of writing this blog is that it is read by doctors. Recently I discovered that one of the great things about doctors is that they know Latin. At the beginning of this week in developing this argument about centrifugal and centripetal forces I got my ‘fugal’ and my ‘petal’ mixed up. A number of doctors very kindly responded saying that ‘petal’ related in Latin to ‘the centre’ and therefore centripetal forces were dragging things to the centre and conversely centrifugal forces dragged thing to the periphery.

So thanks for letting me know! And my apologies to those who have been confused in trying to understand not only NHS reform, but also the creation of the universe – which as all of you will know came after the big bang and involves some large centrifugal forces that are pushing matter every million years or so further and further away (centrifugally) from where the bang took place).