Good morning and happy Friday to you. The sun is shining. Hurrah.

Fingers crossed, from the middle of next week a more normal service will be resumed here, as I will have finished a book on the NHS (touch wood), and finished being the acting press officer for NHS Alliance. Both are interesting challenges.

The art of management books - for such we must call it, as there's certainly no science - is to suggest that success and wealth are as easy as ABC, if you'll just do it the way Jack Welsh / Jim Collins /Tom Friedman / insert guru of choice here, tell you to.

Good evening to you.

Just a brief alert to the arrival of a new and prophetic Maynard Doctrine column here tonight.

There has been no briefing to Professor Maynard (you will probably be aware that trying to brief such a man is unlikely to benefit anybody). This excellent analysis arrived in the editorial inbox unbriefed and unheralded.

But it chimes with what we have been suggesting here for some time: that economically, things are much, much, much less rosy for the NHS than many are still assuming.

The sun has finally set on a good day. I have had a good day, good sleep, a glass or two of good Chablis, a good barbecued dinner.

Sometimes, you just need a good day to remind you what they feel like.

Today was a good day.

Good evening. Another unexpected leave of absence ends - or was it absent without leave? It's so hard to tell these days.

Anyway, you have had fresh Maynard Doctrine, revealing the Conservative Party's modest proposals on public spending for their inexorable-looking arrival on the preferable side of the Mace next summer. And you are not the complaining types: I know you.

No, this is not going to be about redundancy pay-offs for sacked chief executives. What were you thinking?

No, this is going to be about Lord Darzi's 'Innovation for a Healthier Future' scheme, announced today. £220 million is to be made available across the ten SHAs over the next five years to encourage innovation. The National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and the Young Foundation will work as advisers to the SHAs.

On my way home from a wonderful lunch in honour of Andrew Roth, author of Parliamentary Profiles and Westminster Confidential. Today is Andrew's 90th birthday, and despite an eight-year working partnership on mty old stomping ground of British Journal of Healthcare Management, our first meeting.

The word 'legend' is much over-used, but it's not about him. Thank you Andrew, and a very Happy Birthday.

Leadership is one of those qualities that are hard to analyse. It is hard to define but very easy to feel.

Leadership is so often conceptualised in military terms. Put simply, you couldn’t run an army without severely hierarchical command-and-control structures, where deference to authority is beaten into trainees hard. People know and are well-trained in their jobs, and know who will be making the decisions.

”We will protect our investment in schools and hospitals” – Chancellor Alastair Darling

Good afternoon. I have again been away - apologies if you missed me. I have missed me too.

Good evening - a very quick one, to alert you to the arrival of fresh Maynard Doctrine, and to promise you something on Channel 4's The Hospital tomorrow. Once I feel a bit less demoralised by it.

Hello, and what a nice day. And welcome if you've come from OnMedica, with whom I will be sharing a 'review of the month' feature on an ongoing basis. Look around and enjoy yourselves. Let us know what you think - editorial@healthpolicyinsight.com

There are a couple of good April Fool Stories over at the excellent E Health Media. But below is my review of March 2009.