'Ello. Childcare day, so the frontiers of health policy knowledge will have to remain broadly un-pushed back (insofar as they are ever pushed back in this parish).

So I'm very grateful to Patrick Butler, supremo of The Guardian's society, health and education policy, for his pick-up, via Anne-Marie Cunningham, of this magnificent essay on end-of-life medical dilemmas in the New Yorker by the genuinely great Atul Gawande.

Go there now. It is one of the best things you will read in a long time. Smart, human, wise and true.

And the essay's reported Aetna figures, while strong candidates for The Immortals' august roll of Things That Are Not Surprising, remain distinctly striking nonetheless.