Horton’s gimlet eye roves over the threat from emerging diseases, the ups and downs of vaccination, the neglect of medical needs in the developing world, and the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. His preface argues that “a successful future for medicine depends on recovering the notion of human dignity and making its restoration the objective of every practising physician”.It is not easy to follow this theme through all the twists and turns of this volume. Below three retirees make the case for learning.
Douglas Hassall, 79, first sat down at a keyboard in 1939. “We’re waiting with bated breath to see if there is anything in there to reflect the needs of older people,” says Cara. Next Wednesday, the LSC will publish its latest plans for adult learners – the Skills Strategy.

“Learning for personal development is good for our health,” says Sue Cara, the director of programmes and policy at Niace. It has written to the Learning and Skills Council (LSC – the further-education funding body) to express concern that the LSC’s recent funding proposals focus on vocational training to the detriment of learning for the joy of it. But is the Government putting its money where its mouth is? The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) is worried that it isn’t. Lifelong learning is a ministerial buzz-phrase.

He thinks that medicine, driven by commercial pressure, whether private or state, has lost sight of the individual. As the youngest editor of The Lancet, appointed almost eight years ago at the age of 33, he has gained a reputation as an iconoclast, taking on the drug industry, the World Health Organisation and the US Food and Drug Administration – to name but three.
Horton is not a man afraid of making enemies This collection of his writings shows why. A bitter pill from the medicine man

It is the business of editors to prick the prejudices of their readers while challenging the practices of those who wield power Richard Horton is adept at both. Abracadabra, an elephant.Capturing the ache of urban modernity with a clairvoyant imaginativeness, this piece richly confirms McBurney’s pre-eminence as a maker of theatre.To 6 July (020-7638 8891). A man then leans his palm against the side of the screen, his grey-suited body forming a supporting arc down to the stage. On a video screen, we see a wrinkly close-up of a creature’s eye. The stage picture it affords suggests not just emotional fracture, but that hers is by no means an isolated case of crack-up in modern Tokyo.Performed in Japanese with English surtitles, it’s an evening animated by mischievous wit as well as by a feeling of foreboding.