The instruction manual for our first car informed us that "routine, daily maintenance" meant checking the tyres for embedded stones every morning before setting off for work.
In my book I set out to explain why none of us actually does this sort of thing. In spite of the fact that experts tell us all the time that we ought to.
Not just that we didn't check the tyres for stones every day, you understand. Far worse than that - we didn't do it at all.
And we got away with it. . .
We never did find out what checking the tyres for stones was supposed to prevent (the manual didn't say). But whatever it was, it didn't happen. So we managed years of happy motoring without having to go through this ludicrous ritual every morning.
Life is increasingly full of 'stone-checks', not just for doctors in family practice like myself, but for all of us. And instead of being able to cheerfully ignore them as impractical counsels of perfection, we are now finding that they are being laid down as things which we must do, and mechanical systems are being constructed to make sure that we do them. Otherwise we expose ourselves to criticism and, increasingly, to litigation. A growing tangle of rules and regulations is ensnaring front-line workers and driving out the humanity, independence, inspiration, diversity and flare which has never been more essential to our society.
I find everybody shares this feeling, except when they are making rules covering the thing they happen to be interested in...
This is the paradox that I see more and more as I work as a family doctor in a small town in Southern England.
I want to try to do something about it and that is what my book, and this web site, is about. I would be interested in, and grateful for, any contributions you wish to make to this discussion.