Three communities I've come across in the last few years have made me see language and order in a new way. Two I've read about - Peruvian potato farmers and Balinese rice-growers. The other - Mutawintji - I visited as a tourist on an Outback safari before the PhD started. I'll get all my caveats out of the way: no in-depth knowledge of any of these; it'll seem like a pretty functionalist argument; I know almost nothing about anthropology. Given that…

Last night, BBC2 aired The Price of Life, a documentary examining the NHS’s purchase of a new cancer drug. Myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells. A US company, the Celgene Corporation, holds the patent on lenalidomide (Revlimid in the US.) People survive for an average of just over a year longer than they might have done without it.

In the programme, Adam Wishart follows a number of patients awaiting a decision from NICE, and several other players in the health market: the chair of the NICE committee making the decision, an NHS fund manager, and the head of Celgene.

We’re present at a NICE committee meeting where it’s decided the NHS can’t afford lenalidomide. There’s a specific money limit per year for treatment at certain points in life, based on Qalis - a combination of economic and social value. This leads to a specific cost limit, and this drug is too much. By the end of the programme, this situation has been reversed – back to that in a moment.