“I’m available”. With those two lonely, listless words, Sir David Nicholson summed up the tragedy of retirement.

It will be no surprise to readers that End Game saw the utterance on Twitter, where Sir David continues to display the symptoms of a keen mind in search of something, anything, to do. His latest dispatches from retirement include regular comments on toddler TV shows and a picture of a slug that he thought had followed him up a hill in Yorkshire.

So it was unsurprising that he leapt on a plea from his beloved Nottingham Forest FC for fans interested in writing a few blog posts “about #NFFC matters”.

“I’m available”, came D-Nic’s melancholy response.

 

It is 24 days into Simon Stevens’ reign, as End Game writes, and the new NHS England chief executive has not deigned to join the Twittersphere. Perhaps the comms department, obviously keen not to lose control of him in the way they did Sir David, has more influence than we thought.

Thankfully Sir David continues to pronounce on health matters, and provided this tweet linking the departure of the wildly unsuccessful Manchester United manager David Moyes with his namesake, the former Monitor executive chair (and famed Nicholson nemesis) Bill. Sir David twote: “All I can say on the matter is moyes made a better chair of monitor than he has manager of Manchester United.”

Bill Moyes will no doubt lap up this faintest of praise.