Doctor Foster

Mike Bartlett's complete scripts for his superlative, award-winning television drama series.

A hilarious retelling of the classic nursery rhyme, accompanied by humorous illustrations.

How do you love and not like the same thing at the same time? This was the riddle that met Mississippi writer B. Brian Foster when he returned to his home state to learn about Black culture and found himself hearing about the blues. One moment, Black Mississippians would say they knew and appreciated the blues. The next, they would say they didn't like it. For five years, Foster listened and asked: "How?" "Why not?" "Will it ever change?" This is the story of the answers to his questions. In this illuminating work, Foster takes us where not many blues writers and scholars have gone: into the homes, memories, speculative visions, and lifeworlds of Black folks in contemporary Mississippi to hear what they have to say about the blues and all that has come about since their forebears first sang them. In so doing, Foster urges us to think differently about race, place, and community development and models a different way of hearing the sounds of Black life, a method that he calls listening for the backbeat.

The Department of Health established the Information Centre in April 2005, in order to centralise the collection and dissemination of information across the NHS to support their health reform agenda. In February 2006, 'Dr Foster Intelligence' was launched, a joint venture between the Information Centre and Dr Foster Ltd (a private company already successful in health data dissemination) with the aim of developing information products and services which would encourage senior, strategic NHS staff to make effective use of information. The Committee sets out a number of recommendations, including: without a competitive tender, the joint venture seemed to offer an advantage to one company; also without competition, the Information Centre cannot demonstate that it paid the best price for its 50% share; the joint venture deal did not follow established good practice in public sector procurement; the cost of professional advice rose from an initial estimate of £248,000 to between £1.75 and £2.5 million; that the Department and the Information Centre could have made use of wider government experience on forming public private partnerships; it is unclear what benefits the Information Centre will receive from the joint venture; the first year saw a loss of £2.8 million.

The Shift is not about what to eat or not eat. It’s not about when to eat. It’s about building thinking habits, proven through science, that help you lose weight. There are so many myths surrounding weight loss: Setbacks mean failure. Big results require big goals. You need to power through alone. You have to hate your body to lose weight. Happiness awaits you only at the end of the journey. All of these are untrue, unhelpful—and actually undermine long-term weight loss. Dr. Gary Foster’s 7 Mindset Shifts show you how to—and why you should—treat yourself in a way that feels better and primes you for likelier success. His argument and the techniques in each chapter, built on years of research and breakthroughs in cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology, can lead to results on the scale—but, more important, in your own thinking. The Shift flips old-fashioned weight-loss theory on its head, training you to recognize when your thinking is taking you away from your goals, to focus on action rather than outcome, and to value non-scale victories more than the number on the digital display. It’s evidence-based motivation—and it really works! The 7 Mindset Shifts include treating yourself with compassion, leaning into your strengths, appreciating the power of small steps (and more frequent rewards), finding your people, and truly relaxing into happiness and gratitude. “Diet thinking” isn’t habit-forming; mindset shifts are. And muscular yet kind mental habits, like the ones found in The Shift, are key to long-term, positive change.