Will the revelation this week that doctors in the UK were responsible for the deaths through euthanasia of nearly 2,800 people last year, and for more than 170,000 more deaths through withdrawing or withholding treatment, trigger a witch-hunt or a serious debate?

I very much hope it's the latter. And I very much hope, too, should I be unfortunate enough to find myself terminally ill and suffering greatly or in irreversible mental decline which left me with a poor and deteriorating quality of life, that I would be blessed with the attentions of one of those doctors.

It shouldn't be left to those who love you to pluck up the courage to break the law by putting you out of your misery. It should be the job of a dispassionate, compassionate, legallyempowered professional.

Which probably leaves you in little doubt as to where I stand in the debate about euthanasia. It seems very wrong to me that respect for human life and a moral obligation to sustain it at all costs until nature (or God, if that's what you believe) chooses to conclude it should over-ride the ability to end suffering.

When dogs, cats or horses are left with no prospects other than of increasing misery and pain, the people who have loved them and cared for them usually seek the intervention of a vet to put a stop to things. That isn't an option legally allowed to doctors for human beings, whose suffering we should surely care about even more than that of animals.

There are many terminally-ill people in this country whose life is filled with darkness and pain. There are thousands of people in nursing homes, too, suffering from progressive dementia and existing in a twilight world filled with confusion, despair and indignity.

Is it so horribly wrong to seek to allow them a way out of their nightmare? At present those doctors who do that, perhaps shortening a life already nearing the end by secretly administering rather larger doses of morphine than necessary to patients in severe pain, risk finding themselves in deep trouble.

This isn't something which should be left to the judgement of individual doctors. We need a major commission of wise people to set a national standard for a minimum acceptable quality of life below which no-one should be expected to endure existence.

If there is no hope of that quality of life recovering, doctors should have a legal right, and indeed a moral obligation, to put an end to it humanely and speedily - preferably with the prior consent of the individual concerned, given when times were better and the mind was clearer, or after consultation with the nearest and dearest.

With the ProLife Alliance this week describing the 2,800 assisted deaths as "the unlawful killing of vulnerable people", the gulf between supporters and opponents of euthanasia is seemingly unbridgeable.

Thanks to the new report from Brunel University , the subject is now firmly on the national agenda for discussion. But I doubt that discussion will be a rational one.

Air-raising moments!

It's been a hectic week on the air-rage front, with one troublesome passenger causing a 24-hour delay to a Manchesterbound flight, another having to be dumped on a remote island, the defence attaché at the British Embassy in Thailand, Colonel Peter Roberts, effing and blinding at cabin crew on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow after reportedly mixing booze with antidepressants, and X-Factor actress Gillian Anderson (pictured above), one of the stars of the new film Cock & Bull Story, behaving very oddly on a flight back to England from Sri Lanka.

Is it something they're putting in the airline meals?

Whatever, such incidents don't do much for the confidence of those of us who are unhappy fliers at the best of times. The possibility of the plane crashing is worrying enough without having to cope with the added anxiety that a fellow passenger might go berserk.

Beauty of beetroot!

Those of us who have to watch our blood-sugar levels and keep a check on the "bad" cholesterol slopping around in our systems now have a new friend to add to our list of helpful foods: beetroot.

This undervalued root vegetable, which in most houses sits in a jar of vinegar at the back of the kitchen cupboard, was this week declared to be very good for us. That's something I find rather reassuring, already being a big fan of this earthy-tasting item either boiled and mixed in salad or roasted in a coating of olive oil with parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes. And it certainly beats boring broccoli.

So now we know, perhaps, what the ultimate cholesterol-busting, sugar-controlling, anti-oxidising diet should be: porridge for breakfast, beetroot salad for dinner (or lunch, if you want to be posh), mackerel or salmon with beetroot mash for tea (or dinner, if you must), followed by half a bar of very dark, bitter chocolate, all washed down with a glass of red wine. And a cup of green tea for supper.

Train of thought...

There is much that's deplorable about humanity, but there's much that's admirable too. Take the epic journey by the Stardust space probe, for instance.

It's spent seven years travelling nearly three billion miles across the solar system and last Sunday was brought to Earth and recovered within 30 minutes of landing.

If mankind is capable of a precision job like this, why is it so difficult to get the trains and buses to run on time?