Today I wake to a debate on the radio, they are arguing about whether the NHS should be funding homeopathy or not.

It’s BBC Radio 4, the Today Programme. The NHS is spending £4m a year on homeopathy, and there are calls for it to be dropped. “It doesn’t work,” says the naysayer. “It does,” says its supporter. It’s a long-standing debate.

I remember one of the many times that I’ve used homeopathy.

One of my teeth is hurting, a lot, and it turns out it’s dead and needs to be replaced.

It takes several hours and a few visits to the dentist to get the dead tooth out, and to put the new ‘tooth’ in, and it is pretty unpleasant.

After the work is finished, the dentist says, “you need to take antibiotics to stop an infection in the jaw.”

I tell him that I don’t want to take antibiotics. He gets very angry, and he forcefully hands me a prescription. I reluctantly take it.

But I really don’t want to take antibiotics so I go to see a homeopath instead.

She gives me a remedy – I can’t remember which one – which I take for a few days.

At the end of the week, I go back to the dentist so he can check my progress. He takes an X-ray of my jaw, and… there is no infection.

“See,” he says, “I told you you needed to take antibiotics.”

“I didn’t,” I say. “I took homeopathy.”

That shut him up.

This is nothing to do with making fires, tinder kits, or being in the wild, but it needs to be said: homeopathy works.