I remained about a year, cockying, clearing land, and herd-recording as a servant of the Department of Agriculture.

There in the doorway stood an eightysomething Las Vegas showgirl.

Added to these woes was the Treasury's demands for across-the-board train operator cost-cutting of broadly 10%. Passenger rail's slow, patchy and fragile recovery had the stuffing knocked out of it once more.

Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than in these temperate dreams of the divine Hungerer