"You like that mancock in your sluthole, boy?” “Oh yeah, in my ass! I love it in my ass!”

The shale gas boom of the past five years took the US by surprise. Gas prices there have plunged and electricity production is shifting fast from coal to gas-fired power stations. This has had a huge effect on all parts of the US economy, and is changing politics globally.

Jared Polis of Boulder is the first openly gay man elected to Congress as a non-incumbent.

The dolliers were tardy too; the coal should have been brought and the boilers stoked by 5.30.