Aldous was shy and impractical, not the sort of man who could manage adultery without help from his wife. The correspondence with Mary Hutchinson makes clear that Maria was not merely complicit but actively 'omnifutuent', to borrow her husband's splendid word for bisexuality.

The farmer wants indehiscent heads of a cereal which can be gathered without shedding their grain.

Above all, however, we would like to think that there is more to be decided, after the engines and after the humans have had their says.

I'd like to dig her out.