David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.

But literary escorts are not simply chauffeuses; they are coaches, reconnaissance experts, debriefers, psychologists, comrades in arms.

Usually a fad diet will take one idea that research has shown to be somewhat beneficial and take it to the extreme. A good example of this is the statement “Eat seaweed at every meal.”

Well it was for me that, in obedience to Hul Jok's imperative command, I was holding my Blastor pointing ahead of me; for as I blundered full upon the monstrosity it upheaved its ugly bulk—how I do not know, for I saw no legs nor did it have wings—to one edge and would have flopped down upon me, but instinctively I slid forward the catch on the tiny Blastor, and the foul thing vanished—save for a few fragments of its edges—smitten into nothingness by the vibration hurled forth from that powerful little disintegrator.