Anna Thomas is said to have got high on nitrous oxide - aka laughing gas - from more than a dozen canisters of squirty cream before she got behind the wheel

Files of legionaries from the outsides of each cohort raced to its middle, gradually building up, evenly, so that protrusions of men appeared, lessening until at the tip there was the primus pilus of the cohort, acting as the biting point of the wedge.

These backstories cast the characters' behavior in a new light: of course Gertrude would promptly marry the man who saved her from abuse; of course Ophelia would be desperate and indiscreet in seeking Hamlet's love.

[…] Even unopposed, the natural obstacles are formidable, and defending his line of advance will be a beast of a problem."