The roads are littered with corpses either charred or melted, their dreams, Mr. McCarthy writes, “ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts.”

As the biggest rail player, Network Rail was usually held accountable for failings, but had no authority to change anything to solve the problems. The DfT had been given that authority in 2004 - but consistently ducked accountability.

In English, foreign words are typically written in italics until they are naturalized.

Currently the dominance of Internet-based tools and interfaces that accommodate only Latin scripts limits content diversity, the development of local content, and intercultural exchange and collaboration.