...as the moon is renewed monthly, so Alatiel revirginates at the end of the story, thus annihilating the experience of long wanderings and countless coitions.

In effect, it was a case of mass technocide, with humanity itself pulling the trigger.

Nor are we ever aware of this soundworld as an end in itself: it is all part and parcel of a total concept.

Slip-coach workings on the Western Region, the last stronghold of this practice, are now reduced to two daily - at Didcot off the 7.0 a.m. Weston-super-Mare-Paddington; and at Bicester (Saturdays excepted) off the 5.10 p.m. Paddington-Wolverhampton.