In another recurring bit that looks as if it would be funny under other circumstances, two technology-infatuated chatterboxes try to outdo each other in airheadedness.

But what drivel I am writing! It is just an attempt to pass the weary time.

A great deal has already been reported of the well-publicised inaugural trips each way of the six-hour Flying Scotsman.

Your modern Rantipole, then, is of high Birth, or considerable Fortune, or great Beauty, either of which may entitle her to do that which others are ashamed of, who have not those superb Qualifications, and enable her to reverse the true Estimation of Things, and value herself upon being good for nothing. A young Rantipole, as soon as let out of the Cage, most commonly enters the Order, and opens her first Scene of Life with the Choice of a Gallant, whom she reizes egregiously for a Number of Years, and then marries and torments him without Mercy.