(N) "The railroad is the chief of many mechanical devices enabling us to get away from where we are to where we are no better off". So said Ambrose Bierce, the American newspaper columnist, satirist, short-story writer and novelist, who disappeared in the early 20th century Mexican Revolution, in his book The Devils Dictionary. Anyway, the reason for including that quote is that I would still have been happy, after our own railroad journey between Hong Kong and Vietnam, if I was no better off in Hanoi than I had been in Hong Kong, where we had eaten, drank and sightseen to our hearts' content. (Incidentally, the same author defined marriage as "a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two." Congratulations on your recent engagement, future Mr & Mrs
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