Retroprogressive News

I must admit I was delighted to discover that there are now freight trains running from China all the way to Barking. Perhaps I'm being naive - this is, after all, part of Xi Jinping's plans for a new Silk Road and his 'One Belt, One Road' policy (whatever that means - just one of each? No braces? No sideroads?) - but I love the idea of long freight trains trundling across China, though Kazakhstan and Russia, Belarus and Poland, into Germany and France and then on through the Channel tunnel to England (and, by way of Duisburg, into Spain and Italy). We retroprogressives must rejoice that this is - despite the best efforts of Southern Rail, ASLEF and the RMT - the age of the train (as the late Jimmy Savile used to assure us back in the Seventies, thereby delaying its coming by several decades).
 While I was on the BBC News website, I was of course unable to resist the sidebar item teasingly  titled 'Remember These? Where have all the courgettes gone?' This turns out to be a fine example of BBC News house style, a story stretched thinner than filo pastry over paragraph after paragraph. (Nutshell version: Cold wet weather in Spain and Italy.) I particularly like the sentence 'He is awaiting delivery of a lorry load of courgettes which should have arrived on Wednesday but will not be in the UK until Friday.' Well, thank heavens I have a courgette in the fridge. Perhaps I'll put it up on eBay and see what happens...