The Yilanè are small, extremely intelligent dinosaurs (yes, I know everybody thinks of dinosaurs as universally huge, That's like thinking of mammals as enormous because there are blue whales and elephants. There are also shrews and marmosets. There were more small species than large.) They specialised in biotech, which meant they never had to develop mass production, because lifeforms (as any stock breeder will tell you) are willing, even eager, to see to their own production.

Biotech...

So, what do we know about dragons?

They're reptilian, for a start, and this could well indicate cold blooded. Their relatively infrequent feeding would tend to support this hypothesis.

They're big. No question there, everyone agrees. At least horse sized, and probably house sized. Of course, people tend to exaggerate, bringing shrews down to gnat dimensions, and postulating mosquitoes that fly away with small children, but I think we can be certain they are considerably...

I've been straining to hang on to very small ideas recently (takes a very fine strainer). Why? Just in case they can be squeezed down to seventy five words, obviously.

So, 'that's a nice little idea. I wonder how long it'll be when I write it out?'

As I passed the hundred word mark, I wasn't worried; there's always some dead wood to be pruned. The five hundred mark was more alarming, and the story had the bit between its metaphorical teeth, heading for the horizon....

My linguistically divided brain contorts and complains. It finds words, the essence of rational thought, on both sides of the barrier, reassuringly similar, and builds bilateral concepts, then discovers surface similarities are not enough. 'Peasant', universally pejorative in English, becomes 'paysan', the equivalent of the English yeoman as it crosses the channel, the tough hardy 'man of the land' who is the basis of agriculture, the independent spirit. Did the change come with the revolution,...

The predicted blizzard closed Gatwick, and planes were cancelled, but mine took off a mere hour late, packed to the earballs with passengers who'd failed to get onto earlier flights, and -- well, you know it was an uneventful flight. Eventful ones get mentioned on the news.

Unfortunately there had apparently been no space left for my suitcase, which stayed in Geneva with my toothbrush, clean underwear, cheese and chocolate (I was lucky not to be thrown out into the snow by my...