There are unfortunate stories of travellers being sent to the wrong destination, such as the art expert who wished to go back to see Van Gogh in action, but who ended up in Van Diemen’s Land instead. British passengers who travel regularly to the future to do research complain of horrendous overcrowding. And of course there was the terrible Time Crash of 2081, when a time machine going back to Victorian days for a night out at the music hall collided with one coming back from the Boer War, and both sets of passengers ended up somewhere in the 1920s, where as far as is known they still are.”We inherited a mess from the Opposition!” declaims the Minister of Time Transport. “I need not tell you you how ruinous their attempts were to privatise British Time Travel! We are still working to mend the damage they caused!”"Why not travel back in time and stop them doing it?”, cries a voice, to much laughter.”I believe the honourable member knows the regulations against tampering with history,” says the Time Transport Minister.”Tell that to the England football supporters!” comes another voice, and more laughter.

Everyone knows the story of the England football fans who travelled back to AD 2002 in an effort to change the result of the World Cup that year, by nobbling the man who had scored the winning goal in the match against England. Luckily, before they could do any damage they were arrested, twice, first by Japanese police of the day, then by time-travel police coming back from AD 2088 to get them.”As you know,”says the Time Transport Minister, “I was obliged last year to put Timetrack into liquidation and take over the day to day running of the British time travel network myself.”Cheers and boos. “There is a great deal more to this job than you might suppose. For instance, we have agreed that time travellers over the age of 60 can travel half fare on the time travel system.

Does this mean that if they travel back more than a few years, they go back under the age of 60 and thus lose that privilege which they started out with?”"Stick to the point!” cried one voice, and “What about getting time travel back on track?” says another, but the Speaker overrules all of them.”Order! Order!” he says. “We have run out of time on this debate, and we must move to the next item, which is yet another reappearance of the bill to ban all hunting with dogs…”A reader writes: Is that all there is? Miles Kington writes: Yes, I’m afraid so.A reader writes: It just finishes in mid-air like that? Miles Kington writes: Oh, no The story is concluded in The Independent, 5 April, 2088
More from Miles Kington. I became an NHS statistic last weekend. For no clear reason, while I was out sipping a glass of Macon-Lugny in a fashionable bar in Smithfield, my right foot began to swell up. One minute it was nestling in its manly brogue, the next it was throbbing like a banged thumb and starting to grow. By the time the bill arrived, my foot resembled one of Minnie Mouse’s black extremities.