Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St Ogg's, he saw the distant future before him as he might have seen a tempting stretch of smooth sandy beach beyond a belt of flinty shingles; he was on the grassy bank then, and thought the shingles might soon be passed.
Oh, shingles!
The long platform was almost deserted; the only living creature in sight being a girl who was sitting on a pile of shingles at the extreme end.
He took it up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides were of shingles.
" 'They work like normal shingles but generate energy at the same time,' added Liem Nguyen, a senior who is another member of the Ecohabit team.
In recent years, cupping therapy has been used for people suffering all sorts of ailments including shingles, facial paralysis, cough and difficulty breathing and acne.
The powerful little dots could be mixed into inks and painted or printed onto thin, flexible surfaces, such as roofing shingles, dramatically lowering the cost and accessibility of solar power for millions of people.
