'Well it's inevitable isn't it?' Nettie found herself being surprisingly defensive of her planet's right to have traffic jams.

'Of course it isn't!' exploded The Journalist. 'You have to devise a system that goes faster the more popular it is, so it can cope! It's perfectly obvious!'

Nettie was drumming her fingers on the dashboard of the landing craft, and smiling at anyone who happened to give them an odd look. Smiling was always the best way to make them look away. She was also glancing increasingly frequently at her watch. Time was running out.

The jam moved an inch nearer London.

'I mean a transportation system with an average speed of just above stationary is not really a transportation system at all!' The Journalist was raving by now. 'It's more like a storage system!'

'OK! Let's do it!' Nettie suddenly sounded decisive. 'I've always fantasized about this!'

'What?'

'Take her up! Nobody's watching!'

And sure enough, when The Journalist gunned the spacecraft up into the air and sped over the heads of the preceding traffic, nobody seemed to notice. He set the craft down again in an open space on the other side of the jam. The driver of the car they landed in front of was not a happily married man. He had been mulling over what would happen if his wife never returned from the skiing holiday she was currently enjoying. Perhaps she would run off with the instructor and breed Alpine sheep and serve English teas to walkers in the summer. But then there were the children. He'd have to get them to school every day on his own and he wouldn't be able to stay at the office after hours to chat up that new secretary... At this moment a sporty-looking car suddenly appeared in front of him. Jesus!' he exclaimed, swerving involuntarily, 'I didn't even notice it overtaking! God! The speed some people drive at!'