The trick now is to machine the top of the pipe so that the remaining 1400 or so feet can begripped or to use other tactics to grab hold of it and pull it up and out of the hole so that drilling can proceed.
Quite where the insane idea of playing a concerto before the annual gathering of most of the greatest living horn players came from is hard to tell, but the result is a marvellous memoir of a year's obsession that should be read by anyone gripped by illogical compulsion.
If the Titanic has gripped our imagination so forcefully for the past century, it must be because of something bigger than any fact of social or political or cultural history.
The game is suitable for anyone aged three or over, but as grown-ups are not exactly gripped by the election, it is hard to accept that kids will be either.