Brobdingnagian

When, at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fantasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, it all looked easy enough.

The two men followed Madame de Vaurigard into a square hall, hung with tapestries and lit by two candles of a Brobdingnagian species Mellin had heretofore seen only in cathedrals.

The faster trains, such as the "Talisman" and the 9 a.m., load to no more than nine coaches; but while it was certainly great fun to clock the work of the Gresley Pacifics with Brobdingnagian loads the present arrangement, giving a frequent service of lighter trains, is far more convenient to the user.

Again I stress the matter of sheer scale: the teachers were enormous compared to us and this lent a Brobdingnagian aspect to the scene.

Once a week, a train pulls out of Aberdeen station at 08.20 and heads south. There’s no great fanfare, no particular sense of occasion, and the train itself is only five coaches long. However, everything else about this service is Brobdingnagian.

The Brobdingnagian pile is the work of Foster+Partners, led by the 90-year-old Norman Foster, who is no stranger to penning extravagant bank headquarters.