Continuing the series of fiction contributions, this one is from Jane Wilkinson (@bikerjaney)

Not sure if you know, Miles, but I have a time machine.

I travelled to 2130 last week and it was a surprising place. The climate had changed… various coastlines had altered, and the weather extremes had caused some awful disasters – especially the terrible Tsunami of 2097 off the Spanish coast.

But it wasn’t so bad, living in that era… there were still sneep, and horses, cows, pigs… but these were not eaten anymore – a World Council agreement in 2078 had meant that the population of the world was now vegetarian (yes, all 3 billion of them) – so the animals are now used as beasts of burden and delivery, due to vehicles being banned except ones used by the emergency service charities.

But most countries operate quite peacefully, since the Great Registration of 2100, which led to the Affiliations and Peaceful Settlements Act .

And then there is the UK, and the DSA.

In 2053 the UK had finally split, and the warring nations had agreed to go their separate ways. Unfortunately their proximity to each other and the isolation caused by the 100 mile wide Sea of Europe, had affected the chances of the 7 individual nations being able to cope with the Great Famine, and the follow-on Terrible Blockade.

Excluded from the European, African and Chinese Bloc, there really was no hope. The nations re-joined and the total population (34 million) now scrape an existence among the dry plains, nuclear reprocessing plants, and barren coastlines.

But even that existence is preferable to living in the Divided States of America. Little news gets out of there, but what does escape is terrifying. The various (numbers of States change regularly) Religious States try to maintain the borders peacefully, but with starvation, homelessness and profanity now outlawed; and the numbers of criminals rising, the expense of termination is almost bankrupting some States, so criminal-dumping is rife at the borders.

I was glad to get back to 2019, and the minor matter of a Brexit where I know what happens!