Finally, I was confronted by impenetrable dereliction: great mounds of brambles and nettles.
While cowardice is one of the highest crimes in the military code, punishable by death, dereliction of duty is more like a misdemeanor, carrying a maximum penalty of six months confinement and a dishonorable discharge.
If ever there was a time when the Queen-loving majority of this nation might benefit from sight of the old rock of strength, a little reassurance that complete constitutional and economic chaos, accompanied by political dereliction, is no reason to repine, a sign that not everyone who represents this country is a dolt, a rogue, or both, then this, surely, is it.
A poem about the photograph of a soon-to-be-demolished wainwright's shop in Hungerford in the 1950s concerns time's inevitable destruction of common memory, of mundane certainties that have been made strange by the dereliction into which their very names have fallen: thill, strouters, shutlock.
The whole family dynamic, placed under stress by dislocation and dereliction, had been transformed by the confidence that one woman had built from joining with other women to address their needs through microcredit.
It's great that "non-artists" Assemble won the Turner prize not just by "ignoring the art market" but also by tackling urban dereliction in Toxteth, Liverpool, with good design (Report, 7 December).
The most recent addition to luxury life on the Italian Lakes has been restored from dereliction by the founder of Regent Hotels, and boasts painted ceilings and individually decorated suites with views over the lake, mountains and garden.
While at Gibside, Tris Vonna-Michell stayed in the Grade I listed gothic Banqueting House, which was restored from dereliction by the Landmark Trust - which now lets it out as a holiday cottage.
