Henry Crow - space/time travel without a rudder

Henry Crow, cheap-deal traveller reporting for the Llugnag Observer (planet Struldbrugg, Laputa nebula), splashes down into the Duddon Estuary. His craft sinks immediately amid a sizzle of steam. He is fortunate to be composed of material with a specific gravity of slightly less than one, and floats at that interface of liquid and gas we call the ocean’s surface. As the storm abates he spies a distant shore lit by a full moon. Struggling with limbs and joints stiff from decades of suspended animation, he doggy-paddles towards the beach.

Making land at last, he morphs silently into the bipedal, erect posture of an Earthling. He winces in pain as a disc in his lower back pops immediately out of whack. ‘Just my luck - primitive body plan’ he reflects ruefully.

He wanders through some woodland, up a hillside and comes across a circular arrangement of stones about 25 thargs across. He has seen no animated life so far, but this is evidence of some sort of civilisation. From what's recorded in his infoplant, that pinpoints his space-time co-ordinates to Sunkenkirk, Cumbria, sometime after 3000 BC.

Finding a stone to sit on, he rummages through his bag for a recording device, and makes his first report as Henry Crow, travel correspondent for the Luggnagg Observer…