Amalgam, trams and Northern Ireland

Oh no, readers say, more of Burke's incomprehensible rubbish, just when they thought that they had been given an Editorial Director who could write sense!

In that regard, even the most erudite readers of the UK's best-selling subscription journal, Dental Update, may not appreciate the thread running between the items in the title! On the other hand, older readers may (or probably may not!) recall, in 2004, the year in which the Hong Kong tram system, which runs from one end of the city to the other and celebrated its 100th anniversary in that year, that the trams were the subject of an editorial comparing their longevity to that of dental amalgam, with the 100th anniversary tram being featured on the cover of Dental Update (Figure 1). The trams remain, to the present time, a useful and functional form of transport as opposed to being a relic of the past. Indeed, as trams in UK cities such as Manchester and Glasgow were retired and replaced by petrol-powered buses, the trams were added to the Hong Kong fleet.