Some 35 years ago I was somewhat precariously balanced in a drilling derrick aligning a whipstock into a directional hole in North Holland by the Stokenbury method, and no doubt thinking to myself that I was at the very forefront of technology. During the intervening period it has become obvious to many of us that some of the most significant technical advances in the oil business have been made in drilling, and particularly in the fields of offshore and directional drilling. It has also become apparent that the quality of the technical literature describing these advances has not kept pace...