general (later field marshal) sir alan brooke (later viscount alanbrooke) was chief of the imperial general staff - i.e. the professional head of the british armed services - from december 1941, and was probably the greatest professional military strategist of world war two. he was also the only person able to keep winston churchill's wilder flights of military fantasy if not fully under control, then at least usually under reasonable control, and to usually be able to reign-in churchill's unbridled excessive enthusiasms.

his comprehensive war diaries were originally substantially published in edited form after various people's accounts - including churchill's - made little, or actually slighting reference to his part in the appreciation, decision-taking and planning of the ultimately successful conduct of the allied armies' (including air forces' and navies') actions in defeating the wehrmacht in africa, and in southern, western and western-central europe. the editing appears to have been largely to remove severe and especially personal criticism of people with whom he worked who were still living at the time of the preparation with him of that edition by sir arthur bryant.

a considerable amount of the arguments and reasoning behind the strategic analysis, thinking and decisions made regarding the conduct of the war, and its bearing on broader campaign tactical matters as well as upon narrower battlefield tactics was not widely understood or represented at the time - and is still too-often missed, even in the second decade of the twenty-first century c.e.

- and his diaries make fascinating reading, not just for students of warfare in world war two.

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well worth a read: it's great fun, really silly in parts - not least, the whole idea in the first place - and interesting people are met, and places seen; their stories told at least in part; and not a few of the friendly folk convinced it's proof that all brits are cracked :-)); and interesting titbits introduced from time-to-time, too. . .

- but it's a ''once only'' read, for all that - what's there is all on the surface, what you (i) read the first time around: there's no depth beneath that; and i think there could have been.

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in which, inspired by the visit of h. g. wells' time traveller, morlocks journey back in time to his victorian london, to be generally morlocky and obnoxious to uncomprehending victorian englishmen and women in every possible way; and challenging the incursion requires the aid of heroic english stereotypical myths from british (and roman) history...

one of the first wave of ''steampunk'' novels, which term jeter coined to encapsulate such victorian era-set & tech sf written by himself and his friends, james blaylock, q.v., and tim powers, q.v.. (cf. prior coinage of the term, ''cyberpunk''.)

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Review from Amazon:

Reviewed by Charlie in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2018.

Hated this book. I stuck with it, fascinated by it's awfulness, hoping it would improve but it went from bad to worse. Don't let the word Beatles in the title fool you, this is not in any way a book about The Beatles.

A real hatchet job on Bob Wooler who, in spite of all the nonsense spouted by the author, really was the driving force behind the Liverpool group scene in the early Sixties. How do I know? because I was one of the hundreds of young guys playing in groups in Liverpool at the time.

Too much is made of Wooler's homosexuality, the inference being that his interest in the group scene was mainly one of a predator of young boys.

Absolute nonsense!!!

My own experience of Bob Wooler, and those of my contemporaries, was of a man who was full of enthusiasm for the whole scene and gave even the least talented wannabes loads of encouragement. He almost single handedly promoted The Beatles in Liverpool in the early sixties, along with loads of publicity by Bill Harry and his Mersey Beat Magazine. If not for these two people, Brian Epstein would never have heard of the Beatles and the rest would have been a very different history.

The bulk of this tedious tome consists of accounts of the ramblings of Beryl Adams, one time secretary to Brian Epstein with a history of alcohol abuse and suicide attempts, who not long after the interviews with the author, succumbed to a terrifying brain disease that surely at this point must have been affecting her thoughts and memories and Bob Wooler, by this time a very sick and sad old man whose once razor sharp brain was now addled by the effects of alcohol abuse and ill health.

The impression given by the author of the Mersey Beat scene is of a sordid world, inhabited by sexual predators, ruthless fantasists and alcoholics. Nothing could be further from the truth. A truly exciting time for all involved and for the most part, good innocent fun!

In short, a pointless and depressing book by an author who obviously has no knowledge whatsoever of the Mersey Beat era and the real events surrounding it.

A truly awful book which doesn't deserve the one star but I am not allowed to give it less!!!!

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Jonathan Coe, one the best English authors of recent times, portrays with respect and human feeling the life of James Stewart, the actor that played the everyday straight American man.
A character with whom the audience could identify.
Dramatic roles, western style, thrillers, comedies. romances, he has interpreted any kind of human being always with deep performance.

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excessively hagialogical - especially as very sparse, withal - even fawning account of the franco-welsh dynasty put on the throne of england by a combination of mostly french force of arms, the tiny rump of the die-hard lancastrian unreconciled with richard III, and the treachery of one turncoat, a man who owed his survival and that of the noblewoman he married to richard's clemency -

- a dynasty of men - and a woman - so voraciously power- and money-grabbing, and so paranoid, they wiped out all of their remaining near, and even distant relatives, overthrew roman (vatican) control of the church in england, grabbing it - and all the churches accumulated wealth, land, patronage and power for themselves, and were so virulently and rabidly ''christian fundamentalist'' they encouraged and even promoted the slaying of thousands for the religious crime of not being sufficiently narrow-mindedly protestant, or of not being sufficiently narrow-mindedly roman catholic, and whose abuse of their powers was so egregious -

- that it seems a major miracle that they eventually produced a ruling queen who was head of the english church -

- yet refused to condemn loyal catholics without evidence of treason°; who was so skilled a political operator her most serious critics in parliament insisted, or tried to insist, that she marry for the good of the realm, managed to keep the two major european powers so greatly in competition with one another, they were ultimately prepared to tolerate her and england's independence, and outright piracy - philip of spain, admittedly, only after the failure of his grand armada - and all this upon a shoestring budget grudgingly voted her by parliament, and whilst - mostly - making good her declaration of tolerance, accepting the official minimum outward conformity with anglicanism (the compromise english church which could accept forms of worship ranging from ''high church'', with some incense, through ''low church'', with fire and brimstone sermons, and lacking most hymns) with the declaration that she would not seek to make a window into men's souls.

- but instead of following, even in a simplified outline, the story of the three or four power struggles that were running throughout tudor times - and occasionally, running wild - this book gives little more than a clichéed and honeyed - or rather, sickly sugared - synopsis of the official tudor apologists' and outright proselytists' propaganda machine pr releases:

- and worse, it's boring.

- avoid.


° - save once; and the undoubtedly loyal englishman in question insisted on standing up to be counted an enemy by elizabeth's parliament

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Celebrate the visual games history of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron with this case bound book, contained within a beautiful slip case. Spread over 476 pages, with a foreword by Richard Hanson (Superior Software) and Life of an Acorn Gamer by TV's Iain Lee, it features over 150 classic games, with exclusive interviews with key figures in the industry at the time - from the likes of David Braben and Ian Bell (Elite); Geoff Crammond (Revs/Aviator); Peter Irvin (Exile); Tim Tyler (Repton); Nick Pelling (Frak!); Peter Scott (Sim City/The Last Ninja); Gary Partis (Psycastria/Dr Who); Chris Roberts (Stryker's Run); Steve Furber (Acorn) and many, many more - and features on subjects such as key publishers, cover art and classic magazines. The book showcases the computers' inimitable graphic style and is packed full with memories and anecdotes from programmers, artists, publishers, reviewers and enthusiasts. Remember Elite, Chuckie Egg, Repton, Exile, Starship Command, Thrust, Citadel, Revs, Imogen, Codename:Droid, Firetrack, Arcadians, Mr Ee!, Zalaga, Castle Quest, Galaforce, Snapper and many more. An unmissable publication for anyone who grew up with an Acorn 8-bit machine.

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wartime story of a journalist whose air corps photographer husband was killed flying, returning to new york unable to settle back into work, but unable to settle without her work, either, chatted up by a bomber pilot who's received his new posting to the pacific on the train returning again to new york, finding a shared apartment with other young women who're enjoying the social whirl, being found again by jim, the bomber pilot, and liking him, but not falling in love with him.
when she's witness to his saving the life of an old woman who falls on the subway tracks, she writes it up for her paper, recovers a lot of her former energy, and they start going out on dates together.
then he's ordered to get his cholera vaccination and given details of his imminent his flight out...

so; a novel of a wartime romance, but not a category romance; historically-set, if only just, at the time it was written, but not a category historical romance - which translates more-or-less as ''bodice-ripper'' category, which this decidedly is not; and equally, though set during world war two, definitely not war fiction.

made into a film of the same title starring jane russell and louis hayward, produced by hunt stromberg, directed by edwin l. marin; jane russell's second film, the first to go on general release.

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intended by skinner as a realisation in fiction of the utopia that would result from a society built and run upon the principles of his pet theory of ''operant conditioning'' - the raising of babies, children and young adults ''purely'' by systematically rewarding behaviour desired by their parents & societies' leaders, and by strictly punishing behaviour not desired by them - he succeeded in producing a frightening warning° of the dystopia that would arise in any regimented society so rigorously controlled by such means, and without any humane principles or ''moral philosophy'' underlying, to temper the excesses of the rule of this presumed infallible rod of iron -

° - albeit, completely inadvertently. . .

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first of a major science fiction original anthology series founded by e. j. carnell (aka john carnell, aka ted carnell) to continue publishing the authors and the kinds of sf he'd published as editor of new worlds, science fantasy and science fiction adventures magazines until nova publications was bought by roberts & vinter at the end of 1963, and carnell was replaced by the new owners as editor of these magazines by young enthusiasts such as michael moorcock and friends, on new worlds, and by kyril bonfiglioni on science fantasy.

initially promoted as a quarterly, "new writings in science fiction" only rarely maintained that frequency, but was for thirty anthologies and thirteen years - out-living john carnell by half a decade in the capable hands of ken bulmer - for most of its lifespan the primary uk & commonwealth market for sf authors, and published much that was great fun, as well as absorbing and sometimes very powerful reading.

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Publisher Blurb

This is a colour album of London Buses concentrating mainly on the 1970s which was the first decade since London Transport s inception in 1933 to feature a large number of buses on London streets which were not painted in the mainly all-red (or in a few cases, all-green) livery with which people are familiar. Vehicles in the traditional London liveries have not been ignored but many of the pictures depict this remarkably colourful era and often against the backdrop of famous or historically interesting landmarks which the author has been able to describe. As far as is known, none of the photographs has been published before, and the vast majority were taken by one photographer, sadly now deceased, who had the foresight to compose his picture well. The author is a well-known London Bus enthusiast and this is his 34th transport book and second for Pen & Sword.

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the intended fifth book of "the once and future king", q.v., cut (unfinished) by the author from the same for a variety of considerations, and some parts rewritten and included in the tetralogy as published.

interesting, even absorbing, reading after reading the definitive series of four novels;
i imagine it would be somewhat confusing as well as distinctly lacking in substance, read alone and without the context of the main work.

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once peter lavery, now hamlyn paperbacks' editorial director, had decided (whilst back at methuen) that yr hmbl srppnt. was both knowledgeable and competent as regards sf & fantasy, he ceased doing much more regarding evaluation of sf/fantasy books offered by agents, merkin publishers, uk hardcover publishers for the methuen paperbacks/magnum books sf list, and then for the hamlyn paperbacks sf list - though i was never a full-time employee of either, and played no part in the financial, nor hardly any part regarding the production sides.
- but, somewhat unfortunately, peter didn't actually tell me that the recommendations i was making regarding the publishability (sfnal/fantastic excellence, etc.) of the books being offered hamlyn paperbacks were now being taken by him as definitive judgement upon their suitability for these lists - that i was effectively taking most of the editorial decisions for the two sf/fantasy lists in turn - excluding size of advances offered, royalty rates offered, cover art to be used and other production matters - and publication dates.

this had some mildly strange, occasionally definitely unintended effects, as the criteria by which one sets out to build an sf&f list are somewhat different from those by which one judges individual books
- and hamlyn paperbacks' publishing damon knight's "beyond the barrier" is an example.

it's a wonderful load of science-fictional adventure tripe, damon knight "doing" a. e. van vogt in that sf luminary's classic wide-screen baroque, flash! - bang! - non-stop action mode: and there are progressive denouements or discoveries that what the characters (or most of them) - and therefore you, the reader - knew, or thought you knew, was not in fact what was happening at all,

- but, unlike van vogt's classic cosmic jerry-building, the plot of the pyrotechnic adventure, and the sub-plots, and the plots laid by the competing sets(!) of bad guys, do actually hang together - the end of the headlong career through action, illusion and revelation does actually make sense, and it all comes to a satisfying conclusion.

- so; great wide-screen adventure sf, great fun to read, and a good book for hamlyn paperbacks to publish, yes - ?

- well, not really that last: vastly entertaining though the book is, and was, the advice that it was - and is - a minor gem of its kind was originally given in the context of advising methuen/magnum books' fiction editor, knowing we'd already published three excellent collections of damon knight's wonderfully well-thought out and told novellas & novelettes (with some very fine short stories, too) - a recommendation peter carried with him when he moved to set up hamlyn paperbacks for reed/ipc: so, on the embryo hamlyn paperbacks sf/f list, this was a firework display without its backdrop - and yr hmbl srppnt. didn't know that naught more'd be done to chase after further damon knight sf titles, because neither he, nor anyone else'd told me i should tell them they ought to.

- but it's still a wonderful, zap-bangy, veils of illusion-spinning and penetrating, evil plot-weaving, uncovering, discovering, and countering, and eventually confusion-busting, barrel of fun.

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Great shame that this is only available in Swedish at present because the rise and fall of record companies is always interesting reading.

Sonet began because of a burning musical interest in Jazz..at that time the youth music of the after war years in Sweden. Enthusiastic young men contacted US record firms through the Swedish Embassy's commercial registers and got an answer back from Savoy and were able to import discs and sell to a market hungry for product.
Visiting Jazz musicians on European tours were recorded and a network of contacts was soon built up.
By 1958 it was obvious that Jazz was on the wane and similar overtures were made to US companies like Chancellor, Roulette and Canadian American offering Scandinavian representation where that was not already covered by Decca and EMI in the UK.

Sonet kept its small label values and many interviews with Artists contracted to the label all tell of a distinct family feel ..all were welcomed and nurtured.

Interesting also is the views of other label bosses working with Sonet ..Chess, Alligator, Island, Mute.
Monetary rewards were only for re investing in another music project. Nobody starved at Sonet but Music making was by far the more important to them.

This book and the one about Metronome Records deserves translation as 45Cat has shown that there is an interest in other that UK and US companies

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With all the hype of a 'vinyl revival' there have been a great many books published about record collecting and record shops over the last 5 years and I think this is one of the best.

The writer originally planned to do a book about record collectors in general but when she started doing research interviews she soon discovered that in many respects 78s collectors are 'next level' and decided to just focus on them.

The level of passion and determination among the collectors she encounters is incredible. I think the book also benefits from being penned by a female entering a 99% male world of obsession. She manages to get caught up in the excitement of discovering long lost early century blues and esoteric music whilst remaining a sense of being an outside observer.

A recommended read for anyone who has ever wondered if their collecting habit has ever strayed into the realm of being slightly unhealthy!

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I had to get rid of this book. I collect books about soul music, but this one was so badly written it annoyed me to even think I'd wasted money on it!

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''vol de nuit'' (1926), winner of le prix femina, and ''pilote de guerre'' (1942), winner of le grand prix littéraire de l'aero-club de france - are autobiographical novels by antoine de saint exupéry. the latter was written to show quite how hard the french army, and in particular l'armée de l'air, fought their battle against the german invasion in 1940. it was banned by the collaborationist vichy french government shortly after its publication - and then by the free french government of charles de gaulle in algeria, also in 1943, making it perhaps unique to have been banned by both sides, and scarcely improving de saint exupéry's opinion of politicians in general. it was, however, successfully published in both french, and in english translation, in north america.

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''das schloß'' was started in 1922, but left unfinished, and probably incomplete°, by kafka when he ceased to be capable of writing, and subsequently died.

it's an account of the viewpoint character's arrival at a village (or town) dominated by a castle and its occupant(s?), and his attempts to get accepted into the position of surveyor to which he's been appointed, in the face of a labyrinthine stone-walling°° of every effort he can think of making to get recognised - or, indeed, anywhere.
the ordinary people he meets are all dominated by their fear of officials and the dire and dreadful unspoken punishments or sanctions, and fate, that inevitably awaits anyone as durst step out of line - including by helping anyone so evidently disapproved of, from their being unrecognised by the castle.
and though he receives some written encouragement from an official of the castle, in its details it is decreasingly consistent with both the reality that he observes, and that which he experiences...

° - given the nature of the beast, it's possible there could be, and could never have been, any conclusion - and certainly, no resolution...
°° - pun intentional - but intended by whom?

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#oldmod67 there's nothing wrong with the use of language, nor the style, and it's an adventure story in the cosy catastrophe genre; it reads smoothly; but it's unambitious, nothing is made of the innovation of the spiders beyond their immediate threat and people's fear of spiders, and the protagonists' characters aren't essentially changed by their experiences in escaping from the plague of spiders: - so it's essentially not sf, but an excessively ''englishly'' polite mild horror novel.

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how people behave towards one another, analysed as a relatively small number of stereotypical ''games'' designed - whether deliberately or not - to manipulate them into doing what each wants the other to do.

one of the classic books explaining ''transactional analysis'' - easy to read - and fun, besides.

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Interesting ......Selwood began with Vogue and Decca then Philips and worked for many UK labels in sales..Salvo, Century 21 and Elektra.
His association with Johns Peel is probably best known along with their Dandelion label and has many tales to tell of the people they signed ....the Gene Vincent chapter is a little sad. He must have met all the important names in the record industry at one time or the other..Clive Davis, Kim Fowley, The Doors, Don Arden, Johnathan King

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

I have this!

These Octopus books are great value, but tend to omit at least one of the key stories by any particular author you are after (My Hemmingway one lacks a couple of the big titles :(...

...But this has all the good Wells stuff in it you want.

What is striking about his stories is how my pre-conceived notions about how dated and quaint his Sci-fi / physics notions were actually even now have a surprising air of plausibility about them... even the patently daft ones... like going to the moon in a tin foil box to meet the ant people...

The physics is clearly duff, but his ideas and explanations are very well considered, and brilliantly explained, like the concept of how the physics of his time machine works... really conjures an image in the mind.

Just a shame it doesn't work that way really.... I think his stories deserve better physics in the real world.

(Maybe we could start a petition to get science changed to accommodate Wells! :)

Top volume, well worth geting, as it's great value.

((And still can't any reference to any bleedin' octopus))

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This book was read by my wife to our 9 year old granddaughter as a bedtime story in Covid lockdown using WhatsApp, with two or three chapters most nights. My wife had previously read the first book in the trilogy 'The Knight And The Squire', so when she finished this book tonight, we were quite prepared for my granddaughter to ask for something different, rather than the final book of the trilogy. But she didn't, which shows that the story has captured her imagination and attention. Thanks again Terry & Michael!

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

Bought in a charity shop for £1 two years ago, I was saving this for a visit by our granddaughter then aged 7. But with the current Covid 19 lockdown it has proved very useful, as my wife has been reading it as a bedtime story via Whatsapp video calls. With 50 chapters, and two or three chapters per night, it has given our granddaughter a lot of pleasure over about three weeks. Our granddaughter's review (now aged nearly 10) was:

It was VERY good!

I've now got the second and third books in the trilogy, and she is half way through the second with no loss of enthusiasm. Thanks Terry & Michael!

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

the fourth "fuzzynovel" authorised, like ardath mayhar's "golden dream: a fuzzy odyssey" (q.v.), before the long lost manuscript° of the original author's thrid, "fuzzies and other people", was rediscovered.

- and like the mayhar, "fuzzy bones" is still well worth reading: though not without some continuity problems with political developments in h. beam piper's original third novel, these are minor compared with the amount mayhar and tuning add to our knowledge of the fuzzies, the world on which we came across them, and the great adventure "pappy doc" and his friends stumbled into somewhere near its middle - but which could so easily have been, to witness its ending before realising quite how much was being lost thereby.


° - typescript, but they're still called manuscripts (ms, pl: mss) decades after the typewriter swept the world of the to-be-printed word - and decades after it virtually disappeared from anywhere there's electricity. or - potentially - sunshine.

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The best bus books are like a good novel, a good play or a good film. They should draw you in and take you away to another time and another place and make you feel you are there, experiencing it for real. This book does that. It deals with a period now long gone but, as you turn the pages, the intervening years melt away and you start to smell the smells and hear the sounds around you. A Midland Red Guy Arab drops off a lonely passenger in Dudley’s hills and powers off; the buzz of the streets of Britain’s second city is interrupted by a Corporation Daimler double-deck purring through - and the buses go about their business passing people in the styles of the day, shops selling goods of the day, and all oblivious to the photographer recording the moment for posterity. Whether by design or accident, the photographers here have all caught a slice of life where the compositions tell a much bigger story that puts the bus into the context of place and time.
Pure pleasure, a good read and a nostalgic journey.

Ray Stenning, Editor, Classic Bus

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#1 and first-written of the "warlock of gramarye" fantasy/sf novels featuring rod gallowglass, his robot black horse, "fess", brom o'beirin (sp?) and gwendolyn, and tom, leavening the sometimes very serious problems and situations faced by the characters with a refreshing ability of the major players as well as the minor to miscalculate and even make outright mistakes, set on a somewhat anomalous planet, in a rather peculiarly-arranged world originally settled by a fairly broad assortment of excessively romantic medieval recreationalists, and told with a lightness of touch that generally does not undermine the story by forcing a mental double check during the reading. . .

("king kobold" (ace books 1971), q.v., the sequel, was later rewritten and published in considerably different form entitled "king kobold revived" (ace books 1984), q.v.; it is sufficiently different a story from the original version, to read the earlier story as a "road not taken", a variant that remains enjoyable for itself (if somewhat confusédly).)


(and immediately before this, christopher stasheff wrote a prequel to the first three of the rod gallowglass/ warlock of gramarye series, "escape velocity" (1983), which is an enjoyable sf novel - but which lacks much of the magic feel of the first half dozen of the series, rather, since ''gramarye'' has yet to be founded.)

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serialised in f&sf vol.29 #4, #5; 10/1965, 11/1965, under the title, "...and call me conrad";
winner of the 1966 hugo award for best novel.

humanity's rape and destruction of the earth's ecosystem has presented civilisation in the local part of the galaxy with a major problem, and unscrupulous asset-strippers (and worse) amongst them with a tempting business opportunity or three hundred. a fabulously wealthy alien comes to earth, ostensibly as a tourist, one amongst quite a few such fascinated by the chance to view - and possibly buy up examples of - humanity's art treasures before the planet and its cultures have been completely looted (not least, of course, by wealthy alien tourists not too fussy about the legality of their acquisitions), and engages a tour guide for his party who proves to be rather more than meets the eye - and isn't too keen on tourists buying up the treasures of ten thousand years as mildly interesting knick-knacks to decorate their off-planet offices and towers to impress friends and visitors, and forget.

conrad gives his employers their money's worth, including steering them safely through some of the more dangerous parts of their itinery they're not prepared to abandon - though some of the dangers they seem to've brought with them - and provides them with photo-opportunities (or equivalents thereof) as may appeal, entertain or appal, including the destruction of one of the pyramids(!) - but why? he doesn't appear to need the money, and his sympathies seem more in tune with the assassin he argues out of completing their commission - at least, for a while - than with the rich wastrels and industrialists, etc, he's guiding and protecting; again, why? - and why on earth has one of the monsters out of a "hot" area picked up their trail, what can it be after?

- and how much can a ruined planet be worth, after all - and to whom?

- one's own life? - or more?

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

readers of norman spinrad's sf should be aware this is not in fact the novel, "the iron dream":

it contains, after a few pages, the complete, uncut and unexpurgated english translation of the 1955 hugo award-winning novel, "the lord of the swastika" by cult sf writer, adolf hitler. . .

it is extremely well done, in the sense that it is a horribly convincingly poorly-written rant of a racist, misogynist, and thuggish paean to the limits of the diseased imagination of its putative author.
i am not sure it is worth anyone's reading, though it is, i suppose, worth having read it.

(it includes an appreciation of the novel and its author as an afterword by "homer whipple".)

6 people found this review helpful.   ✔︎ Helpful Review?

not published as sf - though it perfectly arguably is science fiction - this was frank herbert's second attempt to demonstrate he could write a non-category novel, and a "category best-seller" novel, at that: the result is an over-long and inadequately thought-through tome that could perhaps have made a competent sf novel from his pen^W typewriter; or perhaps also a "category best-seller" novel in collaboration with another author, or a more demanding editor, capable of providing or requiring credible technical background research upon viruses (etc.) - and also, unfortunately, believable characters.

the absence of either of these need not prevent a tome achieving actual best-seller sales figures, of course; but the absence of both ensures this is neither a classic novel nor particularly memorable.

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