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Cinderella:
Tabitha Crawley is 25, Ward sister of Mens Orthopaedic at the "aggressively Victorian" St. Martin's, orphaned but with those tiresome 'steps', that The Great Betty so maligned, mucking up the view. Step-mother is Mrs. Crawley. She doesn't appear to have a first name. Step-sister is a...we'll call her Hurricane Lilith. Tabitha has an obsession with her childhood home, a devoted nanny-cum-housekeeper (Meg), a bad hair-do (of which much is made), beautiful legs (thank you, Betty) and the nicest description of short, straight eye lashes that I've ever read. (I am quite reconciled to my own as never before.)
Prince Marius van Beek is not a real prince but for the purposes of the book...He's 38, craggy handsome and "looked casual to the point of laziness" and "incapable of tying his own shoelaces". He smokes a pipe which seems to be the only kind of smoking The Venerable Neels approved. He has a butler named Hans whose wife died during an Actual Verifiable Historical Event.
Plot:
Tabitha is plain--well, hasn't she been told so a thousand times?! She runs a tight ship over in Men's Orthopaedic and is kept on her toes by surgeon Mr. Raynard--a peppery gentleman with a matchmaking gleam in his eye. Why else, when he falls in his garden and breaks bones, would he call Standard Requisition Issue Hot Dutch Doctor to replace him and say (under sedation) that that she'd been "given the best birthday present of [her] life"?
Tabitha is instantly attracted (I'll say. Have you seen the cover art?), laments her plain face, feels delightfully excited (I'll say.) and takes him on the ward rounds.
There they meet old Mr. Bow--Knotty--longtime (but lost) friend of Marius. Tabitha has already been given an opportunity to prove her sterling qualities by un-paid, off-duty cat rescue when she stops by Mr. Bow's apartment the previous day. There she finds him living in tidy squalor with an irrational attachment to priceless objects.
She has to go to CHIDLAKE (her childhood home which she has an obsession about) for the 18th birthday of the odious Hurricane Lilith. She only goes because she loves, loves, loves her home. They only invite her because "What would people say?" if they didn't. Obv
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Despite thinking that she's plain beyond redemption Tabitha brings a cute little blue-green number. Hurricane Lilith becomes whipped into a fury about clashing in the receiving line (is this a particularly 70s thing?), step-mother piles on and Tabitha makes nice by agreeing to wear what sounds like gray and white striped banquet hall bunting. Still, when Marius makes a surprise showing later on in the evening he notices "Tabitha in moonlight."
She meets him the next morning when she goes off for a Heroine-Authorized Early Morning Ramble. Salubrious chit chat follows. He says the words idee fixe for a second time and it's starting to annoy me but I remember the cover art and all is forgiven. He recommends that she change her hairstyle and when asked why replies, "to prove to yourself that you aren't plain." If I were him I would say, "Are you new here? Have you not seen the cover art?" She runs away in anger.
When he swings by her house to deliver chocolates from Hurricane Lilith ( Yes, he was with her so again, no one thinks to say, "Have you noticed the 20 year age gap?") the dawning realization hits the fan. What's a girl to do?
Typically, our Neels heroines would be scanning Nursing Today for another job in far-flung Bora Bora at the first hint that their feelings toward Mijneer Doctor van der Plotz ter Brinkma are verging on Torrid Partiality. Instead, Tabitha gets out the Vogue, finds her case of unused cosmetics, furrows her brow and goes to work. She's going to turn that sow's ear into a silk purse or die trying.
Semi-serious Editorial Note: I adore the scene when she goes onto the ward for the first time with new hair and make-up. Shyness, terror, sensitivity...My husband changed schools in high school and immediately began wearing a hat. Evidently he'd always wanted to wear a hat but hadn't the nerve to try it in front of friends who were sure to comment. Everybody feels like this. Neels writes this excellently. "Does it look awful?" she asks.
Tabitha is sure that Marius is Lilith's for the asking but being in love has made her want to be better than she had been--which I don't think our admonishing Second-wave feminist sisters would approve. Maybe Tabitha should have realized her self-worth all on her own but this feels real and it works. Okay, back to our regular programing...
Marius finally comments on her hair, "I'm glad to see that you've stopped playing Cinderella." He keeps prodding her to confront her self-martyrdom (horrible steps, loss of CHIDLAKE, deliberate frumpiness). She hates it and they fight about it but he's right and she's wrong.
Mr. Bow and Mr. Raynard, like all invalids, want to go on a sailing trip in Veere--Marius' home. Nothing says safety like leg plasters and open water. Tabitha is press-ganged into going (and you all know who they'll sue if someone falls off a boat and sinks into the briny deep).
We know how Marius feels about her as soon as they get to his house
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But, what's that I see? There. looming on the horizon Is that a weather system? Swirling black clouds portending doom. Is that a hurricane?
That's right. Evidently, if you're a 18-year-old blue eyed blond then nobody thinks to slap a restraining order on you for stalking. Certainly the good doctor doesn't. There she is, in the front room of the doctor's house and Tabitha stands there feeling as though, "Lilith is sucking her dry." (She's a hurricane, girlfriend. That's what they do.)
Marius spends a lot of time with the natural disaster and her mother (who Mr. Raynard earlier describes as a "terrifying woman, always smiling") while Tabitha's castles are crumbling. She's hanging in there but just. It's fairy godmothers Bow and Raynard, who gamely step forward with faked leg complaints and manufactured headaches, that save Tabitha from further insults and crowing from her horrible steps.
But they can't do everything. Before you know it Lilith has invited herself for a sail (Don't sail in hurricanes!). A fine day was enjoyed, a little light flirting between the principles and all w
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You know I love The Neels. And this is an awesome book but he says, "Lilith was upset." Here I felt in harmony with a certain Nancy Kerrigan of Olympic fame when, upon being clubbed in the shin by the infamous Jeff Gillooly (for the purpose of the metaphor, here, The Neels), wailed "Why!" Oh Betty. Why the senseless tragedy? I took another look at the cover art. It was fortifying.
He assures her that he is angry too but the gash in my shin is already there, right? Still, Betty must have known that she'd tripped perilously close to the edge. She also must have run out of white-out or broken
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Hurricane Lilith lingers like a tropical depression, Tabitha overhears some Bow/Raynard/van Beek plotting, misunderstandings abound. Finally the hurricane and her mother leave Veere and Tabitha is left with a message that they won't be around CHIDLAKE very much in the coming months (so don't come) and that they will very likely be going to Paris. Thelma and Louise, there, may as well b
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Anyway, all this drama manages to be prologue to the much bigger event of Tabitha wearing a trouser suit! She is very "with it". She looks great in it. Everyone approves. The evening is a success! Betty never lets a heroine get near a trouser suit ever again. Riddle me that.
Back at St. Martin's things get back to normal. Tabitha wants to visit CHIDLAKE while the Steps have made their bed in Paris. Marius instead asks her to come on a day out. (Of course she says yes. Have you seen the cover art?) He takes her to visit a
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Tabitha is devastated to find out that CHIDLAKE has been sold and goes to Marius for a loan. He refuses but offers to arrange a meeting. I wonder where this will lead.
She finds him in her beloved CHIDLAKE with the explanation that he'd loved her all along and only put her through such a spotty courtship because he wanted to get her the house. Implied future-tense conjugal relations are mentioned. Kissing! The end.
Rating:
Solid Queen of Puddings. I had remembered this book from the first reading differently than this. I had thought that the hero was more inconstant and that Tabitha more brangling. This time I thought that except for the unforgivable "Lilith was upset" all of his actions made sense. Also, though they do argue and fight a bunch, I remembered him being more gratuitously unkind to her but (thanks to the boosterism of Betty chipwyn) I took the time to notice that he was prodding her out of her complacency because he wasn't interested in having a martyr for a wife. That I can admire. Mr. Bow and Mr. Raynard are so adorable. The whole book is worth it if just for them. The Steps are pretty much cardboard cut outs of real people but the dialogue is fantastic (After telling her that Dom Deluise in drag might have loathed her on sight, spunky Tabitha replies dryly, " How friendly of you to expose me to such a possibility.") Tabitha is one of Betty's most believable heroines--flawed but redeemable, courageous in some aspects and shrinking in others, she grows and changes. A fun, fun read.
Fashion:
green and blue shot silk dress (that she totally caves into not wearing), blue jersey dress (a girl's best friend), last year's grey and white striped dress (if Lilith likes it on you, take it off), oyster silk dress and a pink floppy hat (that he tells her to wear well back as he wants to see her face. Woot!), bikini (take that! Hurricane Lilith), pink denim pants with pink and white checked shirt (I am thankful to have been born when people embraced more sensible fashions like acid-washed jeans and over-sized tank tops), a dashing and with it trouser suit, oil-stained shorts (Thank you, Betty)
Food:
the merits of fish and chips sans newspaper and with are discussed, seedcake, creme brulee, wedding food: sausages on sticks and "little rolls dangerously oozing mustard", a "dessert of fresh pineapple filled with a delicious concoction of almonds and bananas and whipped cream, lavishly awash in rum" (I pass.)
Maths:
At one point she discloses her entire monetary portfolio. 500 British Pounds yearly in her nursing position, a 2
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Of course her salary totaled $1,036 and the annuity, $518 so maybe the ratios weren't as bad as they sounded. Either way it makes it seem like she's one step away from patting down her patients for loose change. That or I've muddled my sums...
Thank you, Thank you for a wonderful review of one of my favorite books by LaNeels. (Blushing now in a modest Betty way for the nice mentions in the write up.)
ReplyDeleteClashing in the receiving line? Why, how very Southern of Betty Neels! Many a Southern wedding (particularly in cute little small towns) has been thrown into an uproar at the news that some relative set to stand on the receiving line dared wear a dress that clashed with bridesmaid colors.
ReplyDeleteIn the Pacific Northwest I can (and have) worn my pajamas in public without comment.
ReplyDeleteI am snorting coffee as I read this review (translated into Bettyland I, the heroine, would have choked on a crumb and the doctor/professor would have patted me on my back and given me his monogrammed silk handkerchief) -- I love the reviews on this site -- and this is one of my beloved Bettys too, and it's the makeover that does it for me -- Aimee in VT (doesn't have the same ring as Tabitha in Moonlight, does it, sigh?)
ReplyDeleteBetty Aimee? Love it. Sadly, as it contains a hint of French-ness you would be relegated to the evil sister/ward ghetto.
ReplyDeleteTabitha's make over is such a great part of the book. When we're tempted to become irritated over her CHIDLAKE obsession or her faintly martyred air, all we have to do is read the courage behind the make over. Tabitha's got bottom.
Oh, I completely get the Chidlake obsession. Cousins of mine got shafted the exact same way. Raised with a weekend place in the Connecticut countryside with their parents, Hans and Frieda. But then Frieda dies and Hans remarries Flora, also widowed and with two grown children. He doesn't think this situation out very well, so when he dies, Flora inherits the country place and leaves it to her children . . . who have no emotional connection to it at all.
ReplyDeleteAnd if it had been the house that was in your family for 150 years? Agonies. Especially if you are already facing a future without your one true love. In Tabitha's mind, if Marius marries the Hurricane, at least she'd get to visit Chidlake. Then she thinks she will be losing Marius to Lilith AND Chidlake to total strangers -- not good.
There's a lovely website to help figure out the buying power of a pound (100 pence in the decimalized system) at various points in history here. By my calculations, the 20,000 pounds in 1974 would be about 100,000 pounds sterling today, which is approximately $180,000 - - and still not enough money (even allowing for house prices tripling in recent years in the UK) but maybe Chidlake was seen as a white elephant where today it would be a goldmine...
Easy distance to Lyme Regis and 30 miles from the "cathedral city"? Cliff-side overlook? Georgian? I couldn't possibly be an albatross.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just KNEW my sums were muddled...;0)
I dunno. In 1953, Henry's dad bought the house Henry was born in for £3,000. It had survived the Blitz, and was in okay shape in 1953, but in the 53 years his family owned it, it was never renovated and literally needed work just to keep its front & rear elevations from disintegrating.
ReplyDeleteHenry's father showed it to his uncle before he bought it; the uncle said, "Well, it will outlast you, dear boy -- but not by much." Thomas died in 2006, and the house sold a year later for £3,000,000. (The neighbors wanted to buy it so they could renovate their own house and without control of Henry's mum's house, they couldn't get planning permission.)
Now, that house is on the edge of Hampstead Heath. So you have to ask yourself: if it had been sold in 1972, would it have been worth 40% of the difference between £3,000 and £3,000,000 -- or would it have been a lot (a lot!) less? I'm guessing the lot less, as Hampstead Heath wasn't quite the des res (British word alert: short for desirable residence) that it was to become in the 80s and 90s. (Bill Oddie, one of the "Goodies," moved in next door to Henry's family in the 80s.)
Plus, the ultimate sale price was inflated by the neighbor's need to buy the place. So maybe the Hampstead Heath house would have sold in 1972 for £20,000. These days, it's land that's really expensive. Back then, maybe not so much.
As long as I can be the evil stepsister FASHION MODEL with the fake fur jacket and rhinestone buttons...and I wind up with the American millionaire ... I guess I'll be fine....
ReplyDeleteWell - I like that there was a 2 page ending (A Betty rarity). I really liked him and all those swimming outings...- I must say this is probably the most skin displayed in a Betty novel. Though you STILL have to use your imagination (LOL).... Best thing I liked about this one was Marius... His eyes were great and his "laziness" - he seemed really smooth and put together very nicely - especially his personality.
ReplyDeleteWelcome, new (?) Betty. I truly enjoy reading your comments! Keep them coming. Comments, plural, assuming you are the same as this Anonymous and this Anonymous - though I cannot be sure since you did not leave a name. Next time - and I hope there will be plenty of next times - could you tell us your name, so we'll know which Anonymous you are? (Any name? You can make one up. We have an Army Betty, Unknown, Betty AnoninTX, a Betty from Brazil...)
DeleteYes, I'm a Betty Mary in NH. Same anonymous poster I'll post as Anon. Betty Mary in NH (I'm sure you have some other Betty Marys already :) )
ReplyDelete>>At one point she discloses her entire monetary portfolio. 500 British Pounds yearly in her nursing position, a 250 pound annuity from her mother and an elderly Fiat 500--all to secure a 20,000 pound loan.
ReplyDeleteI just recently re-read this one, and I don't recall this section at all in my copy of the book (A "Best of" version, published in 2001). When talking to Marius about a loan, Tabitha does say that she has her salary and her mother's annuity and that she could sell her car, but there are no monetary values stated for any of these. There's no mention of a 20,000 pound loan that I could find in my version; however, in my version, the amount that she wants to borrow from Marius is 300,000 pounds (the value that she got from the house agent). Is it 20,000 pounds in the earlier edition?
Another case of changed and/or removed text in newer editions of a novel?
Compare the passages in these editions:
DeleteTabitha in Moonlight Mills & Boon Collector’s Edition
'Will you lend me some money?'
Marius was leaning against the door. If he was surprised his face didn't show it. 'How much?' He sounded friendly and she took heart.
'About thirty thousand pounds.'
His mouth twitched. 'Have I as much money as that?' he queried mildly.
'Well, I don't know.' She raised anxious eyes to his calm grey ones. 'It's all right if you haven't, only I don't know anyone else to ask.'
'Do you need the money so badly, Tabby?'
'Yes - my stepmother told me…' She stopped because her throat ached with sudden tears and it would never do to cry now. She turned her back on him and went on in a resolutely controlled voice: 'She's going to sell Chidlake,' and because her back was still turned to him she didn't see the expression on his face. 'She never liked it, you know - Lilith doesn't either, but I expect you know that. I thought if I could get someone to lend me the money I could buy it…'
Marius hadn't moved. He asked: 'Security?'
' The deeds - wouldn't that do? I telephoned an agent in Lyme Regis and he told me Chidlake would fetch about thirty thousand pounds. I've an annuity from my mother - two hundred and fifty pounds a year, I could use that to pay it off and add the same amount from my salary - that's five hundred a year. I'll sell the car and get a job at Lyme hospital and use a bike. Meg and I could manage.' Her voice, despite her efforts, rose a little and shook with excitement. 'We've got our own fruit and vegetables there, you know, and in the summer we could do bed and breakfast - Meg wouldn't mind, and I could help when I come off duty…'
His voice broke into her escalating thoughts. He sounded cool and businesslike. 'It would take you fifty years to repay your debt, and you'veforgotten the interest.''Then I shall pay for more than fifty years.'
Tabitha in Moonlight Betty Neels Collection – Book 10 eBook
Delete'Will you lend me some money?'
Marius was leaning against the door. If he was surprised his face didn't show it. 'How much?' He sounded friendly and she took heart.
'About three hundred thousand pounds.'
His mouth twitched. 'Have I as much money as that?' he queried mildly.
'Well, I don't know.' She raised anxious eyes to his calm grey ones. 'It's all right if you haven't, only I don't know anyone else to ask.'
'Do you need the money so badly, Tabby?'
'Yes—my stepmother told me...' She stopped because her throat ached with sudden tears and it would never do to cry now. She turned her back on him and went on in a resolutely controlled voice: 'She's going to sell Chidlake,' and because her back was still turned to him she didn't see the expression on his face. 'She never liked it, you know—Lilith doesn't either, but I expect you know that. I thought if I could get someone to lend me the money I could buy it...'
Marius hadn't moved. He asked: 'Security?'
'The deeds—wouldn't that do? I telephoned an agent in Lyme Regis and he told me Chidlake would fetch about three hundred thousand pounds. I've an annuity from my mother—I could use that to pay it off and add the same amount from my salary. I'll sell the car and get a a job at Lyme hospital and use a bike. Meg and I could manage.' Her voice, despite her efforts, rose a little and shook with excitement. 'We've got our own fruit and vegetables there, you know, and in the summer we could do bed and breakfast—Meg wouldn't mind, and I could help when I come off duty...'
His voice broke into her escalating thoughts. He sounded cool and businesslike. 'It would take you forty years to repay your debt, and you've forgotten the interest.'
'Then I shall pay for more than forty years.'
Maths
Delete£250 + £250 = £500
More than 50 years for £30,000.
More than 40 years for £300,000.
Well now, get out your pencils, Bettys...
Please don't make me go to math class. I'd rather go to reading or history. Recess!
DeleteBetty AnoninTX
Correction
DeleteThe first excerpt is not from the Betty Neels Collection. It must be from an older edition. Don't know which one.
In the Harlequin "Best of BN" book [ISBN 0-373-51222-8], "First North American publication 2001", "copyright 1984" -- the text is the same as the second excerpt above: 300,000 pounds / 40 years / no specific amounts for salary, etc.
DeleteIn the Harlequin edition, published September 1975 [ISBN 373-01905-X], "copyright 1972", the text is almost exactly the same as the first excerpt (M&B) above -- the annuity and salary specifics are the same, but in this edition, it's now 40 years, not 50, and the amount is 20,000, not 30,000 pounds.
Looks like a slightly different version each time it was published.
Makes me wish I had first editions.
DeleteMany of the original books we have we bought from a local used-book store. In the 1970s. Price was half of the cover price. Used to love that store...
ReplyDeleteI loved your review ... you always make me laugh. And I agree that Marius was shaking Tabitha out of her self-imposed "poor me" syndrome. Good on him.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't believe what +/- $400000 would buy in the NW .. here in Cleveland, you could get this nice house in Ohio City for almost $70000 less.
http://www.trulia.com/property/1052820256-2910-Franklin-Blvd-Cleveland-OH-44113#photo-5
This was one of the first Betty books that I read. A real winner.
ReplyDeleteMaggieBBetty here (that's a stutter I guess). I'm about to read this one, and have discovered how delightful it is to read The Venerable Betty with one of you all pottering alongside making delightful pithy comments. Even if I hate the book I will always have the delight of this review to enjoy. Thank you, really love what and how you wrote and think.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI loved this book too.
ReplyDeleteMarius is so kind and patient and attentive. I prefer this kind of hero to nasty doctors in some other novels, like Everard the horrible. I found Tabitha great. She’s so convinced of being plain and uninteresting that she can’t believe this handsome and talented doctor could fall for her. Also, his attitude towards her and her sister isn’t very clear. But we do understand the reason at the end of the story.
I found this story in French, in a 2 stories book, published in 2008. Well I bought the ebook.
Oh ! my Goodness ! it was such a bad translation/adaptation :
1. changes of the names : Tabitha is Pamela, Marius… Marcus. Why ever change them ? Both first names don’t sound too strange in French ;
2. cutting off a lot of replies and description and actions ;
3. changes of sentences AND actions ;
4. changes of the cars : Bentley becomes a Jaguar and Fiat an Austin. Why ? Everybody knows Fiat in Europe, an Italian brand, and who has never heard of a Bentley ? ;
5. adding of a lot of dull and unoriginal phrases, which we can find in a lot of bad written books published by Harlequin.
6. adding of some lust vocabulary (!), which is absolutely out of the context and doesn’t bring anything in quality.
We loose good English humour (that can’t be helped when translating a British book into French and that’s not the worst), we loose Betty Neels’personal style, beautiful descriptions of country parts of Dorset, great replies and also some details of daily life and nursing.
Not only all these changes don’t modernise the story (it remains old-fashioned) but they make it insipid. It has the wind taken out of its sails.
I cannot tell this is a great success.
The editor should have warned the readers that it was an English novel first published in the seventies and let us savour the true story. Or perhaps they think that French aren’t cultivated enough to understand that the plot takes place in England in 1970… Well, being Swiss, perhaps I’m a bit more accustomed to different cultures (they’re 4 official languages in Switzerland and lots more of dialect).
Well I haven’t finished the comparison yet… Soon.
One of the best. Tabitha is a Cinderella type, but she has a good deal of spirit. Loved the make-up and hair-do! Any woman worth her salt would start off the same way. Marius is a real gem. I know that some Neels heroes are off hand with the heroines but not our boy on the cover. He is the real deal.
ReplyDeleteOh my! Seldom in Neels-dom are the main characters so scantily clad so often. Can there be anything more intimate than Marius collecting Tabby's hair pins????
ReplyDeleteWe wouldn't classify Tabitha's interest in Chidlake as obsessive. It is part of her identity and her ancestral home. More importantly, it is the one aspect of Tabitha that her step-mother cannot easily erase. The village knows what is rightfully Tabitha's and it prevents her complete effacement. (Otherwise, Mrs Crawley would have no qualms organising Tabby’s disappearance to gain the annuity).
That said, Mrs Crawley has been devastatingly effective in damaging Tabitha to the point of thinking she is 'a half-wit with a face that ought to be veiled and no taste in clothes.' Even her birthday is ignored as it is so close to Lilith's (though Mr Raynard more than compensates with his...um...er..present). (FWIW, we don’t think Tabby is plain, perhaps too severely groomed for her age and too willing to step into the shadows to keep the peace). Marius is prudent enough to realise that he needs (with a little help of his friends) for Tabitha to love(assert) herself before she can love him without reservation.
Perhaps we skimmed over the import of ‘Lilith is upset’ but we think Marius finally realises that Tabitha 's basic decency was no match for the manipulations of her step family and Tabitha will never be happy unless they are completely removed from her life (and Chidlake is reserved for their second son). The day is not a complete lost. A moonlight cruise and we all know how important moonlight courting is in 1970s MB world.
We also liked the extended swimming metaphor that Lilith is simply out of her depth with Marius whereas Tabitha is not.
We realise that many like the villains of the piece to get their comeuppance and we think this one will be a slow one. Lilith who is clever enough to go to university may become trapped in the confines of domesticity which it is observed she is ill-suited to.
Just because he says, "Lilith was upset," doesn't mean he really believed she was upset or that he didn't see through her. It could be that he said it, "... that was a dreadful thing, Tabitha. Lilith [even acted as if she] was upset, [but anyone with half a brain and a full heart could see she was being totally false and selfish]."
ReplyDeleteYou know, like that joke about the telegram from Trotsky:
In 1920s Soviet Russia, in the middle of the jockeying for power following Lenin’s death, Stalin emerges to address an expectant crowd. “Comrades!,” he says. “I have in my hand a telegram from Comrade Trotsky, which I think will resolve our current differences of opinion. Let me read it to you: ‘You were right and I was wrong. You are the true heir of Lenin. I should apologize. Signed, Leon Trotsky.'”
The crowd goes wild! But wait, there’s one man in the crowd signaling to get Stalin’s attention. “Yes, comrade?,” Stalin asks. “Comrade Stalin, I think you know Comrade Trotsky is Jewish.” “Yes, I do.” “Well, I’m Jewish, too, and I thought I might have an extra insight on what Comrade Trotsky was trying to say. May I read the telegram myself?” “Of course, comrade!,” Stalin asks.
The man gets up and starts reading: “*YOU* were right and *I* was wrong??? *You* are the true heir of Lenin??? *I* should apologize??? Signed, Leon Trotsky.”
But i didn't read much of this one, so maybe not.
B. Baersma