"Armies of the Napoleonic Wars (Pen & Sword)" Topic

Just a quick plug as I received my author copy today. The project has worked very well – as gregory Fremont-Barnes says in the Intro, it is an oppotunity to draw breath and assess how the various armies are now seen, given what has turned up over the last 20 years or so. Although each author has covered the basics, so the book is good for new enthusiasts and a reference for old hands, there is no template, so each author has been free to focus on the distinctive features of each army and what has come up in recent research. For Austria, I have also put in full unit name lists back to 1792 and the cavalry reorganisations, as these are not well covered in the Ospreys, whereas that is not necessary for other armies. It also makes interesting comparative reading – the UK had no-one directly responsible for intelliogence collection and collation, while Austria did have a responsible officer in each staff.

I feel quite suspicious of all the hype that is thrown about with new books, these days. Very few live up to it. But it does seem quite reasonably priced by Pen & Sword (£15.99p), compared to some books, although £4.00 GBP postage must also be added. I really do hope it isn't just another overview title, despite what is said during the per-sales period. But for those of us counting the pennies, it is even cheaper via Amazon, with free postage to boot.

Congratulations Dave,

I can see that you have put an awful lot of hard work into this project.

Kind regards

John

I think Gregory Fremont-Barnes did the most work, keeping us authors in order!

link

for more info.

Dear Mr Hollins,

I must say that the contributing authors are an impressive bunch. I see that it is going to describe the armies as they "are now seen, given what has turned up over the last 20 years or so.". You do realise I expect that the 'Flat-Earth-Creationists' mob will go absolutely crazy if any of you dare to say anything that doesn't conform to their 'sacred texts':-) Good luck!!

Bill

The problem is that the book contains 288 pages, into which the armies of 10 nations are going to be described, and one of them is the Confederation of the Rhine, which means the armies of several states. This gives each army less pages than you would find in the thinnest of Osprey titles! Almost half the size in fact. And they usually only describe one branch of an army! I hope it is not just another hyped up overview, with limited content, no matter how hard the various authors have worked on their sections. And hopefully the quality and content will make up for the lack of quantity. If it is an overview, then customers should be asking why it wasn't stated as such in the beginning, so they could be more aware of what they are buying. The more Napoleonic titles the better, but a bit of truth wouldn't go amiss, if indeed, it is an another overview. After all, there are already books out with the same impressive title.

XV Brigada

New angles and challenging information would be welcome in any book.

Bill,

And who are the 'flat earth creationists?' New material, as John says, is more than welcome-new myth-making, which we have more than enough of in the last twenty years, is not.

K

Bill, I am sure that the book will be burned in due course, but the problem for the True Believers is that they now face a group of people, who have been able to look at individual armies and draw on the work of others in the same field, both current and past.

I am sure it will get the usual "Amazon reviews" (aka denouncements), but I suppose that says more about these "reviewers" than the book itself!

However, I think that both new enthusiasts and older hands will find it useful as a basic reference, cross reference and reflection of the current state of research. It will go well with Osprey's cut and shut with a very similar title as that covers the regimental/uniform/life side of things, while this one takes a wider view of the armoes and flags up their differences. As Gregory says in his Intro, much has been written, but until now, it has all been rather spread out over many titles for most people to get an overall grasp.

Dear 10th,

I am confident they know who they are :-)

Bill

Of course, in Mr. Hollins logic, any bad reviews can't possibly reflect on a title having errors or not living up to the pre-sales hype! No, it must be the naughty reviewers for daring to say what they discovered after purchasing the title, which, of course, is probably something some authors just don't want potential customers to be aware of.
So, it will be very interesting to see if Mr. Hollin's hype on the title can be lived up to by the book itself. I certainly hope so and that it is not another overview, source book or 'basic' reference book, as he has just mentioned. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised and keen to buy.

How about we all wait before starting slanging off at each other before the book or its reviews have even been seen?

Dear Roly,

Yes. I seem to have rattled a cage or two and those who have their doubts could always take a look at it before buying it. I wouldn't buy it because I already know everything and I have made my mind up:-)

Bill

'I am confident they know who they are :-)'

Cheesy, Bill, very cheesy.

I've ordered it. Anyone else?

K

Dear Arteis

Yes, quite right. I always try to see the book in the flesh, before buying it, no matter what the reviews say. I don't go by the name of the author or authors either, as some may do. However, I am a little tired of all the pre-sales hype that is thrown out, these days, which sometimes comes over as either an act of desperation, or a belief that if they keep talking about it people will buy it. That doesn't mean I am against publicity. As I've said before, we need to know about the availability of new titles. But there seems a tendency to offer 'new' angles and concepts, which very rarely live up to their pre-sales descriptions. But, as they say, the proof will be in the pudding.

Any opinions of this title yet? I'm hoping for the best.

Just bought my copy from Foyles. It is an important addition to the literature. The style of writing vried considerably between authors. Some chose not to reference where the information came from and some showed a lack of understanding of the technical arms.

Disappointed with the French and British chapters by the editor. Esdaile on the Spanish left more questions un answered.

The pick of the chapters were on the Austrians (Hollins), Confederation of the Rhine (Gill) and Russians (Mikaberidse) Of great use is Oliver's outline on the Prussians.

Well done.

Stephen

I almost felt like cancelling my order after reading Stephen Summerfield's description. I wanted to hear brilliant, new work, not just another source book, well worth having and other positive remarks that matched the pre-sales hype. However, considering there are some good authors in there, it might not be that bad. Again, I'm hoping for the best.

The book is basically an overview-come-source book. If you imagine the section covering the various armies in Haythornthwaite's Napoleonic source book, pad it out and take away the illustrations, you have Armies of the Napoleonic Wars. You could even describe it as Osprey titles stuck together without the illustrations. But it is obvious to anyone that to have a really good description of the various armies involved during the period, you would really need a volume on each nation, so I suppose one shouldn't really expect too much from this title, in order not to be too disappointed. However, I would be interested to know why the Austrian Army got a whopping 41 pages, compared to the French getting about 22, and the British and the Russians getting only 21 pages each. Thankfully, the Confederation of the Rhine, written by one of the better authors, was given 38 pages, considering the number of states that the author had to cover. And Summfield's comment on the Spanish chapter is a bit unfair, considering that the author of that chapter was only given 24 pages. I think the price is just about right, although I don't think customers, especially those with good collections, and despite all the pre-sales hype and postings, will be getting that much new information either. All the same, it is worth owning and another handy source book, especially if you don't own too many Osprey titles.

The original spec was 20k words for Uk and France, 17K for Austria etc. I can only suppose that the publishers deciced to cut back from 320 to 288pp, so it was easiest to cut back on UK and Fr as there are plenty of accessible books on those armies, rather than asking all authors to cut bacK by 10%.

Dave

Thanks for info. But that doesn't explain why your Austrian chapter should have been allowed to contain twice as many pages as some of the other nations? And it would have been extremely foolish to ask some of the other authors to cut theirs down by 10%, considering the low amount of pages they had been allocated anyway. For example, the Italian chapter had only 10 pages, the Polish 14, and the Portuguese 18? I'm not saying it is your fault, you are just one of the authors, but you would have thought the pages might have been shared out a bit more evenly. As for availability, I'm not sure there is that much available on some of the other Nations and possibly less than there is on the Austrians, in some cases, and this would have been an opportunity to address that.

Sadly, this book will probably only be used for looking at the Chapters on the Confederation of the Rhine, the Italians, the Poles and the Spanish, since information on them is harder to come by. The rest, annoyingly, could be considered a waste of space and the pages better employed by being given to the authors of those chapters, since they were given such a meagre amount to work with. Now that would have been an interesting book and one well worth adding to anyone's collection.

Dear Stephen,

This sounds to me like an 'entry level' book. Would that be right? If so I would have appreciated 40 years ago :-)
What was disappointing about the French and British chapters exactly? Did they not cover them well enough or was it that almost everything that needs to be said has been said. If the latter I would expect them to get coverage anyway in a book called 'Armies of the Napoleonic Wars'.

I am surprised to read what you said about Esdaile on the Spanish. Was this a constraint of the format or something else? Anything by Hollins, Gill, Mikaberidze and Oliver (Schmidt?) is usually worth reading.

I see Walsh/Gazzola has already given it a miserable 2 Star review on Amazon. In light of his remarks here on TMP even before it was published I was not really surprised to see his observations about Hollin's chapter on the Austrians but I am surprised that there is "no real new stuff there then". Are his comments justified?

Bill

XV Brigada

My views on the book before it was available were based on the pre-sales hype and posting, which, sadly, in the flesh, have certainly not been justified. There is no way you can expect a decent coverage of 10 Napoleonic Armies in a fairly small size book containing less than 300 pages. John Gill summed it up best when he described his chapter as an introduction, and he had 38 pages! Hollins only just about manages it with 41, so what chance had the Italian author with 10? And Gill had thirty odd COR states to fit within those few pages, and I imagine what he ended up with, good as it is, was not an easy task or as much as he would have liked to have contributed. The book should have been advertised as an introduction or series of essays on the 10 Armies covered, and I don't think anyone, myself included, would have had a problem with that, although I imagine the publishers may have felt it would not sell too well with that type of description. But I think the sales for the Illustrated version of Armies of the Napoleonic Wars sold well and I think they advertised it as an introduction, although I couldn't be too sure on that. As I mentioned in my review, had it been an introduction to a series of books, each one covering a separate army, then that may have also been acceptable. But come on, get real, 10 armies in 300 pages – no way was that going to work.

Dear Bill
Professor Esdaile understands the Spanish Army but trying to extract precise information from his prose is very difficult. I have read all his other works on the Spanish Army and there are so many questions unanswered due to seeming vagueness.

The comments are general rather than specific which is at odds with most of the other chapters except those on the French and British. The other chapters added to the knowedge on these countries and clarified areas.

I am a scientist and struggle with this type of academic writing and it is not for me. Others like it. I was expecting too much from the publicity of the book no doubt.

Stephen

Stephen,

Thanks for that.

Bill

Stephen

You have hit the nail right on the head. Publicity! You expected too much because of it and sadly, you do not get what you think the book was supposed to be going to offer. I own and like the works of several of the authors and was really looking forward to seeing what they said. But most of them, apart from Gill and Hollins, were basically chained by space, so it would have been foolish to still expect too much from them. I didn't really have a problem with Dr. Esdaile's chapter and again, I think he, like the other authors with limited space, could have made the book work a little better, had they had more pages. I'm not blaming the authors, I'm blaming the whole silly concept of trying to describe 10 Armies of the Napoleonic period within less than 300 pages that also included book lists and index, and without the authors having an equal playing field. The Russian chapter by another good author, Alexander Mikaberidze, was limited to twenty and a half pages. With such reductions you can't really expect to find the basics covered, let alone new knowledge, of which the book contains very little.

Bill, It has two target audiences really – the novice/casual reader, who just wants to get a general view of the world, rather than the Anglo-French version we grew up with, and the reader, who while concentrating one nation wants a general idea of the major players. It is intended to point the way to more material for those, who want it.

Contrary to Gazzola's comments above, the reason for the regimental lists in my section was simply that Haythornthwaite either misses out quite a lot (esp for those interested in the Rev period) or gets it wrong (the cavalry in particular). It did expand the number of pages I had, but not the wordage.

Dear Dave
I would have loved to have seen the lists of the Regiments in the other chapters.

The book seemed confused in the objectives where some authors as already commented seemed to be writing a different book to the others.

A useful text that I will revisit as I do with the Otto von Pivka Napoleonic Armies and the Napoleonic Source book by Haythornthwaite for a quick introduction.

Stephen

The thing is that for most nations, these lists are okay in the Ospreys or similar – the Austrian MAAs have been a bone well picked for many years, such that I offered to rewrite the infantry MAA for 2009, but to no avail. I have answered the names question so many times and with Mike McGillivray, we sorted out the cavalry on EC's site, so it did seem worth doing it in Austria's case.

We were given pretty free rein and each author has placed a particular emphasis on the subjects most recently researched and where the questions most often come up. That will make the chapters look unbalanced, but it is an approximation of what readers are looking for.

Hollins has now admitted that the book was written with the novice in mind, so perhaps he could explain why the pre-sales hype failed to mention that? Although the answer is probably because it wouldn't sell. And from what I can see in Haythorthwaites Opsrey titles on the Austrians, he did not miss out a lot. Most in Haythornthwaites lists match those written by Mr. Hollins. Anyone owning them can check them out.
But what makes the book unbalanced is the fact that it appears that the authors were not given an even playing field. I would like to know if, for example, the author of the Italian chapter knew he would only get 10 pages while others would get over 20, some over 30 and one four times the amount he received?
It is so obvious that some of the writers were restricted by space. For example, Oliver Schmidt, writing the Prussian chapter, which was one of the better ones, gets 28 pages, but he could only spare one 7 line paragraph on Schill's Free Corps, while in contrast, you can find over two pages on the subject in the 20 year old Osprey Men at Arms title No 192 by Peter Hofschroer.
Of course you cannot expect to find everything within one book and certainly not a small book like this with less than 300 pages. It would be nice to see the adverts changed to match Mr. Hollins description, that it was aimed at the novice. That would be acceptable and allow potential buyers to understand what they are really buying.

Dave,

Thanks for that. It is as I expected from a single volume study nof this size and I doubt anybody with a brain cell actually thought otherwise.

Being one of the authors, I am still waiting to receive my copy here in Germany, so I can't comment on the whole book, as I haven't yet read it.

Charged with the chapter on the Prussian army, I was given the number of words, and that it should cover the period from 1804 to 1815, with the focus on organisation. These conditions, leaving a lot of freedom which information to put into the chapter, will have been the same for the other authors. Every author could choose his own approach.

As I couldn't be complete and detailed anyway, I chose to focus on subjects not yet dealt with in English works on the Prussians (especially the organisation and evolution of the higher command), or frequently misunderstood (e.g. the names of the regiments).

Concerning the evolution of the army, this left room for only a short outline. At least I tried to explain some unit names and decisions which at the first glance might look odd. For lack of space, I left out even more details in the description of Landwehr and volunteer units, and many not-so-important units are not even mentioned.

So taken for itself, my chapter on the Prussians is quite unbalanced – deliberately unbalanced, as it tries to balance, at least partly, the hitherto existing English literature on the Prussians. It should be understood as a kind of complementary and sometimes rectifying comment on other English works on the subject.

For this reason, I am convinced ;-) my chapter is useful for anybody seriously interested in the Prussian army of the period, be he novice or knowlegdeable – unless he speaks German and can read the German works on the Prussian army of the period, which comprise several hundred pages.

Oliver Schmidt

Thanks for your posting. The book will obviously please some people but others will sadly find it does not live up to the pre-sales hype, which, to me, is the main problem. As you say, you could not be complete and detailed and only had room for a short outline. That is another problem with the book because I felt the authors were too restricted and had more to say than they could actually fit into the pages or word counts given. You have written your chapter from a different angle, and, as already mentioned in one of my previous postings, yours was one of the better chapters. I enjoyed reading it. But you did end up with more pages than most of the other authors. This interested me because you also mentioned that you were given a set number of words, and I wonder if the other authors were given the same or less or if it was the editing that cut them down so drastically. A different word count could explain the unbalance in terms of amount of space in which some were actually given to write something? Again, if it had been described in the first place as essay on the various armies, that would have been far more acceptable. Or if it was described as an introduction or a first in a series that would be covering the various armies, that would be acceptable. The series would sell like hot cakes. Sadly, as far as I am aware, that is not the case.

Dear Oliver
Your chapter, Dave Hollins, Jack Gill and Alexander Mikaberidze produced is what I was expecting pulling together what has already been published in longer works and in other languages. Much would be new to the English reader but I would not have put down as modern research. It gave a useful list of books for further reading.

The agreement with much of my writing on my two volume work on the Prussian Infantry 1808-40 published in 2008 and with my current books in preparation on the Prussian Cavalry 1808-40. The 1804-1815 is a problem period to write on for the Prussian Army with such a change caused by the defeats in 1806-07 period and the loss in territory. The armies of 1806 and 1808-15 are so different in appearance yet the personel are much the same.

I would have like to have seen more upon the Russian Opolchenie and Cossacks in the Russian chapter but that is probably showing my interest in the subject.

I found it strange that the biography included Digby Smith's work on the Prussian Army in the Prussian Bibliography but is listed in the French.

These are rather minor as the book left me wanting to know a little more. I hope that you recieve your copies soon of the book.

Stephen

XV Brigada

Perhaps you should wait until you actually see a copy? Maybe it will be as you expected. Perhaps you don't expect too much. You haven't even seen it yet and you haven't got a clue what the book is like! But you obviously take Hollins word as gospel, even though he never mentioned it being aimed at novices in his first posting, did he? But of course, it would have certainly put people off buying it had he done so.

Dear Sir
If you use subheadings and tables then this takes up space and hence there would be more pages for the same word count. Tables are often not counted in the word count so this is an explanation for the disparagy in the number of pages.

This is a comment upon the editing and publishing process. It is interesting how light handed the editor was and hence the structures of the chapters were so diverse.

It is an important addition to the literature for most of the armies probably with the exception of the British and French Army. These could have been removed to give more room for the lesser known armies leaving a bibliographical essay instead. I would have liked to have known more upon the Italian, Duchy of Warsaw, Portuguese and Spanish armies.

Stephen

The number of words for each chapter was laid down by the editor and was somehow meant to reflect the "importance" of the army during the period. In the first concept it ranged from 4000 (Italy) to 17000 (France, Russia, Austria).

So every author knew how much room there would be in the book for "his" army.

In my list of "essential reading" I listed only four German works, maybe this was augmented in order to please the readers who are not German-speaking.

Concerning the "newness" of the research, I feel there is nothing really surprising to be expected to turn up about the Prussians, except plenty of tiny little tids and bids of info here and there, as this army had been studied by German authors for more than hundred years. The majority of the many files in the archives in Berlin-Dahlem which survived the Second World War, have already been widely used by these authors.

The aficionado, such as I, can only put together (and critically analyse and compare !) the material scattered in monographies, memoirs, regimental histories, articles in journals and archival documents, to produce some "complete" reference works on the organisational history, uniforms and equipment, strength and losses of the units, etc.

This will still occupy me for some years ;-)

Oliver

I'm tempted to buy the book just for Olivers 'tidbits' but can't really justify it, I do read the German books though and in that pretty but annoying old script.

This book should to do well, all the contributors are very good at their own topics and research in general, and they deserve a success, also for the wider Napoleonic publishing business its important, but then again seems like there are an ever increasing number of books coming out and a lot of them more specialised or more serious research based type books that I prefer. Is it my imagination or is there an actual boom in military publishing at the moment?

Oliver,

Thank you for your input. I am sure that a lot of what you wrote will be new to the English reader. I have yoiur Osprey book and that was very informative indeed so I am becoming more and more tempted. I am fairly sure that the complaint about it seen so far is just self-indulgent grizzling for the sake of complaining and to take an oblique swipe at Mr Hollins and not much more. I expect the complainant is busy counting the words now on the basis of Stephen Summerfield comment:-)

Finally, the editor should not have added anything to the bibliography. That is quite wrong as it gives the impression that you referred to it in your text or at least used it as a basis for part of your work which clearly you did not. It is almost the reverse of including something in a bibliography to increase its credibility!

Bill

Oliver did the advantage too that PH has written some good Ospreys, but generally speaking in English language material, most of the new work has been on the continental Allies and the Revolutionary French. Austria has to start in the 1780s, whereas the Prussians and British have a clear gap between 1795 and 1803.

I think Stephen had it right when he said some chapters could have been left out and I feel this includes the Prussian chapter. With a little bit of researching it is clear that quite a bit contained in the book, in most chapters, can be found in 20 year old Ospreys, let alone more recent titles. Not all of it, of course, but quite a bit, and as Schmidt admitted himself, you can't expect too much newness to turn up, which is sadly the case with this book. It is also obvious, going by what Schmidt said about the word count, that authors were not given an equal playing field. I welcome new Napoleonic titles and certainly want more. But I think publishers should really think hard about what they want the book to contain. Do they want it to contain academic essays, do they just want lists of units or do they want regimental histories. Dr. Esdaile came at it from a different angle, which I think was a refreshing change. Of course this won't please most readers. We all want different things from a book. For example, XV Brigada stated he almost wanted the book just for Oliver Schmidt's chapter. I like it for Gill's Confederation of the Rhine chapter and a few others. But again, as Gill stated, his chapter was an introduction, as are the other chapters. They could be no more. And I have no grudges against certain authors concerning this book, other than the excessive and unfair amount of pages or word counts given to them at the obvious expense of others. I want to see more information on the lesser known Armies, not repeated information on those already available. I certainly hope the book sells, because hopefully, it will lead to more publications. But I will certainly revert to my old habit of seeing the book in the flesh before parting with my hard earned cash. I suggest others do the same.

Hollins has just described the book as a 'quick overview' in the comments section attached to my Amazon Uk review. Ho hum!
I'm sso glad he has finally agreed with me.
He also mentioned Gill's 'Eagles' title, which of course is ONE book covering ONE army, or in this case ONE set of armies during ONE period of the Napoleonic Wars, and not 10 Armies covering several periods. But is Hollins, by mentioning it, suggesting that Gill's chapter should not have been included because of his Eagles book? I hope not, it was certainly one of the better chapters. And Gill needed a whole book for one period, yet was only given one chapter, and not the largest, in the Armies book. I think that says it all. So I thank Mr Hollins for supporting my view. It really is appreciated..

Smile, I am happy the Prussian chapter was not left out …

Even though it does not bring anything which had remained unknown to the world for the last 200 years, it contains some information which has not yet been published in English, and – if the readers deign to believe me instead of books written by Englishmen – rectifies some frequent errors.

As for the editor's and publisher's decisions about the scope of the book and its allocation to the different armies, and how it was announced or advertised, I don't know the reasons.

Generally, I agree with Gazzola that it is always advantageous to have a long look into a book before deciding whether to buy it or not.

Oliver,

I am happy too. If it hasn't been published in English then I'll bet that most people using TMP will not have seen it before!

We have a saying 'to buy a pig in a poke (poke=sack)' the French say 'acheter chat en poche' I think and doubtless there is something similar in German but one can always return a book if one does buy it unseen and doesn't like it.

I think I will probably buy it unseen based on what has beed posted here and the reputation of the contributors but if it is disappointing, well it isn't very expensive is it.

I would still recommend anyone to buy it, especially if they do not own too many books. And I'm sure potential customers will find at least one chapter to their liking. My problem was not with the authors, as some seemed to think or perhaps, wanted to believe, but the whole mad concept of the book. The actual book was far too small for such a big idea, small in size and small in pages. And sadly, a lot of people may not be able to see the book in the flesh so reviews and comments might be very welcome, even negative ones because they might help them obtain a clearer reality of its contents, as opposed to just going by the pre-sales hype. The book should have been advertised as an overview or an introduction in the first place, which I'm sure would have helped people make up their minds as if to purchase a copy or not. And I'm sure the book would still have sold anyway, had they stated that right from the start, after all, XV Brigada is still buying it after all that has been said. I'm sure he'll find a chapter or two that pleases him. And you can see that some of the authors like Oliver Schmidt have really tried to give it a go, considering the obvious restrictions. That is the most annoying part. Good authors being restricted.

Despite the infantile efforts of Gazzola, Amazon Uk have just about shifted the first batch, so his childish campaign has come unstuck!

The book has been written to help many in the hobby, especially to flag up how the information has imporoved in English and to add to it to some extent. But no, out comes teddy!

I must admit that I do find it strange that one person feels the need to post aproximately 37% of the posts in this thread.

I look forward to reading it. I just love new manic research! :)

Gazzola: I do believe that excess grease in your bangers and mash or a bit much Tetley tea is making you hyper.

Hollins

Just what is your problem? I have not made a campaign to damage sales to the book. I bought it myself or haven't you realised that yet? It is you who is throwing out the teddy because you can't accept negative comments. Other authors seem to be able to do so and it is a shame you can't. Instead you start throwing out abuse. It says a lot about you. If you calm down and read my postings carefully, you will see that I still recommended the book. Perhaps you never spotted that bit or doesn't it fit in with your fantasy theory against anyone who dares say anything negative? And it was you who attacked me in the Amazon comments, as expected really, but you only proved my point by mentioning Gills Eagles book in your comment. He need One book to cover One army (or set of armies in this case) during One period of the Napoleonic Wars. In the Armies book he has ONE chapter and with less pages than you had to cover the lot. Talk about restriction. Did you really expect a book of less than 300 pages to successfully cover 10 armies over several periods in any detail? I want the sales of Napoleonic titles to go well, in the hope it will lead to more publications. But if I see something negative about a title or author, I think, as a paying customer, I have the right to express my opinion. Insulting those who make negative comments is really a low act on your behalf. You might not like such negative comments,which is tough. That's life. After all these years, you really should be able to shrug them off or reply like a gentleman. Perhaps you could try it some time.