A lot of things happened prior to anyone actually going anywhere near Leicester, or at least anywhere near Leicester with an HPV in tow, but as these are of little interest to anyone, I shall merely say that if the person who kindly elected me Chief Contact Person For Net-Surfing Types (by putting my e-mail address on the IHPVA's Home Page) would care to own up, they will feel the force of my headset spanner across the bridge of their nose...

Thursday July 25th

Anyway, once all the chaos had been "sorted out", we all went to Saffron Lane, set up tents, re-assembled machines and examined the opposition. Sacha Knoop has finally finished his long-awaited faired machine. It resembles the M5 Low Racer record bike in shape, but is bright orange in colour, as befits a patriotic Dutchman, and is apparently called the "Meringue". One can only conclude that Sacha is a worse cook than he is a bike designer, but apparently it was going to be called something very long and utterly unpronounceable, but the lettering didn't arrive in time. Raymond Brichet was in attendance with his Nilgo machine, powered as usual by Laurent Chapuis, while Sergei Dashevski had once again made the long haul west, still running the same three-wheeler. The Meufl team had brought a variety of their foam-faired machines, including a sprint /track machine, with the shortest cranks I've ever seen on an adult's bike, for Nicole Schön, a yellow fat-tyred low racer for Frank Lienhard (named the "Chiquita") and a brace of neat touring /commuting trikes, resembling squashy Speedies.

But the prize for the coolest bike there had to go to Dirk Hentschel's Magic Scooter. This resembles a long-nosed BumbleBike, but is exquisitely finished in a carbon /kevlar mix, and sports an electrically-operated canopy and (I think) bomb doors. The nose is detachable, enable the machine to fit neatly into a VW camper van. Where, though, were the Vector Racing Team? Only Peter Bruggen was in evidence... I later discovered that at least some of them were lurking in darkest Bavaria, where Lars Teutenberg was in the process of breaking Bram Moens' (according to the world in general) or Pat Kinch's (according to the IHPVA) hour record, with a 78.040 km /48.502 mile run on BMW's test track, in the Andy Gronen / Guido Mertens-designed Tomahawk. JK says that the forthcoming Kingsbury record machine will beat that without any trouble... Other notable absentees included Bram Moens, last year's most effective speed merchant Jürg Birkenstock, the Fehlau brothers, the highly effective Bendtsen machines from Denmark and Sandy Donaldson and Dave Fyfe. Actually they had an excuse - their car and trailer went AWOL from Washington services on the way down the A1.

Then we went and sat in a petrol-smelling store room, euphemistically termed "the office". A nice man had laid on light and power, so we were actually able to start putting people's details into the Box, relieving them of Money, giving them maps, T-shirts and useless information and baffling Continental Types with continued references to Lard ("the official energy snack of the Championships" according to Steve Donaldson). The rider of Wasp number 110 is rather perturbed to find that on all official entry lists, results sheets, etc. he is entered as "Quentin Crisp", rather than "Pat Kinch", as a result of sending his pre-registration postcard in under a false name. And Ian Sheen's Speedy arrived under Mysterious Circumstances, appearing as if by magic under a tree. Perhaps this proves José Espejo's contention that Bob Dixon is, in fact, the devil. Sadly, all this went on for so long that we didn't actually have time to go to the pub... But we did have some beer, and as we sat drinking it around our tents, a helicopter appeared nearby, shining its searchlight down in our vicinity. Cried one cynic: "Hit the deck, gang, it's a UCI air strike!"
 

Friday July 26th

We all got up, if not bright, then at least reasonably early, in time to discover that those of us who had not used our Trangia camping stoves since Lelystad were suffering from a Major Hassle Situation - the burner lids were stuck fast. Fortunately, Jonathan had the Monster Mole Grips From Hell in his toolbox, and I was able to start brewing coffee just in time to see Ian Sheen suffering from the same malady. Thence to the track, for 1 km standing-start time trials. These were run pursuit-style, with a rider starting from each side of the track. Sadly I didn't get to see much of the action, due to being in the "office" doing Registrating and related stuff. However, in unofficial practice, and in spite of Dave the Track Maintainer's best efforts, Nigel Leaper once more demonstrated his unique talent for destroying his fairings in outlandish ways - first the Hetton fence post, then the Eastway dog and now the Saffron Lane track itself, with a rogue piece of the track surface savaging the bike to the accompaniment of a certain amount of bad language.

Some competitors found that the steeply-banked track was not to their liking at all, and decided to take no further part in the proceedings here, but most reckoned it to be great sport. Perhaps the highlight of the event is when Sergei challenges Laurent. With Sergei's machine having one wheel too many, as well as a considerable weight disadvantage, the result is never in doubt, with Laurent winning in 1:03.94, a time that would have shown up quite well at the Olympics. 1 km is too short a distance for the Nilgo to reach full whack, as will be seen from the 25 mile time trial results. The prize for the narrowest defeat of the day went to John Lafford, who took 0.03 sec. longer than Nigel Leaper... Sacha took second place behind the flying Laurent, with Steve Donaldson third. The three faired ladies finished in the order Sherri Prisk (using Steve Donaldson's Kingcycle) - Nicole Schön - Françoise Magnouloux, while Mariëlle Bakker took the unfaired class from Rosmarie Buhler and Sherri, on her own bike. The Dutch took a clean sweep in the unfaired class, with Koen Koevoets clocking a 1:10.44, ahead of Rob Wartenhorst and Peter Groeneveld.

Pause for lunch and frantic scribbling on pieces of paper by Steve Donaldson. The net result is that there are a lot of races, starting with the slower machines. The first three riders from each of the first four heats will progress through to the next round, while the quicker people avoid the "pre-qualifying" stage. The racing is livened up considerably by the presence of Leyton Orient fan and all-round bon œuf Ian Sheen at the microphone - "Leading the unfaired class is Pat Kinch, the fastest vet in Congleton, so if your cat has piles, call Pat and he'll be there at 47 miles per hour" - etc. The first race featured a great battle for the lead, between Mr. Treasurer Adcock, Dutch rider Gijs Baron and Rosmarie Buhler from Switzerland. In the final half-lap, Rosmarie swept past the bewildered men with a devastating sprint to take the win, while Dennis held off Gijs.

Race 2 gave us Brits a chance to strut our stuff a bit more effectively. If I remember rightly, Adam Weaver and Jonathan Skoyles led much of the race, but Jonathan slipped back towards the end. Enter Dave Redknap, who shot into the lead in the closing stages to take the win by just over two seconds from Adam, with Jonathan the only other rider unlapped in third, and Derrick Tweddle in fourth. On to race 3, and gNick powered Mortimer into an early lead, but then either boredom or Knees set in, and he was overhauled by Ken Brown's Traction Avant and the Sinner of Cor de Boer. These two had a race-long battle, resolved in Ken's favour by 0.7 sec. gNick held on to third, ahead of the ultra-close finish between Germans Udo Joseph and Matthias Philipp.

Race 4 provided rather less in the way of close racing, at least among the higher-placed finishers, as Nicole Schön in the Meufl finished four laps ahead of Paul London's faired Kingcycle, with the Ostrad tandem of Dan Ehle and Claudia Offenborn some two seconds adrift. Another ultra-tight finish, between Paul See and José, with the verdict going to the former by 0.05 sec. Race 5 saw another walkover, this time from Jonathan Woolrich and Oscar, who took three laps out of second-placed "Quentin Crisp", himself a further lap ahead of the faired Kingcycle of Swiss rider Reto Wynistorf. Behind them, there were good tussles between Peter Bruggen and David Richards, Otto Gravert and Simon Nef and Gijs Baron and Dennis Adcock.
 

Race 6 saw Ian Chattington taking off at speed on the unfaired Ross XLR, with Yours Truly leading one Edoardo Mugge (a.k.a. The Black Baron) at some distance behind. Then That Man Burrows got the Speedy up to full chat, and towed Edoardo up to second place before lapping him three times. I just failed to catch Ian, chiz, but at least I got my revenge on Mariëlle Bakker for the defeat she inflicted on me in the road race in Switzerland. Heh-heh. Race 7 had Frank Lienhard's banana-themed Meufl as the class of the field, finishing a lap ahead of the latest version of Mike Weaver's faired Mikew 4, which looks rather smoother than its predecessor. Marcel Pastre of Germany finished third, a further lap adrift. The last of the eight "heats" resulted in a runaway win for the Magic Scooter, three laps ahead of the unfaired Dutch duo of Kees Bakker and Peter Groeneveld, with Nicole Schön not far behind in fourth. Dan and Claudia finished last, four laps behind Paul London this time, as they spent most of the race carrying out that Ostrad speciality, photographing the other competitors.

What was originally intended to be the first semi-final was basically a walkover for Nilgo. At first it appeared as though Sacha Knoop would be able to run him close, but after Laurent turned a few laps in the 17-second bracket, Sacha settled for a safe second. Laurent lapped the Meringue, then eased off a bit, allowing Sacha to get on his tail, before upping the pace again. Quite spectacular, watching the pair of them absolutely perpendicular to the banking and lapping all and sundry at speeds of over 40 mph. Ian Sheen temporarily abandoned the microphone to rack up a handy fourth place, a lap behind Slash, who bagged third. There was an absorbing scrap for fifth between Paris-Amsterdam winner Ymte Sybrandy, on the faired Flevobike Basic, and Sergei, with Ymte holding the low line on the banking and obliging Sergei to try to go round the outside. Which he could never quite manage. Ymte's bike was designed by the prolific Flevobike mob, but is being built by the large Dutch cycle company Batavus - apparently a trial batch of 1000 machines is being produced, to retail at 1600 guilders (640 quid). This doesn't include the fairing, though, which had a composite nose cone and the remainder made from what was variously described as "someone's old wet suit" and "recycled mouse mats" - some sort of neoprene, anyway.

The second semi-final, on the other hand, was run at a slightly more sedate pace, with Jonathan powering Oscar into a handy lead. Then the rain came... Within a few minutes, Kees Bakker had retired with an attack of common sense, while Jonathan, "Quentin Crisp" and Nicole Schön all lost it on the wet track. And Reto Wynistorf also failed to finish, though whether by accident or design I'm not sure. I feel a bit guilty about Nicole's accident - as she finished fourth in race 8, she shouldn't really have been there at all, but I failed to spot that Kees Bakker had been omitted from the list of starters until it was too late to rescue Nicole from her third race of the afternoon. Fortunately there was little damage done, except to young "Quentin", who got a splinter in his rear end. "We'll get it out, don't worry" said the St. John's Ambulance lady, enthusiastically. "Back off, man, I'm a surgeon" (or words to that effect) retorted "Mr. Crisp". All of which left Frank Lienhard to win, a lap ahead of Mike Burrows and Dirk Hentschel, so these fat tyres obviously have their uses.

It was decided to postpone the final until the Saturday evening, but by the time everyone had got back from Bruntingthorpe, it was almost dark and no-one felt like it anyway. So the results were assembled on the basis of everyone's performance up to and including the semi-finals, and as Laurent, Sacha and Slash would almost certainly have filled the podium places anyway, I don't think anyone will complain too much. Unfaired winner was Peter Groeneveld, from "Quentin" and Rob Wartenhorst, while Dan and Claudia took the tandem class thanks to their performance in race 4, ahead of Jens Holloch and his anonymous partner and British lady crew Gail Aspden and Karen Parker. Amongst the solo women, Nicole Schön took the faired category from Sherri Prisk, with Françoise Magnouloux' part-faired Peer Gynt third, while unfaired it was Rosmarie Buhler from Mariëlle Bakker and Susan Laughton.

Amazingly we managed to get the results processed pretty quickly, vindicating JK's stopwatch purchase, and allowing the Thirst Party to get to the pub for the only time in the entire weekend. I believe that there was also supposed to be a "What's the latest from the IHPVA" kind of meeting, but I later encountered an IHPVA director, in the shape of Christian Meyer, who hadn't been able to find it. Not that he seemed to be too worried J

Saturday July 27th

To Bruntingthorpe, in a sort of unofficial convoy, causing wonderful traffic jams. The venue for the 200m sprints and the circuit races, Bruntingthorpe is allegedly an ex-airfield now turned into a car test-track. Hence the first thing you see on entering the premises is a Boeing 747, in close company with divers other flying hardware - Harriers, Buccaneers, various V-bombers, Lightnings, an ex-Airbus Industrie Guppy (which Ian Sheen is planning to steal to take the entire BHPC to Köln for next year's Worlds) and a three-engined jet airliner of uncertain model (though I'm sure Ian can tell us what it is). The latter, we hear, flew into Bruntingthorpe earlier that morning. This story soon grows in the re-telling, until it reaches the stage of "it flew in this morning, clocked 137 mph through the 200m but was then disqualified because the pilot wasn't wearing a helmet..." Anyway, Steve Slade and Miles Kingsbury had set up the 200m course and accompanying timing gear. Jonathan Woolrich had made a panic dash to somewhere or other to pick up the radios he forgot the day before. Chairman Mike was somewhere out of sight at the other end of the runway. And various people came down the track at assorted speeds. Due to the tightness of the time window, most people only had one go, though Jonathan managed to blag another due to mechanical problems somewhere inside Oscar, and somehow Carl Bailey managed three, albeit on two different machines. All of which resulted in Laurent flattening the opposition with an 8.88 second run - 81.08 km/h or 50.39 mph, with Sacha the only other rider under ten seconds, with a 9.99 second clocking. Ian was rather disturbed to find that he had been beaten by the unfaired Peter Groeneveld, and Steve Donaldson and Dirk Hentschel dead-heated for third place after the first run. Further dead heats also occurred between Dave Redknap and Rainer Moosmann, and Arie Geenen and Matthias Philipp.

Then the fastest ten riders were permitted another go, that is, if they wanted one, with the length of the run-up increased somewhat. The unfaired leaders, all of whom were Dutch, declined this offer, but most of the fast faired types had another go. Laurent appeared much smoother second time around, and improved his time to 8.48 seconds, equating to 52.77 mph or 84.91 km/h - pretty much the same speed as Jürg Birkenstock achieved in Lelystad on a rather better surface. Sacha also improved, to 9.82 seconds (73.32 km/h, 45.57 mph), while Ian Sheen repaired his damaged dignity with a 10.48 sec. run to snatch third place from Dirk and Steve, neither of whom improved on the second run. Unfaired honours went to Peter Groeneveld, with a storming 10.79 sec, 66.73 km/h, 41.47 mph run, from compatriots Rob Wartenhorst and Koen Koevoets. Amongst the ladies, Nicole Schön again led the way in the faired machines, with a 34.77 mph run, from Sherri's 32.52 mph and Françoise' 22.84, while in the unfaired category, late arrival Anja van der Hulst clocked a thoroughly respectable 32.57 mph, ahead of Rosmarie and Mariëlle, both of whom also exceeded 30 mph. The quickest of the three participating tandems was the M5 of Brechtje Daams and Ben Wichers Schreur, at 26.4 mph, from Jens Holloch and partner, and the Gail Aspden / Karen Parker Firefly. And the sole arm-powered competitor, Mike Bishop, ran through the traps at 24.07 mph on the M5 three-wheeler. No major mishaps occurred during the sprints, unless you include Dirk gently steering the Magic Scooter into the field alongside the runway at the start of his second run, or Sergei clocking a run in 3.27 seconds after inadvertently walking through the timing beam.
 

And so to the Crits. Someone has laid out a circuit of vaguely dog-bone shape, using all the tyres in the world not yet crashed into by Damon Hill et al. and a substantial proportion of the EEC Traffic Cone Mountain to keep HPV's and scenery apart. The start runs along a shortish straight - part of one of the runways or something, before diverting into a series of fairly open corners, which contrive to turn the riders through 180 degrees and onto the longest straight. At the end of which is a fiendishly loony-tunes series of extremely tight corners, where overtaking is all but impossible, thus allowing the less wieldy streamliners to hold up members of the Unfaired Nutter Tendency and almost causing an International Incident when one such person, unfamiliar with the cornering lines adopted by faired trikes, tried to go around the outside of a certain red Speedy and nearly got shoved into the tyre wall. But even as the riders are checking out the circuit and returning, clutching their heads and moaning, a Drama has arisen...
 

Someone, somewhere, has got the results of the crits, but so far Jonathan, gNick and Steve D have all denied knowledge of their whereabouts. Can YOU help? All calls will be treated in the strictest confidence, and you could win a LardStoppers reward... Hurrah! John Kingsbury has found them. All is saved!

In the first of the four heats, each run for twenty minutes plus a lap (if I remember correctly), "Quentin" sets the initial pace, but then Steve Slade gets into the groove, flinging the Wasp around in his usual demented manner, with the Black Baron, Edoardo Mugge following close behind. "Quentin" is later slowed by transmission problems, allowing Jonathan Woolrich, Mike Burrows, Rainer Leroy and Sherri Prisk, going very well in Steve Donaldson's faired Kingcycle, past. Indeed, Sherri proved utterly fearless on the corners, so much so that Yours Truly was quite glad to spare himself any further embarrassment when the front end of the bike started making funny noises. I retired, thinking the front tyre was going flat, but it turned out to be the front wheel disk making gentle contact with the speedo magnet... Mike Burrows did his usual crit trick of trying to finish just outside the qualifying places, but failed to manage it on this occasion; as a bicycle designer, Michael, perhaps you should think about trying two wheels properly one of these days. The final result was a convincing win for Slash, with Edoardo second and Jonathan third, while "Quentin" recovered to take fourth.

The second heat was led from start to finish by the Wasp of Steve Donaldson, with Tim Costen's Kingcycle leading the chase. At about two-thirds distance, Tim was finally overhauled by Frank Lienhard's foam-faired Chiquita; these three riders being the only ones on the same lap. A gaggle of assorted unfaired machines filled the next places, with Peter Groeneveld leading Helmut Walle, Kees Bakker, Cor de Boer and John Lafford. After this race I went to prod Peter's bike. It's a carbon-framed low racer and it weighs nothing - no wonder he goes so well. Heat 3 proved that on this circuit a serious streamliner could still do well, as Sacha Knoop held up the remainder of the field through the twists to score a well-deserved win in the Meringue minus its cockpit canopy. Second was the faired Kingcycle of Reto Wynistorf, from Bernd Bleckmann's Horizont-Fast and our own Ian Chattington.

The final heat was dominated by Ymte Sybrandy, chased home by the unfaired bikes of Paul Raven, Koen Koevoets and Walter Berger, ahead of tireless commentator Ian Sheen, who remained unlapped in spite of the Speedy's "difficult" handling through the tight corners. Mike Weaver was running well up in the faired Mikew 4, but retired from second place just after half distance with some malady unknown at this range. All of which resulted in roughly the first twelve riders from each heat progressing to the semi-finals. Due to time constraints, these were run for ten minutes plus the odd lap. Unfortunately, the results from the first semi have disappeared without trace, though I think I'm probably right in saying that Steve Slade won. And I think this was the race in which Laurent Chapuis retired his unfaired bike after one lap, so he could continue with his picnic.

The second semi-final was another Ymte Sybrandy benefit, with the Dutchman leading a swarm of unfaired machinery, who managed to find a way around Sacha this time. Dave Redknap made a complete hash of the finish, narrowly failing to allow the leader to lap him just before the line. Sherri, had problems with a missing shoe plate, but in spite of this was leading the Ladies class, until a dropped chain allowed Rosmarie Buhler to get past.
 

With the Crit final underway, for fifteen minutes plus a lap, most punters are of the opinion that the event will prove a Steve Slade benefit, given the man's undoubted bike handling prowess and lack of sanity. However, he gets a truly dreadful start, and spends much of the race fighting his way back through the field, while Ymte cruises away into an untroubled lead. Steve Donaldson holds down second place for a while, and if I can find the results anywhere, I'll let you know what happened. Ah, here they are! "Quentin" appears to have been relegated to the back again, I know not why, while Steve is hassled by various unfaired types. Slash finally recovers and lodges himself securely in second place, but can do nothing about the leader. Steve loses third to Peter Groeneveld, but manages to keep Koen behind him in fifth, a lap ahead of Kees Bakker, who fills the third unfaired podium place. Incidentally, lest anyone should be dubious about the multiple stopwatch lap scoring method - I finished processing the results of the crits four weeks after the event took place (with the exception of the missing semi-final), while the velodrome race results were available within minutes...

After which we all packed up and returned to Leicester, and a mighty nice ride it was too, for those of us hurtling along the back roads. Happily I decided to stop at the off-licence prior to reaching the camp site, as hardly had I got back when I was nobbled by a certain Mr. Woolrich and turned into Acting Temporary Unpaid Vice-Time-Trial Organisationer. This involved assembling a starting order for everyone to ignore, and took us long enough to miss being able to get to the pub, chiz, and we were only rescued from starvation by the timely arrival of Mark Timbrell, who volunteered to fetch pizzas. Thanks, Mark. Further disaster was averted by Paul London, who donated his emergency beer supply to worthy, or at least thirsty, causes. Cheers, Paul.

Sunday July 28th

Some people were keen enough to try to get across town to Syston in order to make their allotted start times for the 25 mile time trial. Others weren't. Step forward, Señor Espejo. It being even harder to comment on a time-trial than on a race on a long circuit; well, the course was alleged to be fast, and probably was, though to me it seemed to consist of a number of false flats linked together by hills. All of them upwards. Plus the concrete surface of the Nottinghamshire section of the course set up a curious resonance in the Pink Fairy's nether regions, causing my feet to go numb even more quickly than usual. Fortunately the Old Bill, despite their initial misgivings about the event, decided not to show up, which was quite fortunate, as an organisational blind eye had been turned towards Laurent Chapuis' inability to give hand signals. Laurent handsomely repaid this concession by stopping the watch in 37:07, which works out at a little over 40 mph. Second place went to Marcel Pastre, more than nine minutes down with a 46:21, while the official results credit Steve Donaldson with a third- place-winning 46:42. He even got a prize for it, but no-one, least of all Steve himself, actually believed this was right. Only two ladies with fairings this time, and to no-one's great surprise, Sherri lifted the win in 1:05:29, while Françoise Magnouloux suffered a puncture during her 1:48:19 ride. Happily a fellow competitor stopped to assist - her husband Bernard. The quickest female competitor, however, was another puncture victim, Anja van der Hulst, who suffered one within yards of the start. She was allowed to restart the event, and finished in 1:04:49, just under two minutes ahead of Rosmarie Buhler, with Mariëlle finishing third. Among the unfaired blokes, "Quentin" at last managed to turn the tables on his Dutch rivals, his 54:36 netting him the win ahead of Swiss rider Walter Berger (55:51) and Kees Bakker's 56:59. Mike Weaver will no doubt be delighted to learn that his 1:03:59 bettered the time of Number One Son by three minutes and forty-four seconds... Only two tandem crews started the event, with Ben and Brechtje finishing in 1:19:27, 1:51 ahead of Gail and Karen.
 

Back to Leicester, for the 50m drag racing in Gallowtree Gate. I actually beat Laurent back from Syston! He was in a car and got held up at the roadworks. As we got started, so did the rain, which led to some interesting escapades, which I was able to observe from the comfort and safety of JK's Espace, which had been turned into Data Processing Central for the afternoon. The tandem final, if I remember correctly, resulted in a collision between the Firefly of Karen Parker / Gail Aspden and the Ostrad of Dan Ehle / Claudia Offenborn, with both hitting the deck, leaving the M5 of Brechtje Daams / Ben Wichers Schreur to win by default. The winners then fell off immediately after the finish... Mariëlle Bakker declined to use her brakes for stopping, with a fearsome demonstration of how to wear out your shoe-plates, while winning the ladies' class. Marcus Hunt demonstrated that a Speedy is unlikely to fall over in this kind of weather. But he also showed that excess power in a low gear will get you nowhere, as he sat stationary, rear wheel spinning furiously, while the opposition disappeared into the distance. The final came down to the Challenge Hurricane-mounted Koen Koevoets versus Steve Slade on a Kingcycle and Derrick Tweddle on the Fast Donkey. Whether due to the Hurricane's rear suspension or Koen's high power-to-weight ratio, the Dutchman crossed the line ahead of Slash, with Derrick third. Whereupon the victor dropped his bike on the deck and performed a bizarre victory dance, as though he'd just won an Olympic gold medal instead of a tasteful dark blue mug.

Finally, the prize-giving, delivered by Chairman Mike and his hat, Nicola Ward of Leicester Promotions and a committee of hecklers. Multiple unfaired winner Peter Groeneveld was unfortunately confined to bed after "drinking some bad water", which meant that Koen Koevoets ended up bent double under the weight of accumulated trophies. As did Laurent Chapuis, who, in spite of Mike's misgivings, was also awarded the "Best All-Rounder" trophy, which seemed fair enough to me, as he had won four of the six events. Then we all went home, except the CycleFesterers, who went to Lancaster instead. Hope the rain held off, boys and girls, coz over on the Continong we had downpours of tropical intensity accompanied by the full range of "Dr. Frankenstein, your lab. is on the phone" special effects...

Postscript