Cycling through the wind and wet this morning, and having just finished a disappointing Philip K Dick book the previous night, was ruminating on the "Culture" sci-fi books of Iain (M.) Banks.

Read the first one, Consider Phlebas, on hols in 2002: exciting, grisly in parts, and crying out to be filmed. Second one, The Player Of Games, was much more laid back but still well worthwhile. Didn't get one with the third one, Use Of Weapons, at all: two narratives, one going forwards in time, the other going backwards.

That second book, I was thinking, required more thinking about than the first. It was more... what's that word beginning with "C"? Collateral? Cohesive?

Finally came to me towards the end of my peddling (oops, pedalling): cerebral. Early onset?