Choosing And Using A Micro Computer and not only that but also 18 original programs. Original programs like Radius, Patterns, Compound Interest... and all for £2.50. No, I didn't think it was likely either; but what the heck, it was a raining Saturday afternoon... the type that made you wish it was Monday morning; Oh! And I had a cold as well and apart from darning some socks there was little else to do, so I took a browse through the 140-page Fontana paperback.

The credits were certainly impressive. Alan Radnor is a journalist and producer of TV computer programmes. Howard Kahn lectures in computing at Manchester Polytechnic. The intentions are valid - "written for everyone who is thinking of buying a computer for the first time and wants to know what it can do, which one to choose, the rudiments of how it works, how to set it up and how much it will all cost" and eighteen original programs as well.

Special features include: a questionaire which tells you at a glance which micro is best suited to your needs, a sample text program to use in the shop, a micro comparison chart showing the capabilities of each make, an explanation of computer jargon and eighteen original programs.

There is, I am convinced, a need for such a book. Difficult as it is to believe there are still people around who are looking for some basic, commonsense advice on computing and computer buying. The cover notes suggest that "Choosing and Using a Micro Computer" might be it. Even on a rainy Saturday, cold and all, I was not convinced that the text matched those intentions.

Seventy pages cover who needs a computer, what one is and what one can do, setting up the computer and information on software. Seven pages would have done. The text is vague and mostly irrelevant rambling, dated and largely useless!

Am I being too critical, what of the eighteen original programs? Any program for someone who doesn't already have a computer must be original! Those of us who do will recognise those listed above and the rest of the eighteen to be the same as the ones that would fill these pages and excite us when we were still playing with ZX80s. Why they take up almost half of the book I do not know.

The nicest thing that happened on the rainy Saturday afternoon, and this is original, was having the cold.