It's not all that consistent, no. But for me what it cues is Perlis:

"Algol is a blight. You can't have fun with Algol. Algol is a code that now belongs in a plumber's union. It helps you design correct structures that don't collapse, but it doesn't have any fun in it. There are no pleasures in writing Algol programs. It's a labor of necessity, a preoccupation with the details of tedium."

From http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss/foreword.html.