It is a cold, two-storey building of the uniform drabness that characterises the China of the toiling masses.

BBC: A Beijing state of mind

Standing at the Berlin Wall in 1987, he looked over to the east and, struck by its drabness and emptiness, knew that the system behind it was evil.

ECONOMIST: Ronald Reagan

The Hesses make jokes out of affectlessness and drabness the nowheresville prefab tackiness of the houses and the emptiness of a patch of country so remote that not even popular culture touches it.

NEWYORKER: Napoleon Dynamite