Experts

I'm wary of "experts". Some of them are owned by the universities, corporations and politicians who pay their wages. Some of them are self-appointed. Some of them have read a lot of old books and not that many new ones- or, indeed, vice versa. Some of them are opinionated and stubborn and set in their ways. Some of them are dogmatists and trying to sell you a line. All of them carry baggage.

Knowing a lot about a subject isn't the same as knowing the truth about it.

The Nicolson Diaries Come To An End

I have finished the Nicolson Diaries. As he gets older so the entries get shorter and the company glitters less. Health concerns begin to nag- and then to dominate. He has mini-strokes, fears that his intellectual powers are failing- and his last book (a commission his son the publisher pushes his way in an act of reverse nepotism) proves that this is indeed the case. Vita is ill too- more seriously ill than she lets on- and is treated at Pembury Hospital- which is where we go too when we absolutely must. She dies- and though he keeps his diary for a couple more years the content is apparently too painful to be published. He dies in 1968, by which time he is far advanced in senility...