A moment of reverie

This didn’t happen of course; which is a shame, because if it did, it would be a wonderful story which could then be put up on a blog under some tragic, if faintly pretentious title, like "a rare moment in a hack writer’s life".

Suppose you were a writer of pop science books, one of which had been reviewed in the two leading scientific journals of the day; one review acidulous, the other friendly. This being a small world, the authors of the two reviews know each other, and are in fact on friendly terms. Years later one of them tell you that the other, with whom he had recently stayed, is in the habit of smoking a quiet joint before sleeping every night. This no doubt explains all the inadequacies of his review. Of course, in the story, it wouldn’t be the author of the friendly review whose idiosyncracies are thus explained.

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