User:The Duke of Waltham/Personality
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The Duke of Waltham
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Welcome to my real user page. Since, as you might or might not have realised (depending on your sense of humour), there is no Duke of Waltham, most of what you've read in the polished main user page is either untrue or grossly exaggerated (one of the only truthful things in there used to be its userboxes, one of the victims of the subsequent redecoration). I could say that it has all been done for your amusement, but I should be lying; it has mostly been done for my amusement.
Warning: Everything that follows in this page is true, but potentially rich in sarcasm. Please do not proceed further if you are too sensitive, easily insulted, or actually like the notion of my being of noble descent (I happen to know that there is at least one person in that category—you have one guess).
My name is Vasileios Peidis (Vah–SEE–lee–os Peh–EE–dees) and I am a Greek living in Greece—or a Greece living in Greek, as some of my forum pals prefer to say. I am male, Caucasian, nineteen years of age, vastly underweight (but not anorexic), a student of Civil Engineering, a member of a family of four, five, six, or eight members (according to definition, or rather, which pets and/or teddy bears can be counted as "members of the family"), and a person full of contradictions. You will probably either love me or hate me, but you cannot easily ignore me.1
1 Of course that mostly applies to direct contact; it's easier to ignore someone when they are a couple of thousands of kilometres away (and a lot of people actually do, to my utmost chagrin). Also, it sounds somewhat self-centred as a characterisation. And it is.
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[edit] General information
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Profile
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I was born on New Year's Day, 1989, but, contrary to expectations (at least in my country), I am not a lucky person at all. It matters little to me, however, as I do not believe in luck. I hail from Katerini, a moderate-sized (pop. c. 60,000) town in Greek Macedonia that lives off services, most importantly tourism. Though I have lived in Katerini for more or less my entire life, I moved to Serres in October 2006 for my studies. As Serres is fairly close to home, I return often enough to ensure that I will not get too high doses of the toxic substance I have grown to call family: every other weekend.
I am three quarters Greek and one quarter German; my father and my maternal grandmother are (ultimately) descended from the Pontos region of the southern Black Sea coast, and my maternal grandfather was from Berlin. Even though I have largely forgotten the German I learnt a few years ago, or at least its abysmally difficult grammar, I can still say "Ich bin ein Berliner" without being accused of being untruthful—even though I've never actually visited the city.
[edit] Lifestyle
I am a fairly lazy person, so I try to avoid work, or at least physical work. For that reason, I generally avoid exercise, although I am quite fond of walking and cycling, especially when I have good company. On the other hand, I don't mind mental work as long as I consider the subject interesting; as a matter of fact, I am completely incapable of staying idle, doing nothing at all. I could, and have, spend tens of hours weekly on my various hobbies and pet projects, which often relate somehow to some sort of list-making.
I am also quite relaxed, preferring to avoid hurrying for most things. I am actually quite slow in more or less everything, be it housework, lunch, a shower, or an exam (with disastrous consequences there). I try to handle things effectively by planning my day in advance, but this tends to go awry when I over-sleep, forget something, or simply act with my usual impulsiveness. Strangely enough, these slow rhythms co-exist with my restlessness, endless energy, quick thought, very fast talking, and similarly rapid typing. This combination results in my seemingly being unable to carry out large, time-consuming projects, which I am soon bored of, favouring small-scale or multi-stage undertakings instead.
My typical day depends on whether I am in Katerini or in Serres, and the changes are noticeable, though not dramatic. I prefer to reserve everything school-related for the time I am in the latter city, so that when I am in my hometown I can relax, go out with a friend, give my sister a hand with her homework, and spend some time with the family dog, the adorable female mongrel Cookie.
My lifestyle is neither very healthy nor especially unhealthy. I do not smoke, I seldom drink alcohol (I only like red wine), I like fruit, with a preference to apples and strawberries, I walk a lot, and I use the stairs as much as possible. That said, I avoid most vegetables and eat lots of fried food, I like soft drinks, I consume liberal amounts of junk food, and shall forever treasure my passion for milk chocolate. In addition, I am rather picky when it comes to cooked food (which explains, to a degree, my persistently lower-than-advisable weight), rarely sleep a full eight hours, and I am likely to suffer from kyphosis in the future because of not sitting properly or walking upright.
As far as entertainment is concerned, I like listening to the radio, watching television, meeting my on-line friends in the Sarcasm Society forum, and going out with my real-life friends. I do not frequent cinemas, but like watching films at home, renting them as soon as they come out on DVD. I hardly ever go clubbing, as I usually find the music too loud, the place too dark, the dances quite ridiculous, and the drinks rather unpopular to my palate and wider cranial area. I prefer quiet places, where people can talk with each other and say interesting and amusing things while enjoying some proper beverages.
[edit] Travels
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Travelling
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I've not travelled extensively in my life, but I have had my breaks. I've seen glimpses from many Greek towns and cities, as well as a few European ones, but I have only extensively seen the places I have visited on holidays and the longest of my school trips: Corfu, Kavala, Xanthi, and parts of Athens and Chalcidice. Furthermore, I had the chance to go sightseeing in Venice with my father in 1999, as part of a month-long tour of central-west Europe during which I also had a look of the outskirts of Cologne, Frankfurt, and Vienna. As a piece of trivia, I can say that the only four times in my life that I have ever left continental Europe were when I visited Corfu (twice), Thasos, and Venice. Now that I think of it, I could perhaps include Peloponnese, as it has been technically an island since the completion of the Corinth Canal.
My desire is to see more of Europe in the future, especially the United Kingdom, which I have for a long time been intent to visit, Germany, and Austria. I would also be delighted to cross the Atlantic and visit New York City and potentially other places in New England (including Boston). Finally, a trip to Australia would be of great interest to me, though I'd probably avoid going to most places in Asia, Africa, or South America, a result of my immense appreciation for, and extreme dependence on, the Western civilisation.
[edit] Interests
I have a lot of interests, and that is probably an understatement. Although, as is natural, they don't cover all areas (I'm blissfully unaware of most of the world of sports, to furnish an example), they extend to many areas of human civilisation. Too many, actually, as my heavy schedule will leave me little time to pursue even a few of them. If I had one wish, it would be for the day to comprise 36 hours as opposed to 24 (with the corresponding requirements for sleep remaining stable at eight hours, of course). Nonetheless, I seize every opportunity for study that crops up (to the detriment of my success at school), and can get easily carried away when clicking my way through Wikipedia, learning new things and acting my WikiGnome part in the process.
The subjects which follow are the ones that appeal to me the most.
[edit] Heraldry
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Heraldry
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For the last few years, heraldry has been my first and foremost interest outside Wikipedia. This is not saying much, as Wikipedia has taken up most of the time left over by my studies, my limited social life, and my biological needs of food and sleep, but it's still notable. I had attempted several times to create coats of arms, with varying results, until in 2005 I took up the subject more seriously and searched the Internet for relevant information, which I promptly found. I do not own books on the subject (although I'd like to); all I know is thanks to the free knowledge of our times. One of the reasons, I suppose, why I like Wikipedia so much.
I am mostly interested in British heraldry (basically English, as Scottish heraldry has certain notable differences), for several reasons, primarily because of my Anglophilic sentiments and because I don't have enough knowledge of either the French or German language to sufficiently comprehend non-British blazons. Plus, it is the first kind of heraldry I have ever heard of, and the one heraldic tradition that still remains very alive today, to a great extent due to the continued existence of the British Monarchy (of which I am a supporter, and say whatever you want—I live in the cradle of democracy and I have seen the "perks").
I know little about family coats of arms, as I find civic arms both more interesting and more easily accessible through the Internet. I shall recognise quite a few of them on sight, and I even have a list of personal favourites somewhere in the back of my head. Yet, I find it unavoidable that I'll deal with the subject later on, as well as with genealogy (which is intimately connected with heraldry); interesting as it is, I know for a fact that my selective memory will impede me a good deal in actually memorising a lot of coats of arms and their owners, although I shall certainly be better at it than at many of my school lessons.
[edit] Personal arms
One of the products of my heraldic knowledge is my own coat of arms, which I have designed and drawn myself; its blazon and image can be found in my main user page.
The quarterings are quite plain in order to look old (it is a rule of thumb that the simpler the design, the more ancient the arms). The first quartering is the one I actually started with, and features towers, one of my favourite charges; the second and fourth are modified versions of real coats of arms (Humberside and Cleethorpes respectively); the third I have created with several criteria in mind, mostly in order to balance the rest of the design. The bordure was added shortly afterwards, and I find that it greatly improved the final outcome, mixing the colours and balancing the shield.
The supporters are sea-lions, one of my favourite heraldic beasts along with griffins, and one with heavy symbolisms. The crest is a winged boar, derived from the old Grimsby coat of arms, and intended to create several puns (as well as to hint to my fondness of Harry Potter).
The basic colours ("tinctures") are blue and white, a reference to Greece; blue is also my favourite colour. The Dukes of Waltham's traditional sources of wealth are supposed to be real estate and the food industry, and that is reflected in the punning motto. There are strong marine themes throughout the achievement: from the colours and motto to the supporters and their wavy compartment. Finally, there are a couple of references to England, the most obvious being the boar's wings.
[edit] History
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History
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I have always held high the view that if one is not aware of one's history, one is doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. I would even expand this to include those who are aware of their history, but take it too lightly.
They also say history goes in circles. I've heard, on the other hand, about a more interesting theory: history follows the course of a spiral. That is, certain motifs are repeated but manifest themselves differently each time, based on the geopolitical, social, economical, and technological state and situation of the world and of the people leading it. To me, this makes more sense. Every event is unique, after all.
In any case, I like history for its own sake, and I enjoy studying about eras and nations, great leaders and celebrated intellectuals, the rise and fall of empires and the timeline of the ever-shifting borders of states, social revolutions and technological breakthroughs, wars and treaties, alliances and backstabbings, artistic movements and political parties, military campaigns and major sieges, epic exploration expeditions and spectacular sea battles, devastating calamities and admirable reconstructions. These examples can only hint at the diversity of events and personalities one can encounter during an examination of any history, be it the history of a nation, of an era, or the biography of an influential person. Life is often even more interesting than fiction, and the latter is inspired by the former anyway.
My fondness of history is one of the reasons why I like fixing succession boxes: I have the chance to skim through multitudes of articles I should normally have never seen, and travel through chains of succession of titles and offices occupied by important or, at least, interesting personalities. And even the viewpoint can be intriguing, as history looks very different indeed when one looks at it in reverse (I have to work on many chains from the present backwards). Instead of seeing events unfold, one keeps being surprised by developments one has been taking for granted.
As a Greek, I am naturally interested in the history of Ancient Greece. Even so, I think I would like to study it anyway and irrespective of descent, as I find Ancient Roman history equally intriguing, yet I am no Italian. On the other hand, my Greek ancestry does seem to cause in me a mild interest in Byzantine history, which might have been absent otherwise. Most fascinated I am, however, by later British history, from the Tudors onwards. The Victorian era and the years of the British Empire are, as my userboxes testify, my favourite time periods, and I read for them and seek to learn more about them at every opportunity.
By the way, knowledge of history can be more useful than one can imagine in some areas that initially seem completely irrelevant, like cinema. I am referring, of course, to period films. And I have been able to appreciate some of the jokes in Blackadder that I should have been unable to had I not known what little I know about English history.
[edit] Geography
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Geography
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I love knowing the world around me. All the different places, with their names and histories, and the connection of each place with a wider network of rivers, mountains, seas, or cities, and a patchwork of nations and civilisations covering from centuries to entire millennia, is something that fascinates me, and in my opinion is worth studying. I have always believed that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of their homeland, its place in the world, and the various continents, countries, and oceans. Needless to say, I have been disappointed. The educational systems in general, and that of my country in particular, do not instil into the students the desire to learn, and they all tend to forget the little they have been taught in school, which usually encourages nothing but pointless memorising.
I find the basics not enough for myself, however; I want to have perfect knowledge of the oceans, seas, and large or important bays, of the location of each country on the globe (even though I cannot memorise all the state capitals in the world, especially those with names too difficult to even pronounce), the basics about all the great rivers, mountains and mountain ranges, islands, peninsulae and capes, and I'd like to know the historic names of most regions. I want to know which are the largest forests, what is the shape of the most important lakes, and how the greatest cities of the world are laid out. Though I know much already, I still have many things to learn (maps are very useful in this process, as visual teaching means are often the best—I also happen to love maps). And I will not rest until I manage to remember the relative positions of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, which I always confuse. At least I haven't forgotten where Indonesia is!
Most importantly, I very much want to have a perfect knowledge of European geography, much more than that of Asia or America. As I am very fond of the Old Continent, as it is known, or the garden of the world, as I like to refer to it, where everything is in the human scale and there is the most amazing variety of elements both natural (landscapes, flora and fauna) and human (nations, histories, customs, art, languages). Though my knowledge about European mountains is a little lacking, and I still occasionally confuse the capitals of the Baltic states, Europe is the area of the world the geography of which I know best and I am most interested in being further educated in.
[edit] Architecture
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[edit] Favourite motion picture works
Well, a general title for "favourite films and TV programmes" (but more elegant and pedantic); as a person who appreciates art and likes enjoying the benefits of modern technology, I watch a lot of both.
[edit] Television series
I watch almost everything, as long as it is sufficiently interesting. Thankfully, there is a wide selection of TV series, and I have thus had the ability to watch many different ones, each with its own unique, intriguing elements. And now that I am a student, I have the additional benefit of a free(er) schedule; I sometimes watch series which begin as late as 03:30... Fortunately, I need relatively little sleep.
I shall use no userboxes here; the lists are alphabetical.
These are my most favourite television series ever:
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These are other television series that I have highly enjoyed watching and which I have regularly watched for at least a period:
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And these are television series I have watched from several to many episodes thereof, although not on a regular basis:
As you can see, my tastes are rather... diverse.
[edit] Other television programmes
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[edit] Work in Wikipedia
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Wikipedia profile
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I identify myself as a WikiGnome and a succession box handyman who moonlights as a Metapedian. I do not contribute content, and I do not like the prospect of sifting through sources; I have nothing to do with images or other media, and my technical knowledge is rather limited. My interests lie almost entirely within two areas, namely style and navigation. In other words, all my efforts in Wikipedia shall be directed to ensuring that the readers will be quickly and easily directed to the pages they want to see, and that these pages will have a clear, professional, and standardised appearance throughout. I generally engage in the following:
- correction of style errors and typos;
- correction of grammatical mistakes and improvement of text where awkward or informal;
- link addition (when useful), removal (when redundant or excessive), or redirection (when erroneous or unhelpful);
- addition of succession boxes to articles that need them but lack them;
- updating of succession templates to the s-start series;
- correction of the accuracy and style of the contents of succession boxes;
- improvement of the layout of articles when that is problematic or ugly;
- addition of missing useful redirects and tagging of redirects with the appropriate categorising templates; and
- improvement of disambiguation pages and hatnote templates.
In the future, I might also get involved with categorisation, although it is not amongst my immediate concerns, and it is accompanied by too much luggage for it to be taken lightly.
Apart from edits in the mainspace, which comprise 50–60% of my total edit count, and similar edits in project namespace pages, a great part of my resources goes into other activities. These include:
- making proposals in WikiProject Succession Box Standardization for succession box templates and guidelines, and otherwise assisting in the project's management;
- helping shape and generally supporting the proposal for the adoption of Wiki-markup for hard spaces;
- participating in discussions in the Manual of Style's talk page and in the new Manual of Style WikiProject, of which I am a founding member;
- contacting various editors regarding ideas, favours, proposals, or specific article edits, and sometimes participating in discussions in the Village Pump (proposals and technical sections);
- updating and refining my own user pages; and
- posting the occasional message in Main Page/Errors; although it is in the mainspace, I think we can agree that it is not an article.
For a full list of my edits, I refer you to the usual place. An edit count is also available; both of them can be found in the navigation template at the bottom of each of the pages in my userspace.
[edit] Awards
As part-WikiGnome, I often work behind the scenes, but my other activities have earned me some recognition from members of the community. So far I have been bestowed with two awards, and I have earned several more from finding hidden pages—here they are all:
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The Excellent Userpage Award | |
| To His Grace: to His superior User page and all its content we must kowtow. If there is a place in royalty for a sense of humor, the Duke certainly sets a new standard it in the best possible way, and may a thousand suns expire before that valuable quality does. ALTON .ıl 09:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC) |
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The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar | |
| A peace offering, to mend any broken fences in your estates. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC) |
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The Super Hidden Barnstar Collection | |
| The Duke of Waltham has successfully located the secret pages of the following editors: Ajdlinux, Aliasd, Chetblong, Chris G, Cinnaspice, ComputerGuy890100, D4g0thur, Destructo 087, Domthedude001, ElisaEXPLOSiON, Hmwith, IXella007, Keeper76, Lights, LordSkane, Mack-the-random, Maddiekate, Meldshal42, Sean gorter, Penubag, Scientizzle, Selfworm, Thedeadmanandphenom, Uchiha23, Vintei, and Zanewolf. His Grace challenges you to cheat your way to his own secret page; although there are no links, there are clues in two of his pages. |
[edit] Internet and Communications
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Internet and communications
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People tend to lose track of their e-mail accounts, forum memberships, and newsletter subscriptions, as one often signs up in a whim for things that one later forgets about. This is illustrated by the 90-9-1 rule, and it is yet another exhibit that testifies to the unequivocal application of the second law of thermodynamics in electronic communications. "Entropy will always increase." And chaos shall forever rule the Internet.
And Wikipedia. But thankfully in a much more organised form. (Except for the few occasions where "organised chaos" is all but a euphemism, like a few deletion votes I choose not to mention.)
Fortunately, I am not that eager to add my name to forums and mailing lists, and I have been keeping my glorious alias rather contained. However, I do have a small problem. Apart from my main e-mail account and the old one that I still check once in a while, I have recently acquired another two of them, the first in order to access an array of services and the second for the sake of experimentation. I have already forgotten the password for the latter.
[edit] Userboxes
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This page is full of userboxes, as you might have noticed, so it is only fair that they should be given a section for their own statistics (after all, I do like statistics). Actually, I only learned how to use them around February 2007, so I might qualify as a Userbox Newbie. However, I have studied them rather extensively, and I think I have managed to acquire a rather advanced knowledge of the way they are created and used. Even so, I do not feel like creating userboxes for others to use (I do not have any great ideas anyway); I prefer converting other people's userboxes for my own personal use. The ones that used to be in my main user page are, I believe, characteristic of this tendency of mine.
Theft, you say? Nah, really, I think you are just being harsh. After all, what is the GFDL for if we cannot be, erm, inspired by our fellow editors?
Currently, there are 2 userboxes on my talk page and 39 userboxes on this page, the sum reaching the number of 41. All rights reserved, i.e. absolutely none.
More userboxes may be added in the future. No, wait, make this a "shall". I will definitely add more userboxes. How else are people supposed to be able to learn all the important information about me?
[edit] Signatures
So far, I have had one and only one signature: Waltham, The Duke of. An original idea, I adopted it on 7 April 2007, after a couple of months of using a simple "Waltham" as signature (it doesn't count, as it was entered in the preferences as "nickname"), and the code is the following:
[[User:The Duke of Waltham|Waltham]], <small>[[User talk:The Duke of Waltham|''The Duke of'']]</small>
Although rather simple, it comprises 102 characters (including spaces). I like it because its design is plain yet rather unique; I have seen thousands of signatures so far, and none like it. Therefore, it is distinctive without using any colours or different fonts, which I wanted to avoid.
I take the term "signature" quite literally, so I want mine to remind of one as much as possible, using standard Wikipedia font and colours, and having the name "Waltham" being the first and primary element (peers sign with their title only). I completed the title with a smaller and italicised "The Duke of", which serves as the talk page link, and ensures that most people will know me with my full alias and not simply as "Waltham" (some do refer to me this way, but I do not mind it, as they are still aware of my "title"); the general impression is that of an entry in a genealogy book. I am very satisfied with the result, and have no intention of changing it. The only problem is that I have sometimes been called "Waltham, The Duke of", which sounds stupid in normal speech—thankfully, this has only happened a couple of times, and I have no problem with it if it is done jocularly, anyway.
[edit] Subpages
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The Duke of Waltham
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At the moment, I have four subpages in my user namespace (save this one and the talk page archives):
- /SBS: This is my personal workshop for WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, and in the future it shall also serve as a repository of propositions for succession box forms and project page reforms, as well as ideas, essays and other interesting or useful things concerning the WikiProject.
- /Peerages: This page tracks my progress in the task of ensuring that peerage succession chains are up to scratch by means of slightly complex but highly useful tables.
- /Navbox: This template I have created to supply my main user page with an index of my small page network (and a quick link to the edit counter) that would help it resemble a true article; due to problems with the naming, I have been forced to disable the small links usually present in the headers of navboxes.
- /Navbox tiny: This is a small box with the same links as the proper navbox, but more compact. I use it for my talk pages, and it is smaller in order to conform to the limits of the special code that produces it and keeps it at the bottom. Many thanks to BrownHairedGirl for creating it for me.
All subpages are linked to from the two navboxes, with the exception of the navboxes' own subpages.
[edit] Other accounts
I used to contribute from an account named after a silly nickname I used in high school in the few times I played Counter-Strike with my classmates: "Bill the Greek". My contributions were scarce from that account and were spread throughout a rather long time period (at least two years, during which I mostly used Wikipedia as a source for the pursuit of my hobbies). After several strategic errors, including my first and only involvement in a dispute as a member of the late AMA and the creation of a subpage to function as a forum, I wanted to get rid of both the name and the unpleasant luggage of the account. Add to that my ignorance of the username policies (although I am not 100% certain that one could actually move one's account to a different name at the end of 2006, I believe it was possible), and you have the reason for the creation of this account. I used as a name a title which I had created for myself the summer before, when I joined an Internet forum playing the same part of the ridiculous aristocrat that I do here; my user ID is 3078442.
In November 2007, I started looking for potential sources of trouble as far as my name and noble titles are concerned. Aware of the policy for Doppelganger accounts, I did some experimenting and realised that most of the names similar to my account's name could not be used anyway, so I created the account The Duck of Waltham. The rationale behind this choice of name is that it could be created by one as a (potentially malicious) joking response to my name; it came to me as an idea from the aforementioned forum (Sarcasm Society; see the links below). It also serves as my on-line pet: Duncan the Ducal Duck. I might use the account in the future if I want to edit at a very high speed, e.g. with AWB.
[edit] Wikipedia "must see"
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| Wikipedia Ads | file info – #75 |
This is a list of pages which I consider exceedingly interesting and/or useful. It shall grow along with my experience. I warn you that there might be a heavy bias towards humour-related pages.
- Raul's laws – A list of observations on the way Wikipedia works, constituting an (unavoidably feeble) attempt to identify trends in the community and tag some actions as "recurrent".
- Wikipedia:Deleted articles with freaky titles – It is, more or less, what the title says. I should particularly recommend the following sections: 0–9, Categories, List articles, and N.
- Editing exercises – A common grammatical problem and advice on how to circumvent it.
[edit] Interesting links
Here follow some of my favourite websites. I emphatically recommend them and they are all free of charge and harmless as far as viruses and other Internet traps are concerned. Well, about the last one, I am as sure as one can be with the Internet...
- General interest
- http://www.sarcasmsociety.com – A forum where humour has reigned but kindness has been unlearned since its very inception. Sensitive people are not welcome—meanness, on the other hand, is a considerable asset.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk – The best news source in the world by the oldest and most respected television corporation—it used to be as free of advertisements as Wikipedia itself, but British citizens kept complaining about their money being used for an internationally accessible site. I fail to see their point; they could think of those few pennies they spend each month on the site as charity.
- http://www.eurobilltracker.eu – The largest project for the tracking of Euro banknotes. I am a member, and so should you—if you live in Europe, that is. What do Australians have to do with Euros? Although the current exchange rates of the US dollar seem to make this question less ridiculous as time passes...
- Specialist sites
- http://www.civicheraldry.co.uk – An extensive directory of British civic coats of arms, belonging to a great number of local authorities in England and Wales. It is actually used as a source for most such images in Wikipedia, so you might have heard of the name (depending on your editing-work background).
- http://www.nyc-architecture.com – Fascinating information about the Big Apple's four-century architectural history through its buildings. New York shares with Chicago the unique characteristic of a city where century-old skyscrapers blend tastefully with their modern counterparts and are still used in exactly the same way.
- http://www.mugglenet.com – The number-one site for Harry Potter fans everywhere—and don't listen to those claiming that the "Leaky Cauldron" is better. Does the Leaky Cauldron have a Caption Contest, eh? Does it?
- http://www.redhen-publications.com – A site full of wonderfully insightful essays about Harry Potter and the Potterverse. Even though many of the previous essays have lost some of their value now that the heptalogy has been completed and many hypotheses have been debunked, one can find in there interesting descriptions of things Rowling has decided not to elaborate on, as well as shrewd observations concerning the various mistakes and inaccuracies which often pass unnoticed.
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