Talking Potter my generation

“I belong to the Harry Potter generation. Before the movies, the fame and the merchandise, came us, reading the books before bedtime.”- Vhari Leishman

(There are no spoilers in this post).

There were a lot of people, and when I say a lot, that may be an understatement, waiting for the Harry Potter book on Friday. Yes, I know everyone is talking about it. I also know that it is massively hyped in the media and some people may be sick of hearing about it.

I am not in this post going to talk about the book, but instead the reaction to the book. As I was saying, there has been a lot of waiting going on. I have been reading these books since I was 13 years old and I really have grown up with them. In those years, Harry Potter became more of a media storm, as we all know, when the movies started coming out. Of course the whole thing is going to get back lash, you can’t have good press without the bad press. There are people that argue that Rowling cannot write that the whole thing is a scam and a complete waste of time. In other words, of course there is negativity about the books. I wouldn’t think it would natural if there wasn’t.

On Friday 20^th of July I was standing outside of Waterstones on Oxford Street along with thousands of other fans. I was not waiting for the book, because I hadn’t bought a tent. I wanted to see instead the reaction of these people who to love the books as much as I did. Some people had made a real effort; spend literally hours on their costumes. I think the creativity that went into some of was genius. These people were really loving coming together and celebrating a mutual love of something that is a solitary activity; reading.

So I get highly annoyed when people are posting videos of themselves running around shouting spoilers that were leaked onto the web, just before the book was released

Why on earth do people think it is funny to go out and ruin something that people have waited for, for as long as ten years? Those few seconds they shouted spoilers in the book store, ruined all those years of waiting to see what had happened. It’s simple, if you don’t like HP, then don’t read it.

I am not arguing for the books, but I am arguing for people’s rights to not want to know what is going to happen, until they have read it. Of course people also have the right to go out and ruin something if they choose, that’s not what I am debating. But they should not be ALLOWED to do it. You can argue that the Harry Potter media frenzy, all of it, wizards, magic and all is immature and pointless. Well so then, is what these people had done to ruin the collective enjoyment that thousands of people were getting out of this. Perhaps when they had finished, they went home to their one bedroomed sad and pathetic lives, where they could think of other ways to ruin people’s enjoyment in a sad attempt to try and make up for the fact that don’t get any other form of communication from people. I am very glad I didn’t run into them personally, to those that did, I am sure that like me they still enjoyed reading the book in bed. Here’s to the Harry Potter generation.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Ah Boris, so lovable, how could it not be possible for him to create a smile when he announces his candidacy to run for London mayor?

The thing is, it’s not just smiles you want coming from a mayor. Everybody knows that Ken Livingstone is a strong candidate for the title of mayor if he were to run again, so does Boris has a chance against him? That remains to be seen obviously, but from a shallow perspective, Boris looks like a much more enjoyable mayor.

I know a lot of people who have reacted positively to his announcement, but I think this is mainly because of his persona. He is en entertainer essentially, after being on programmes such as Have I got News for You, but that maybe that’s all there is to deal old Boris unfortunately.

I don’t think so though, I think he has a steely intellect behind that bumbling exterior and that he calculates all this chaos that surrounds him in the form of a disorganised personality. Perhaps he will surprise everyone by his abilities that he keeps hidden. Yes he may have a reputation for not voting on anything important. I believe this is a choice, not because he is lazy. I do believe that he seems passionate about becoming mayor, and so I think perhaps when he is driven by something he will work for it.

Amusingly, he is highly popular with young people after he became the Shadow for the universities; several large Facebook groups are dedicated to him.

These include:

Boris for King

Boris for Mayor

Boris for Pope (this may be in fact taking it too far)

And the Boris Johnson Appreciation Society.

He has fans in his droves, you see?

Potter magic takes a tragic turn

If you have not seen the fifth film of Harry Potter yet, then do not further than this. This post contains spoilers.

There is obviously a lot of hype about the new fifth instalment of the Harry Potter films, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I like many other people awaited the films with much excitement (though of course not as much excitement as I have for the books). I have been let down by the previous four films, I just could never separate the book from the film. I used to take them way too seriously, and get annoyed when they messed bits of the plot line up.

The first time I got angry about this is when Harry’s eyes were not green in the film AND YES IT DOES MATTER. There is a huge emphasis on this in the books, quite important to the main character’s appearance. But whatever, with therapy, I got over it.

The 5th film was a huge surprise to me, when finally I could just enjoy the film for being what it was a film. I couldn’t even criticise much of it. Oh come-on, this post wouldn’t be any fun if I couldn’t criticise anything!

The first thing that annoyed me or two things were Emma Watson’s eyebrows. They look like they are having a seizure every time she speaks. My God girl, can you not control the furry little beasts? I don’t think Emma is a very good actress in the first place, she showed more promise in the 4th instalment, but went down hill from there. It’s like she puts all her efforts into the wiggling of those eyebrows to compensate for the fact she has no other expression at all. That said, she is still very pretty and that was almost enough to keep me pacified.

Rupert Grint was not given nearly enough lines; instead he seemed to look fundamentally depressed for most of it. When he did smile though, so did I. I think if he were given more to do, it would have been better for all of us.

I thought Voldemort was quite amazing, and as Kelly pointed out in a conversation, he was quite hot in the suit. This is wrong of me to think, as he resembles a cross between a snake and piece of white marble with eyes. He was quite menacing in the way he talked so softly, and was easily one of my favourite characters.

New faces emerged in this film such as Helena Bonham Carter as an immense Bellatrix and did the part justice. You gather from the books that this character is slightly unhinged and she really portrays just how crazy the woman really is. Evanna Lynch was a very amusing person to watch, because she was just so good as Luna Lovegood. It was obvious that she was a fan of the books, as the way she came across as Luna really allowed you to feel there was much more to this character, which Evanna knew too. Old faces such as Gary Oldman as Sirius Black and Alan Rickman as Severus Snape are as always fantastic to watch in their subtlety of acting.

The scene between Dumbledore and him fighting was incredible and was my favourite scene of the whole film. It’s easy to see why Dumbledore was the only wizard that Voldermort ever feared; they are very equal in their power. I think the reason that Harry can destroy him and Dumbledore can’t, is because as the film reveals, Voldermort chose Harry as his enemy. When he tried to kill him, he created his equal.

I am glad that they showed Ginny being sad when she saw that Harry was waiting behind with Cho, this is giving subtle clues to the audience, which is clever. Though the actual romance between Harry and Cho seems to distinguish almost immediately and the film does not pay it the attention that it should.

There were many things I loved about the film, and I am not going to make a huge list of them here. You will have to go and see it for yourself. I did and what’s more, I am going to see it again tonight.