Harry Potter and the Midnight Launch

Despite not being particularly enamoured with the books, I stopped reading them with Goblet of Fire a good 4-5 years ago, and not actually having seen any of the movies. I still counted down the hours until the books global launch at 12:01 BST. I’ve always been a sucker for good hype, even for products that I didn’t previously want and definitely didn’t need, the hype always sucked me in.

The hype from my other great love, games, also achieves the same effect. There is rarely a console launch that goes by that doesn’t draw the same feelings of jealously and greed from me. I didn’t want the PS3, it was overpriced and had virtually no titles that interested me and it still doesn’t months after its release, however I still watched the queues on the news and I mentally counted down to midnight and visualised those shiny, happy people holding the console in their arms and then begun speculating a few hours later what fun people were having with it, without me.

Even more ridiculously I felt the same feelings with the launch of the PSP, despite giving up on handheld gaming with the Nintendo SP after Pokemon released me from its addictive grip making the idea of handheld gaming more pointless than ever. But still, those lucky people playing Spiderman 2 well into the night taunted me relentlessly.

I wasn’t even just indifferent to Harry Potter. I was against it, it annoyed me. It was over hyped for as far as I could see no good reason. Even a few Potter fanatics would agree the writing is pretty average. So the success of the book and the subsequent movies made me even more certain that I would never read a Harry Potter book again.

So why at 11.57pm British Summer Time did I go out of my way to watch the release of book and observe the first lucky few in queue outside Waterstones receive their copies of JK Rowlings long anticipated book with a ridiculous smile on my face (And awoke this morning to find the 7th book staring me in the face on my bedside cabinet)? Partly the unrelentless hype all over the internet, Partly a simple piece of journalism from BBC arts correspondent David Sillito reminded be that maybe Harry Potter wasn’t all that bad.

There's between 1,000 and 1,500 people here. The queue stretches all the way around Waterstone's, which is Europe's largest bookshop, then spills out onto the street and continues as far as the eye can see.

And I think I've worked out why...

JK Rowling published the first Harry Potter book 10 years ago, when the core audience was about eight or nine years old.

Half of these kids are now 18, and they've just finished their A-level exams.
It's like the ultimate rite of passage. This is the end of childhood for thousands of people.

They're graduating with Harry.


“I’m not graduating with Harry!” I exclaimed disappointed, feeling more left out of a launch than ever.

My resistance to the craze softened and my traditional pessimism faded. I had enjoyed the first four books, I had finished them, that’s an achievement In itself as I traditionally leave most books I purchase half read.

Whether you like them or not its hard to deny the series is a brilliant page turner, crafted inside a rich fascinating world populated with similarly rich characters. Yea her writing may not be up to much at times and the attention the series has received may not be entirely deserved but then it rarely is.

So the hype has gotten me again, well the hype and a bit of good journalism. I shall be rereading the series over this summer, having spoilt the ending of the 7th book myself before the release It may seem a little pointless, but I deserve giving the series a second chance, enjoying the journey along the way.

And of course. I don’t want to feel left out.

I just need the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth books to make a go of it now.

The N word

Bit late to the party, but I’ve been busy with other things mainly revision and AS exams. You've probably heard something about the whole 'race row' in the Big Brother house over the past few week, unless of course you've been living as a hermit.

So I just feel like getting a few things off my chest.

As ever the majority of the press has made it a clear black and white issue (no pun intended). When of course as with most things in life it should be taken on a case by case basis. When someone uses the word or indeed any offensive language you can usually immediately gauge if they are being serious and intend harm or not. I wouldn’t have a problem with any of my friends calling me the 'n' word as we are friends and it is used tongue firmly in cheek, usually to ridicule its serious use by others. Emily whilst not friendly with Charley meant no malice when she used it, stupid yes, racist? Of course not.

There's no point getting so uptight over the word itself, but obviously its detestable to use it as a racial slur/insult. We can tell our friends to 'fuck off' etc etc in a joking manner I don’t see why this can't be the same, obviously its a far more explosive word so greater care should be taken in the company you use it in but if you make rules like 'oh only black people can use it to other black people' it just becomes a minefield of double standards where no one feels comfortable on how it should be used/

In Emily’s case she appeared as she has done many times before(skinny jeans) trying really hard to appear cool and with it. It was ill judged especially when you consider that the two are not particularly close to one another. But definitely not racist, offensive in its shock factor perhaps, but more akin to an elderly persons outdated views on 'coloured' people rather than a genuinely offensive assault by a BNP party member.

Like all naughty words people are going to have completely different sensibilities and standards over its use. I wouldn't swear as much as I do around my mates sometimes in front of new company until I get to know them better and can map out how comfortable they are with bad language, the 'n' word should be no different.

Did Big Brother overreact? Yes, but it had little choice after the Shilpagate episode. Emily really should of had that in mind before she opened her stupid mo

The Advancing Guitarist

After progressing through Justin Sandercoe's excellent beginners guitar course (If you play guitar you owe to it yourself to visit his site) I felt a bit lost their was plenty of stuff left on the site for me to learn and I am currently trying to commit the Pentatonic scale to memory, but I need structure. I need discipline! I bought this book ignoring all the warnings about its lack of 'user friendliness' thinking of myself as an 'intermediate' player now, a Advancing Guitarist if you will. I hoped this book would provide me with a good structure in which to learn advanced techniques from. To pick me up where Justin left me hanging.

I dont think it will.

On a quick skim through it appears to be written in an alien language, proper musical notation! Because I live in the ghettos of London my secondary education of Music was poor to say the least, despite Mrs Ross's best intentions to tame our class and teach us some music theory she cracked and had a mental breakdown.

So I'd have to stretch back all the way to Ms Crombie in primary school and my brief venture into playing the Cello before I could possibly remember anything to do with notation. Yeah Im learning an instrument now, but tabs are so easy and tell me everything I need to know why should I have to learn notes and thingy’s because of this book. Very disappointing, I should have seen it coming, im not sure what I was thinking at the time, but you know Justin said it was "the best guitar book ever written" and I've grown to trust Justin over the past few months, ah well im sure it'll be a good future investment for whenever I am a 'Advancing Guitarist' I blame the government for my lacklustre music education.


At least I have some bedtime reading now though...



EDIT: Oh yeah Bjork's albums starting to grow on me, Wanderlust is actually quite funky its sort of a ballad but its beat is too quick for a ballad it works well, you might say its a Hyper-Ballad.

Ill get my coat.