The Case for Half Bloods & Book Fair Attendees

First off, a big thank you to the Janetarium for arranging the meeting for the DCM Bookfair this year. As NotKate discovered, the Janetarium runs a spectacularly tight ship, where the non-synchronisation of watches can lead to catastrophe.

While the DCM is renowned for the "man with the mic", it also gave me the opportunity to discover a few more breeds of book fair goer - one which I unwittingly became myself, thanks to the NotKate.

Amateur Attendees

The Trafficker

These are the people who help those with only one or two books evade the queues to depart the venue by smuggling their chosens out amongst their own goodies. "Smuggling" in this sense does not mean not paying for it; perhaps "trafficking" is the better term.

The Ipoded

I was most surprised, bemused and partially frightened by the man who rocked up next to me, and then around me, with his MP3 playing a song I could not hear but which he obviously needed to rehearse for his karaoke try-outs. I think it must have been a hard rock track or something, as he appeared to be practicing his head-banging at the same time, but it could just have been him scanning the books in an "up and down" manner.

The Volunteers

The Unhelpful Helpers

Books get moved. The DCM this year, even after only a few hours of opening, seemed to have been ripped apart and books strewn everywhere. In came the DCM-bib wearing ramoras of the book fair shark, who helpfully rearranged books into a more friendly browsing configuration. The fact this rearranging occurred while people were actually browsing the books and was thus detrimental to the whole browsing experience seemed a bit lost on the kind hearted yet unsympathetic assistants. I think the lovely British term "bless" best sums up their contribution, though when they got in my way, there were a few other choice words that sprung to mind.


All up, the fair seemed a bit less good than last year, though I think I came away with more. The place seemed to have been ripped apart by the time the Janetarium bustled us in, and I am not sure if that is just because the Wellingtonians had pillaged the place already, or because there were fewer novels available this year than the last.

Verdict: Not so good, but still worthwhile. 6 books out of 10.
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An odd weekend movie for me this week - I had delayed watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince long enough, but finally, after a near miss, I got around to it.

HP6 should really have been called "Hogwarts 90210", so much angst and teen love and lust was on display. The Philosophical kids of the first movie have grown up, and there are now love triangles and unrequited love and misdirected love spells and all sorts of things going on with Harry and his peers. But lurking behind the longing looks is the undercurrent of menace as Helena Bonham Carter and some creepy kids make evil look a lot more focussed than good, though none of them can generate the sheer horror in pink that was Delores Umbridge.

It has to be said that the special effects are spectacular and the story is what anyone who read the book would expect. This is the movie where Dumbledore actually does something rather than be all enigmatic in the background, and I have to say (if I have not before) that I really prefer Michael Gambon's interpretation of the character rather than the original, Richard Harris. I am also a fan of the character of Luna, though really most of the back-up cast are really just there to name or face check, as there is a lot to be covered and many memories to be recounted and refreshed.

In the end, this is a bridging film to the grand finale (which will actually be a tale told in two parts, if I understand how the final book is to be represented) and it feels like it. Not that it is a bad film, as I enjoyed it a lot, but the ending leaves you waiting for the next film - which was probably one of its main objectives.

Verdict: Achieving everything it sets out to do, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is another solid entry in the Harry Potter franchise, with all the acting pluses and minuses of previous films, and the J K Rowling's books to propel the story forward (for good or ill will obviously depend on what you think of those novels!). 7 Horcruxes (horcruxi?) out of 10.