Sunday 26 July 2009

Riddle's diary

Harry Potter mania is alive and well here in London - everyone is crazy about Ron's swine flu episode, Hermione's latest dress and the sexual preferences of Professor Dumbledore. The longer I live, the more impressed I am at the commercial machine that is JK Rowling. Not only are the Potter chronicles an amazing work of fantasy fiction but she really knows how to keep the media interested. Those tales from Beedle the bard (?) which were sold at auction for some crazy price - a stroke of genius. Even more so now that they have been released to the general public (I'd be pretty peeved if I was one of the 6 original owners who thought the tales would not be made available to the general public!). And now, JK is telling everyone that Dumbledore is gay which of course is like a magic word to generate publicity (yes I know, amazing that it still has that effect..). Anyway, to quote from the original JK "if there must be madness, something may be said for having it on a heroic scale". Amen to that.

There's a Potter story which is based around an enchanted diary that belonged to a boy called Tom Riddle. This diary gets into the hand of an innocent child who finds solace in the responses that appear to her diary entries. As it turns out, Riddle is on the 'evil' side of the war and uses the diary to influence lonely teenagers. As I was reading it, I thought thank goodness for internet blogs! Don't think Riddle's diary would have gotten far if left unattended in a school today as everyone can blog, tweet, facebook (is this a verb now?) etc. Having said that, I honestly think I haven't heard of a chatroom grooming case for a while - not sure if this is so common now that it is no longer news-worthy or if children are becoming more savvy about information on the internet. I like to think it's the latter - knowledge is a great argument to fight the 'nanny state'.

5 comments:

  1. I don't know why I like you so much because I never know what the hell you are talking about!!! LMGDMFELO!!!!!!!(Use your imagination!)
    I know absolutely nothing about Harry Potter, but do agree that it only takes minutes for stuff to spread any more! Did you get my F1 Email?

    ReplyDelete
  2. F1 email?? Is he trying to type fucking email???

    Grooming case? I would guess this is a site where lurkers are trying to get kids for sex?

    You should have heard the teenage girls squeal during the Potter movie And this was not opening day. They loudly screamed every time harry got hurt. Just crazy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. F1 is formula 1 racing and a driver named Massa was almost killed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Haven't heard of the evil internet demons?

    read this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot..._You,_Jane

    Where exactly is the Millenium Bridge? 'Cause if it's up past Waterloo bridge then maybe I did see you running around there Saturday night! I've spent pretty much most of Saturday afternoon/evening and this morning/afternoon around Westminster and the Eye... and I did see quite a few people jogging!

    ReplyDelete
  5. i only read the first book...my friend is going to lend them all to me. I'm a little behind...

    ReplyDelete