The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Wendy Bradley:

On the final chapter, I think there's a category error in a lot of the objections to it. JKR isn't writing a bildungsroman but a boarding school story - not This Side of Paradise but the Malory Towers or Dimsie books, with a side order of magic. In which context, the focus at the end isn't on "Harry has now grown up and moves on into the bright future" but "Hogwarts goes on, and another generation stands on platform 9 3/4..."

In which case, the key moment in the HP7 movie ought not to be Mrs Weasley's bitch-sluggery but Minerva McGonagall leading a charge of animated Hogwarts desks.

There's a reason the climax is the Battle of Hogwarts, after all.

The only time I ever came close to being mugged, I was deeply engrossed in reading one of the Three Musketeers pastiche novels (shamefully I forget which one). But I was too engrossed in it to realise I was being surrounded by the pack of youth who were the only other people on an otherwise deserted commuter train station platform until they were ready to move from grinning and nudging into actual touching. And I looked up and, without any engagement of brain at all, found my mouth saying "Gentlemen, I don't believe we've been introduced.." Weirded them out so far they're still reeling.

Maybe this comment thread needs a checklist: yes, I've had a car accident and walked away because I was wearing a seatbelt. Yes, I'm in a country where wearing a seatbelt is mandatory. Yes, I (nearly always) insist on wearing a seatbelt in the back of a cab, too, and I'm working on the "nearly". My question is about the fit of seatbelts and those of us who are, ahem, large. I know there are ways to adjust the seatbelt for safety/comfort/fit for those who are petite, but what about the obese? I sometimes have problems getting an inertia reel seatbelt to unreel enough for me to fasten it, and then the shoulder strap is usually up under my neck instead of across my chest. Is there anything I can do/should be doing (apart from losing the weight, d'uh)

And in the Department of 'Gah!', received my nominating ballot for the 2007 Hugo Awards... yesterday! Too little postage on the envelope by five pence, cost me a pound and five pence to collapse the wave and find out what someone was trying to send me.

I caught a moment of Tony Blair on Radio 4 last week sounding terribly rational about the actions in the war between democracy and terrorism, and flashed to Eddie Izzard and the choice between death or cake. Put it like that: "Death, or cake?" who wouldn't choose cake? Democracy and terrorism, and it all looks easy. Is there a word for that kind of oversimplistic binary thinking?

Going back to 324, 601 and pooter, I confess at first sight I thought it was a Diary of a Nobody reference.

Patrick, in answer to #25, I shall be spending New Year's day - or at least this evening - at this production of Much Ado by the RSC. It won't have Keanu in leather trousers, like the movie, but still...

Which reminds me it's now twelve years since I went to Winnipeg in the New Year to see Keanu play Hamlet. I stood at the stage door, wrapped in every piece of clothing I'd packed, to get his autograph, and then couldn't manage coherent speech. So instead of giving him my utterly brilliant note on the blocking of the first scene, I managed to reply to his question and spell my own name.

We've been having a "crisis" over illegal immigrants (usually now coded as "asylum seekers") over here in the UK this week because an incautious civil servant revealed that the government has no idea how many of them there are! Er... illegal immigrants standing up to be counted, anyone?

Sorry, it's not really any kind of contribution to the debate, but it just makes me laugh every time I read the story. Here's a link to the Grauniad's take on it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1778723,00.html

Patrick, thank you so much for posting this! I came back home from an exhausting afternoon, logged on and checked out your blog purely for the advertising (!) and then read about the elephant. So I put my shoes back on, jammed a hat on my head (it's pouring in London) and walked down to Trafalgar Square just at six o'clock...
...and was gloriously in time to see the Sultan, his Elephant and the Giant Time Travelling Little Girl parading down the Mall towards Admiralty Arch and follow them into Horseguards.

I think I texted everyone I know with "I'm following the elephant down Horseguards!"

And what did they text back?

"Of course u r."

You know, there's a contrary part of me that now really, really wants a copy of "Make Millions from your Kitchen Table"!

I'm pretty squeamish about most things too (almost passed out the first time I had my blood *pressure* taken ) but I've been thinking it would be a Good Thing to have some first aid training. But doesn't the argument that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" come into play? My colleague bashed her head last week and was bleeding copiously from her scalp, but the first aider was a terrible drama queen who enjoyed every minute of the limelight, hurt her fiddling with the bandages, and then wouldn't let the paramedics into the room! (They thought he was a neurotic husband and treated him with kid gloves, while she was wishing they'd just deck him and come help her)

So I guess I'm saying, is it better to have a bad first aider, or no first aider?

And if I suspect I might be a bad first aider, should I stay well clear of anything except following your excellent triage instructions and praying someone competent comes along before it becomes germane that I have no idea how to do the nail bed thing????

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