Zorac's LiveJournal

Well, it seems that somebody has declared today to be WiP amnesty day, so I though it might be fun to join in, so here's my initial complete draft of my epic unlikely-to-ever-be-finished fic. This was done pre-OotP, so there are certainly some things that need to change.

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Phew! That's almost the first time I've shown this material to anyone (jiggery_pokery saw a few scenes a couple of years back). I have another 5 episodes or so's worth of material written, albeit spread over the entire rest of the timeline (yes, I've written the final scene). Whether it will progress any further - who knows?

Gakked from a mailing list by alnitak. The typos are almost as amusing as the story itself.

Made me chuckle at the dumbness of our trans atlantic fiends

So someone I know works for a company that does property management for train stations. One of the managers has had to go to a meeting concerning Network Rail being sued. Apparently a tourist family from ole US of A went to Kings X to get a photo taken between platforms 9 and 10 where there's a spiffy blue plaque about the Hogwarts Express leaving from platform 9 3/4. So their son grabs a trolley and runs straight at the wall with the predicatble result of going arse over tit and doing himself an injury.

Predictably NW are being sued for not having a sign up saying that it's a brick wall not the entrance to a fictional land.

When Bubba grows up and can do something even dumber, who reckons he's a future winner of the Darwin Awards?

Further discussion on the list considered possible responses. The first was to counter-sue for damage to the wall and trolley. Much better was the suggestion that the injured party prove his magical abilities and show his ticket for the Hogwarts Express - and even that's not necessarily sufficient for the barrier to open - c.f. Chamber of Secrets.

Every year, Sir Richard Branson (he of Virgin fame) has an open garden in aid of charity. Every year, I mean to go along as his house is about fifteen minutes walk from my flat and I'm, well, curious. Every year, I forget, so this time I made an extra-special effort.

So, yesterday morning, I caught the bus up the road and paid my four pounds to the British Red Cross to get in and have a look around. Descriptions of the Branson home as a mansion are misnomers - it's a big house, but no more than that. The grounds, however, are extensive - swimming pool, tennis court, cricket pitch, etc - and the gardens feature a large lake and plenty of waterways. Round the back of the lake I came across a bramble patch - and who am I to resist ripe blackberries? I'm sure the multi-billionaire won't miss a couple. Coming back towards the marquee, I noticed a something attached to a tree-stump:

Dear Harry,

We have to figure out how to rescue Hermione, and quick! Meet me at 3 o'clock this afternoon outside Hagrid's House.

Ron

Needless to say, I was somewhat "Huh?", but on browsing the stalls, I soon discovered that this must be part of the Harry Potter-themed treasure hunt. Needless to say, t00b that I am, I promptly paid up the entry fee, slapped on a name badge and set of with pen and paper to beat those darned kids to complete the hunt first. Mostly it was just a case of following the simple clues to find a picture, sometimes with an extra question (e.g. How many brothers and sisters does Ron have?). The weirdest bit was the question about which friend Harry goes skateboarding with. Attached to the half-pipe, I found a picture of a certain house elf. (Challenge: Write a Harry/Dobby Sk8r Boi fic)

But wait! The Potterification of my day was not yet over. Later on in the afternoon, I come out of the Westgate shopping centre in Oxford to be confronted by a bunch of owls! It seems a local owl sanctuary was soliciting for donations. Sadly, there was no Hedwig, but they did have a convincing Pigwidgeon. After that, it was off to Office World to find a replacement for my disintegrating desk chair. This time, they did have the one I wanted in stock, so had a nice heavy box to lug home. Last time, I got an end-of-line one, so it was the display model that I took home, fully assembled - this made it rather easier do wheel down the road, onto the bus and into the wheelchair spot for the ride home.

Update: Read more about the treasure hunt at The Leaky Cauldron.

I happened to spy this newspaper from a distance, and all I could clearly see was the large H/H picture, and the main headline at the bottom of the page. Needless to say, I had to investigate further:

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On Saturday, we didn't get up until quite late, so I only ended up seeing one talk in the morning, although I did do some browsing of Kompulsive Alley. Lunch followed much the same pattern as Friday - low scores for the food (a cottage pie and Bertie Bott's) and high scores for the speaker. Ari Rapkin gave a very interesting multimedia talk about how ILM work some of their magic - the cloth simulation being her particular area of expertise. Plenty of nifty clips, including Dobby out-takes and naked!Yoda.

In the afternoon I only went to one talk - a very enthusiastic Steve Vander Ark and angiej on the Past, Present and Future of the Wizarding World - see The Harry Potter Lexicon. I also actually did some shopping - picking up a copy of the Gnome TossFling game for $5, a couple of books (one HP related, one not) and a magic wand - soon to appear in an icon for voldie_zorac. There was also the entertaining Fandom Squares for those of us skipping the Founders' Feast.

In the evening, hermorrine and I took advantage of our money-off coupons for the buffet at Gulliver's - which was nice, particularly in getting to have multiple desserts! I got bullied into putting footwear on by the safety-paranoid staff (it's a fair cop) and had my photo taken with Goofy. Later on, we hosted a game of Trivial Pursuits, where I showed off my lack of knowledge of American Sports and History and expetesso showed off her strength at snapping corkscrews (the one we were sent up was obviously a touch flimsy - on the second attempt, the hotel sent up a Cast Member armed with a more heavy duty one).

Friday was the first day of formal programming, so it was up bright and early to grab donuts for breakfast with the first talk. I caught a full morning of talks, all of them interesting, with the highlight being Dr. Roger Highfield's on The Science of Harry Potter (such that I was inspired to pick up a copy of his book). I also enjoyed talks on Fandom History (having missed most of it) and Fanwords (despite t00b only getting one tangential mention).

The lunch was rather disappointing (soup, plain salad and a cookie), but Judith Krug's Keynote was both interesting and informative (as well as being entertaining). I did know that the HP books had been the target of banning campaigns, but I wasn't previously aware that they were so overwhelmingly the most popular choice. I was pleased to hear, however, that most banning attempts ended in failure. It also reminded me of a TV advert/infomercial I saw earlier in the trip in which a guy asks about a book in a library only to find that it has been banned. The librarian demands his name, and when he refuses and tries to leave, he is approached by to serious-looking men. The tagline was along the lines of how it's great that America is Free (and not like that). Oh, the irony.

The afternoon programming was mostly taken up by the Slash Panel and the one on "Can Draco Malfoy Be Redeemed?" These had been moved to the Great Hall on the grounds of expected attendance - which must have numbered several hundred. Both panels were very interesting, with plenty of good points raised. Some of the audience participation was a touch irksome with people just spouting a long speech on Their Opinion - I kept wanting to say "And your question was..?", but all-in-all it was good.

Next up was the Quidditch. I was playing for the San Juan Seagulls (a.k.a. John's All Stars), along with Captain queerasjohn, aegeus, sternel, thethrillisgone, ursamajr and vlamidala. The game was fast and frantic, but great fun. We eventually lost 60-160, owing to the entire randomness of catching the Snitch (and I've heard rumours that the other team's Seeker had inside information), but claimed a moral victory ;-)

In the evening, it was the FictionAlley birthday bash over at the Copa Banana in the not-a-Dolphin, so for variety's sake, we decided to have dinner at when of the restaurants over there. Big mistake. To start with, no one came to seat us so eventually we picked our own table - the only one that had actually been cleared. No menus were forthcoming so eventually I got up and snagged some from behind the cash register. After we'd been sitting there for the best part of a quarter hour, one of the waitresses deigned to come and take our order - but it was a good ten minutes before even our drinks came, and considerably longer before we got food.

To add to the evening's entertainment, the not-a-Dolphin Fountain decided to live up to its name - without warning, a waterspout appeared out of the floor (we heard someone at a nearby table suggest that the basilisk was attacking). Thankfully, it wasn't close to where we were seated, but other diners were less fortunate - water continued to bubble up for some time until maintenance turned up to fix it. There was no great surprise when the check also took a long time to arrive after we requested it.

The party itself was great fun - nmalfoy spinning the disks, queerasjohn single-mindedly trying to glitter the entire fandom and "mischief maker" drinks in FictionAlley cups. I indulged in much t00by dancing (including my popular Mact00bage number, the Time Warp), proving along the way that despite being male and straight (and thus in a tiny minority), I can still sing along to the entirety of It’s Raining Men and will shamelessly request Y.M.C.A. Thankyouverymuch...

Ah yes, another film that is actually more fun than I remember it. Anyway, on with tonight's (sober) ramblings.

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Which brings me to...

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Which neatly segues into...

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And that brings me to...

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And finally...

Doow bom bom ... chick ... chick-a-chick-ahhhhhh