It’s Here! Well, Almost!

So it’s almost time. The moment I’ve been waiting for so long. Yep, of course I’m talking about getting my Severus Snape fix, erm I mean Harry Potter fix, with the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at midnight tonight. Sadly, it appears that nowhere in the UK, or at least nowhere within travelling distance for me, is doing a midnight showing, unlike the US where there are all sorts of things going on. So I’m relegated to having to wait until the morning to see it. But I suppose, after the wait I’ve already had, another thirteen hours is nothing.

I’ve spent the last three weeks desperately trying to ignore the wealth of clips etc. that have been released in the run-up, but gave up after the London premiere last week, and have since immersed myself in all the hype and am as excited as a six year old waiting for Santa. All my geeky HP friends (and believe me, I count myself as a geek too) are as excited as me and all day the tweets have been flying on the subject of the film and the Harry Potter Alliance drive to get #Dumbledore as a trending topic on Twitter. Facebook too has been flooded with HP surveys and quizzes and statuses that hint towards something momentous occurring shortly.

I’ve just noticed that the countdown ticker on my blog is wrong, as it still shows Friday as the release date. I guess they never got round to changing it; still I won’t hold it against the Leaky Cauldron as they have been somewhat busy recently.

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Okay, so last time I posted I was heading for the London Ukulele Festival, where I and a number of other uke players were going to try and break the world record. I am happy to say that we did it, with 851 players completely routing the previous 401 player record. Mrs H3 and her parents came with me for support, and I can honestly say that it was a really good day out. I also managed to raise £85 for Cancer Research, not a fortune, but not bad with only one day to collect sponsorship. The photos from the day are below and you can see, amongst other videos, the report that appeared on the ITN news. A picture of my official certificate, when it arrives will follow.

Tomorrow also sees the re-emergence of Mrs H3 out of quarantine, as she’s been suffering with the dreaded swine flu. Fortunately, not serious enough to end up in hospital or dead, although she did pass it to her mum (get well soon Zena), so things have been a bit quiet on the going out front over the last couple of weeks.

However, it gets going again on Saturday with our trip to the Lovebox Festival at Hackney (which I’m now regretting only going for one day, as Gary Numan and The Doves are playing on Sunday), although we are seeing Gary next Saturday at Shepherds Bush, so all’s not lost. I just hope the weather is nice, not sure I can face spending the day waiting for Duran Duran in the rain.

Hurrah another post!

Okay so I’m trying to be good and blog a little more regularly. Obviously good for me as I don’t have to write ‘War and Peace’ whilst trying to kick start my somewhat bad memory into gear back over a month and good for you not to have such huge posts to plough through.

As usual most of the post will be about music, but first some Harry Potter news. Last week Warner Brothers announced the release date for the film had changed again ... although fortunately by only two days. Anyway, the film will now be released on Wednesday 15th July, which as the ticker shows is in 87 days and I am getting very excited about it. The main reason for this of course was the release of a new trailer last Thursday, which is below. Also you should check out the much better quality HD version here as it’s amazing.



Obviously for me the high point was Severus Snape and the whole “fight back you coward” bit (although I thought the Katy Bell section amongst others was also excellently done) and thanks to the Leaky Cauldron my desktop is now sporting the screen cap of Severus blasting Harry off his feet.

So back to the music. Mrs H3 and I went to the Half Moon in Putney for the latest Johnny Bramwell gig and it was an absolute cracker. Recently released from recording the new album, having announced that Pete and Andy had chucked him out of the recording studio, Johnny was more talkative than at some of the previous gigs we’ve seen, although he was a touch dark and brooding (not that that’s a bad thing in my book). He did an excellent live set including songs from the new album including a fabulous new track called The Moon is a Blind Eye although unfortunately had to stop singing on a few occasions due to interruptions from a rather loud crowd, including a very drunk girl and her friends, who instead of being responsible enough to remove her from the room instead spent the last half hour of the concert loudly shushing her – which was almost as annoying as the girl herself. I have to admit that several times I was debating whether I could give her a quick punch to the side of the head to knock her out without being ejected from the gig – but of course I and none of the others around her, who I am sure were thinking similar things did that.

As I’ve mentioned before talking during concerts is a pet peeve of mine. I can understand friend’s saying a few words to each other occasionally; obviously even Mrs H3 and I aren’t immune to that. But when your conversation is continuous and drowns out the music of the performer then it is most definitely NOT acceptable. What I don’t understand is why people pay to go and see an artist and then ignore the concert to have a chat. If you want to talk, piss off back to the bar and talk there. Don’t ruin my and everyone else who is seriously trying to listen to the artist’s set’s evening. If nothing else it’s incredibly rude!

Sorry rant over.

Anyway, there were two support acts and I have to admit that we missed the first completely. However, the second Jonny Taylor, I thought was rather entertaining (not quite so much to Mrs H3’s taste), although he did sound a touch too much like James Blunt (which is never a good thing). I particularly liked one called London Town which you can hear on the link at his Myspace page.

Before the concert we went to the Lebanese restaurant called Mezza which is across the road from the pub. The last time we were at the Half Moon they were serving food which they brought in from the restaurant and so we decided to cut the middle man and head straight there. The food was lovely. The starter was spiced meat or feta cheese wrapped in filo pastry which was followed by lamb and vegetable kebabs with rice. The service was friendly but not over-attentive and it seemed a popular place. Definitely one I’d recommend.



On Wednesday we’re off to see Peter Doherty (yep him again) at Proud in Camden and then, in a bit of a departure from the normal stuff for us, we’re going to Headphone Disco on Friday in Islington. I’d never heard of this concept of a silent disco until Mrs H3 introduced me to it. Basically you are given a pair of headphones upon entering and you wear them to listen to the music which is provided by two DJs. You can toggle between sounds as you wish and dance away to your heart’s content (yep you know that’s not going to happen!) or you can take off the headphones and watch everyone else dancing to the music that you can no longer hear. It should be interesting if nothing else and we’re on the guest list so it costs nothing except for travel and drinks.

Oh and I finally started uploading stuff to my YouTube channel which you can find here. So far I’ve only uploaded the three videos that I took at the Johnny Bramwell concert (alas not the new track, hopefully I’ll get that at Guildford in a few weeks time) but hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll find the time to upload our videos from the Peter Doherty and Elbow concerts, plus of course any new concerts we go to (and maybe some old ones too ... perhaps the time has come for the guess the song game!). There is also an old and very bad quality video from my old phone which was taken one night in the Sherwood Oak. Feel free to watch it if you wish.

Hello Everyone – Remember Me?

Okay so I was out of action for the whole of November, although I have to admit I didn’t do much novel writing, even with my hero Philip Pullman and the wonderful Piers Anthony (among others) giving me encouragement along the way. To be honest with only a couple of days to cobble together a plot I was never going to be onto a winner. Time now to get ready for next year’s event and then it’ll be a cinch!

So if you haven’t been busy writing, what the hell have you been up to? I can hear you asking. And it’s a good question. To be honest the answer is a bit of this and a bit of that. I think I’m going to split my news into several posts as I have loads to write about and loads of fantastic pictures to upload, otherwise this will be the longest blog post in the history of the world.

Firstly, and most importantly for my current mood there’s been a huge change around at work, with our Department being revised and renamed (farewell to Claims - but not to the work!), the section I work in being disbanded (hello to Peter and the Safety section) and my lovely boss Nick leaving on early retirement *sob* which has left me working for someone with whom I have somewhat of a problem (a slight understatement), something that has caused me a considerable amount of stress over the last month. I am hoping steps are being taken to sort the situation before I end up having a nervous breakdown – although said lovely boss predicted that it would be about a month before the doctor signed me off and almost everyone I’ve spoken to has told me I’m being harassed and need to go and see Welfare about it. My sleep patterns (never great anyway) are completely shot and I’m dreaming about the boss in question, which definitely isn’t a good sign. With the streamlining I’ve acquired a whole new set of tasks including attending meetings in the middle of nowhere (okay Whale Island, Portsmouth to be precise so far) and so I’ve now got the stress of travelling to add to all the other stresses of my life. Interesting to see how things fare in the next month or so. Looking on the bright side I only actually have another 4 days in the office, what with leaving do’s and Christmas parties and such so I expect I can survive somehow. I’ll also have 8 days of my advent calendar to open tomorrow – 8 pieces of Thornton’s chocolates should go a long way to improving my mood even if I do have another stultifyingly frustrating meeting to attend in the morning.

So onto the exciting stuff – the things I (and Mrs H3 naturally) have been up to in the last month. It’s been fun and almost makes up for the fact that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince wasn’t released on the 21st as it should have been. Hey look at the countdown – only another 220 days before the film’s out (and 12 days till Twilight – although the release date clashes with the Christmas party).

Oh yes and while I remember on what should have been release day (or was it the day before?) just to tease a bit more WB released a new trailer. Lots of new stuff which had me spending the first one and a half minutes screaming where's Snape? and then the last twenty three seconds squeeing excitedly at how they seem to have actually got it right for once.Obviously we won't know for sure until the film is released, and of course there won't be anywhere near enough Snape action (as there never is) but if the "fight back you coward" is in the right place then I'll be a happy girl.

It's Only Me ...

Blimey it’s been ages since I last updated, I hadn't realized it had been so long!

My visit to Spain was exactly what I wanted it to be, relaxing and a good chance to catch up with my parents. I was lucky enough to have lovely weather and even managed to go swimming, although it rained on the last day – but by then the decent weather had transferred to the UK so I got another few nice days when I got back.

Haven’t had a chance to see ‘Mirrors’ yet, although we did see ‘Tropic Thunder’ again as Steve wanted to see it. I’m hoping that maybe this weekend I’ll get to see it (assuming it’s still showing), although Friday night is Halloween Fancy Dress party night at the Sherwood Oak (expect lots of photos as Mrs H3 and I are dressing up) and I’ve been invited to a party on Saturday.

Mrs H3 and I went to see Chas & Dave at Catford Broadway Theatre on 18th October for an enjoyable and entertaining evening and were lucky enough to meet them after the performance as you can see from the photos below. We promised to go and see them again when they play Maidstone next month so we've asked a few other likeminded individuals to come too so hoping to get a bit of a crowd together for the gig at the Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone on 20th November.



We’ve added another couple of panto’s to the schedule – Aladdin at Tunbridge Wells (18th December) starring Christopher Ellison from ‘The Bill’ and Mother Goose at the Oasthouse Theatre, Rainham (23rd January) which my friend Jen is in.

Although ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ is still 260 days away (although that’s much better than the 333 it started at) Warner Brothers seem to have released a new trailer. Completely different from the teaser trailer it shows Ron and Lavender, Romilda Vane and the attack on the Burrow, as well as the cave and what appears to be Dumbledore’s damaged hand and a lovely closing scene featuring Hermione and Harry.

Watch it below:

The Sunday Morning Ramble

I’m writing a little uncomfortably today. My trusty computer chair which my parents bought me as a Christmas present some eight or nine years ago has finally given up the ghost and died. It has survived many years of sitting, wriggling and using as a step ladder. The material was frayed and the padding coming out, but still I sat on that rather than my sofa. It had lost an arm somewhere along the way and the height mechanism no longer worked, but it was a good chair nonetheless. Until Friday night when the metal frame, after years of wear and tear finally sheared dumping me unceremoniously on the floor. RIP to my fabulous chair. I just hope I can find one as good to replace it. If anyone has any recommendations please let me know.

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Although I’m still upset about the Harry Potter film reschedule (did I mention that at all?), some good news may be just around the corner. Summit have announced that they are moving ‘Twighlight’ into the empty spot left by Harry Potter in the US at any rate. Disappointingly, they were originally intending to release the film in the UK a month after the US release (I really hate when they do that … remember “Sweeney Todd”?), but I’m hoping that they’ll realise with the big furore over the Potter film, and the huge launch of ‘Breaking Dawn’ they have the perfect launch date and they’ll make it a worldwide thing. (Excuse the gratuitous poster below. Any excuse to gaze at the gorgeous Robert Pattinson - loving the golden eyes!)

So here’s to hoping that Twilight hits the UK cinemas on 21st November!

And to help with my wait for ‘Half Blood Prince’ I’ve added a ticker to my blog – Only another 333 days to go!

The Angry Ranting Bit

Yep I’m pissed off … extremely pissed off. With Warner Brothers. I’m sure by now that everyone knows that the release of ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ has been put back by eight, count ‘em, EIGHT months due to Warner Brothers money grabbing attitude.

Now I know I’m not alone in being upset. The Leaky Cauldron crashed from the number of people trying to access the site and comment on their disgust of the situation – over 600 comments in 2 hours, and reports in various world newspapers about petitions and boycotts from what are described by the LA Times as "amongst the most intense devotees in contemporary pop culture" show that the fans are very angry indeed.

This isn’t helped when WB executives release statements which give away their true intentions. Blaming the recent writers strike is useful but doesn’t cover up the fact they’re hoping to make more money by waiting till next July, especially when IMAX produce a press release saying exactly that. After the understandable outrage from the HP fandom at the date change WB’s President Alan Horn was quoted as saying that he acknowledged that the studio would have to pacify fans in the months to come: “We would never do anything to hurt one of the movies or the series. We love our fans.” Mr Horn certainly doesn’t use my definition of the word love!

The first pacifiers came quickly. After months of nothing much in the way of promotional material suddenly there were new pictures: including Snape, Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange performing the unbreakable vow; Snape and McGonagall with the golden trio examining the charmed necklace and the Slug Club meeting and Christmas party.

Nice to see especially for a Snape fangirl like me (maybe Snape will get more than ten minutes of playing time in this movie after all – a must surely considering the book (and film) is really called Harry Potter and Severus Snape), but annoying too. Forget the pictures and just give us the film!

I guess that explains why the official trailer wasn’t released with ‘The Mummy’ as had been touted by WB at the end of last month, however the publicity machine has already been gearing up for the November release so it will be interesting to see what happens when they have to promote next July. Entertainment Weekly (a huge magazine in the States) is running their 7 page feature on the film this month (it hits the newsstands today) and I am sure there will be others. Hard to see how this missed publicity will be recaptured when the film finally comes out.

So now I have to wait until 17th July 2009 to see the film. WB have helpfully pointed out that this means less of a wait for film 7 – ‘The Deathly Hallows Part 1’ which is due out on 19 November 2010 (assuming of course they don’t shift that date to a more profitable one too), but that doesn’t help. I expected the wait for the next film. I didn’t expect to have to wait another eight months for this one.

Interestingly, as part of the EW article, Steve Kloves (writer of 5 of the 6 HP scripts so far) says that he has just finished the first draft of HP7 Pt1. He is quoted as saying that they (I assume he means WB) are worried that with the end of the book series that the popularity of the franchise will drop and they won’t have an audience for the last films. Perhaps he and the executives at WB ought to take a look at the HP fandom before making stupid statements like that. Not only does it show no signs of diminishing, the number of people enjoying the books and films increases every year as more young readers (and adults willing to take a chance) pick up the stories. The main reason WB are likely to lose an audience is through stupid moves like the one they pulled yesterday!

The Film Bit

Mrs H3 and I have been to the cinema a bit and seen most of the major the new films (except for the Dark Knight which I’ve gone off more and more as I hear more about it. It’s long (as soon as Mark Kermode said its 2 ½ hours and feels like it I knew I wouldn't be watching it unless I really had to), it’s boring (apart from when Heath Ledger is on screen so I’ve been told by just about everyone who’s seen it) and it’s got Christian Bale who personally I can't stand). So here’s a quick rundown on my thoughts on the films we’ve seen.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
So we went to the premiere and it wasn’t exactly the exciting evening we were hoping for. For starters the red (or rather green) carpet seemed to be a bit thin on the ground with stars. Apparently there were ‘celebrities’ but of course as I steadfastly refuse to watch any reality TV or read any of those crappy ‘real-life’ magazines I didn't recognise any of them. This is the reason I look so bemused in the photos. Being serious the only people I actually recognised were Liam Neeson (who was looking divine, as was his wife Natasha Richardson who wore a lovely blue dress) and the four kids (and that was probably only because I’d seen the video of the four of them getting off the boat while we were waiting).

Unfortunately the place we stood wasn’t the best for meeting celebrities either. What seemed like a good position opposite the podium where the TV woman was interviewing the stars as they came through meant they were whisked across to the podium just before they reached us and then continued signing autographs etc. with the crowd just after us. There were a few exceptions. The guy who played Prince Caspian – Ben Barnes (who is to play Dorian Gray in a new version of the film – one definitely on my list to see), made the effort to come back to see our section and a large screaming group of young girls next to my left ear attracted several children’s TV presenters and reality TV boys. Liam Neeson never came near although we waited for over an hour for him to reach us, although to be fair the four or five of us who wanted to meet him (strangely we were all older women) weren’t able to shout loud enough over the little girls crying for the latest reality TV star.



By the time the ‘stars’ had gone in it was well past time that the film should have started which wasn’t really fair considering it was a school night and there were lots of children there. We had to get to our seats and didn’t even have time to get a drink, let alone anything to eat. So we found our seats. The showing was at the O2 and seated 10,000 people. Imagine a cinema screen in a space that huge. We had and expecting problems seeing from further back had got seats about 3 rows from the front. However, the screen was huge, far bigger than expected and we could have easily seen it from everywhere. So we were further forward than I’d have liked, although it was good for seeing the film’s stars when they appeared on stage just before the showing. It was also a bit freaky when you turned round to realise there were almost 10,000 people behind you and very strange when sections of the audience suddenly burst out in sporadic applause and the like.

The film itself was good enough: certainly on a par with the previous title in the series with excellent cinematography and CGI. However, it was shot in New Zealand and there were several scenes where it was too similar to the Lord of the Rings, both in content and the use of the same spot for filming (an example of this is when the Telmarine’s chase Caspian from the castle they are washed away while trying to cross the river, the same stretch of water that washed away the Nazgul in Fellowship of the Ring when they were chasing Arwen and Frodo). Similarly when the Narnian’s attacked the Telmarine castle there was a definite feel of Harry Potter to it, from the aerial views of the castle to the flying griffin.

One major redeeming feature for me was the brilliant casting of King Miraz by Sergio Castellitto who I had never heard of before. He was very much the perfect baddie and I spent the whole film alternately thinking that I was in love and thinking how perfect he would be as Severus Snape. Not replacing my beloved Alan obviously, but for his vital younger years scenes in the Deathly Hallows (surely they must do the Prince’s Tale justice if they’re splitting the film into two parts mustn't they? By rights it should be a huge part of the films and I live in hope that eventually they’ll give him the prominence that he deserves). Sergio has the dark glittering eyes, the sallow skin and the prominent nose and just the right amount of snark to carry it off successfully.

So here’s a picture of him … tell me he isn’t perfect as a younger Severus.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Well you know I was looking forward to seeing this, after all I LOVE the first three films (yep even the dodgy second one) and although the reviews were dire I was still expecting great things. WRONG! The film was every bit as bad as the reviews said, in fact, if anything I’d have said it was worse. Overlong, boring and completely out to lunch (there was NO need for aliens in this film – Indy is a treasure hunter and we want to see that). It didn't help that Harrison’s performance reminded me heavily of the ‘Headcases’ TV show’s version of Indiana Jones. So much so that it really put me off. I came out of the film convinced that I would never watch it again, not even when it’s on the telly and I think Mrs H3 was pretty much in agreement with me on this. Certainly we were both hugely disappointed and felt that the series had been badly let down by this pile of crap.

Mamma Mia
I saw the stage show of this last year with the girls and absolutely loved it and when I saw the first teaser trailer towards the end of last year I was excited about the film version. An interesting choice of cast and the chance for an expansion on the magical stage show made this a must-see film for me.

Unfortunately I would have to confess to being a little disappointed. Although Meryl Streep and Julie Walters put in excellent performances and Colin Firth was lovely enough to look at as always, it seemed to me that putting the real scenery behind the set pieces somehow dampened the effect. The minimal staging in the show is just that for a reason. Imagining the scenery allows the performance to shine through, with all the scenery around to take your mind off the performance it comes across as lacklustre. It did have me pining for my Crete holiday but apart from that I wasn’t impressed although Pierce Brosnan’s singing performance was terrible enough to almost make it compulsive viewing.

I know that most of the people I went with enjoyed it thoroughly, although Mrs H3 did tell me just as the film was starting that she wasn’t an Abba fan, something that I think you really need to be. I couldn't imagine even seeing the film if I didn't like the music. Steve and the barmaids went to see it the following week and they loved it, even getting up and singing and dancing (we were far more restrained and stayed seated through the whole thing which might have been where we went wrong), except for Tammie – she fell asleep, citing the film as boring when asked. Personally I’d agree with Tammie.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Now I was looking forward to this almost as much as Indiana Jones. Yet again I have a deep love of the first two Mummy films (although my sister hates them and can't understand my interest at all) and was looking forward to the latest in the series even if it was no longer set in Egypt.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. Disappointment doesn’t cover how grieviously this franchise has been damaged by this terrible film. For me the first major and completely unforgivable problem was the casting of someone else as Evie and someone who was nowhere near up to the role. Okay so Rachel Weisz didn’t want to be in it (and I’m not surprised considering how crap it was) but instead of getting someone completely different with a totally different acting style and personality to play the character they should have killed her off. Brendan Fraser is of course always pretty wooden but you expect that and so he doesn't disappoint, but the actor who played the son seemed too old to be such; he was more like a younger brother. Even John Hannah’s performance (always usually a highlight in these films) was marred by rubbish jokes and the dialogue all the way through completely stank.

There were some good set pieces, clever special effects and of course martial arts, after all Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh were in there too, but it wasn’t enough to redeem what was an absolute stinker of a film. When the thing you worry about most is whether the yak was okay it tells you something is seriously wrong. As it finished Mrs H3 and I agreed that we would never go to see another Mummy film again and also decided that ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ was actually a better film! I think that says it all really.

The X Files – I Want to Believe
Well I didn't have the highest hopes for this as I’d heard reviews saying it was basically an extra long episode of the TV series. This was absolutely correct it really was, and not one of their more interesting episodes either. Having said that it meant I got to spend the best part of 2 hours in the company of David Duchovny so it wasn’t all bad (although I was pleased when he shaved off his beard). And I do have to give 10 out of 10 to Mrs H3 for coming up with a much better plot ending for the film than was actually the case! This is definitely the best of the films we’ve seen recently. although I’m hoping Hellboy 2 is going to be a step up, so far all the films I’ve been looking forward to for the Summer season have been disappointing (to say the least).

Of course there are films I am looking forward to, although not a huge amount it has to be said. Having said that the end part of the year has the films I’m REALLY excited about. Coming next is ‘Hellboy 2: The Golden Army’ as I mentioned above. I will admit that I wasn’t that keen on the original Hellboy film for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. For me it just wasn’t quite enough. However, it looks like Guillermo del Toro has gone to town with the monsters in this one, very much more ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (which I absolutely adored) so I’m looking forward to it. The trailer looks awesome and of course it’s got Luke Goss in it, looking like an ill Lucius Malfoy so it’s almost worth watching for that alone.

I’m also now champing at the bit about ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ since Warner Brothers have FINALLY released the teaser trailer for it (all 1 minute and 31 seconds of it – see below). Of course the theatrical trailer would be better and is desperately awaited (and not just by me either – I think the whole HP fandom is going mad with the lack of promotion), but it hasn't been released with The Mummy as was reported all over the internet (shame because it would have almost made The Mummy worth going to see). Other rumours suggest it will be shown with the new Star Wars film, but I have no intention of seeing that even for the HP trailer.



The HBP premiere has been chosen as this years Royal Film Performance. Amazingly the tickets are on sale to the public, although at £4,800 for 2 tickets (only a mere £7,000 for 4) for entrance to the main film theatre with the chosen royals plus other assorted famous people (Alan Rickman and Jason Isaacs? *sigh*) I don't think we’ll be attending unless Mrs H3 or I win the lottery in the near future. There are other tickets on sale at varying prices, a red carpet event with screening at an ‘adjoining cinema’ for £200 per person, or a smaller screen ‘adjoining cinema’ for £175. There is also a ‘Near Simultaneous Screening’ which takes place an hour later for £60 and a ‘Late Night Screening’ at £25.

Now I’m seriously considering the last option as it’s 1) the cheapest and 2) directly after the Royal premiere. I REALLY (and I do mean really) want to be among the thousands watching the stars of the film turn up on the red carpet just so I can be in close proximity to the lovely Mr Rickman. However, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from the Prince Caspian premiere, there is nothing worse than watching the red carpet and then not having time to eat or even get a drink. So the late night showing makes a great deal of sense. I get to squee in a fangirly way at Alan (and Jason if he’s there) and then get to chow down before heading off to see the film. Worth £25 of anyone’s money to do that I’m thinking.

Finally the last film I am waiting for, almost as much as HBP is the teen vampire romance flick ‘Twilight’. I am avidly watching the two teaser trailers that have been released, plus any extra scenes that come along and can’t wait for more footage. It stars the gorgeous looking Robert Pattinson (who played Cedric Diggory in ‘Goblet of Fire’ and ‘Order of the Phoenix’) as Edward Cullen and there has been considerable discussion in the Twilight fandom about his suitability for the role. Well he looks pretty damn good to me (and no Mrs H3 I don't care at all that he’s too young for me I still think he’s completely gorgeous).



I have to admit to only having found the books since hearing about the film, but I love a good vampire story (oh okay I just love any vampire stories; good, bad and indifferent) and the ‘Twilight’ series are very good vampire stories and I would definitely recommend reading them. Surely it is impossible not to fall in love with Edward Cullen in the way that it was impossible not to fall in love with Louis in the Anne Rice books (or maybe I am just a shameless romantic), although it is even easier as he is every teenage girl’s dream man even if he is undead. And then there’s Jacob!



Once I’d got the books I’d read the first three, ‘Twilight’, ‘New Moon’ and ‘Eclipse’ within two weeks (and these are big 600 page books). ‘Breaking Dawn’ the last book in the series was released last week, apparently causing a huge backlash from the fandom because … well I didn't buy the book because I wanted to wait for the paperback, but I’m not sure I can wait that long – avoiding ‘Breaking Dawn’ spoilers is becoming more and more difficult and I really want to read the story before I hear about the ending and of course to find out what’s got everyone so upset.