Potter Tour

20/01/2024

Can you catch the Harry Potter reference? Disney gave Russell Davies, the writer and show runner a note, that Ruby and the Doctor should meet before they meet. The note was embraced and created the ebullient scene which graced the Christmas trailers.

When Disney sought the rights to Harry Potter, they received a note from JK, "no". The man who never dies got into bed with Disney, the Boy Who Lived, well he was fine in the cupboard under the stairs.

The Goblins are coming for Christmas! 🧌🎄 Listen to THE GOBLIN SONG from 'The Church on Ruby Road' - available to stream now! 🎶 Find out more: http://bbc.i...

01/03/2023

I read today that Oxford's literary hub, the Lamb & Flag, has finally reopened. When I visited for a Philip Pullman 'His Dark Materials Tour' (cancelled on me - Grrr!), I found the Inkling's pub had been spun with Shelob's silk for years 🤯

Now Oxford trounces us, because all our famous Rowling cafes have shut. Edinburgh's fading.

I didn't take an Oxford Alumni tour, but they sent me a celebratory email...

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Lamb and Flag – it is one of the most famous and oldest pubs in Oxford (it's 408 years old!!) and is frequently featured in Inspector Morse episodes!

The pub is located on St. Giles street, just next to St. John’s College,

Streetview
https://goo.gl/maps/23MrhTDqdsSKnSf76

Historically any profits from the pub were used to fund DPhil (PhD) scholarships for students! During the pandemic the pub was forced to close again…. But a few months ago it was re-opened by community group called the Inklings as a tribute to the author’s group that used to meet at the pub in the 1930’s/1940’s which included the likes of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis!

The pub has now undergone a complete renovation and is definitely worth a visit – both for the history and the beer.

24/08/2022

Elrond says "You have fought long enough Galadriel. Put up your sword"

A few beats later Galadrial says "Without it what am I to be?"

I'll answer you there! A Wallflower. I think they're trolling the Tolkien fandom, who kick at Galadriel as a military commander - Amazon... how naughty!

Well they speak nicely archaically. High, as Tolkien aspired to. And the hobbits have charming rhetoric, 'with our hearts, even bigger than our feet'. These are no low self esteem hobbits; makes me tear.

Imagine a series about the founding of Hogwarts, in a wild, Dark Age Britain. Maybe when Rowling resolves the Robin - Strike romance in her detective novels.

Watch the Official Trailer for now. Join us in Middle-earth on September 2.Prime Video's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings to...

27/04/2022

Favourite? All of them. Go see it today! It's the best, probably the last, Rowling won't cry she writes for herself, and this will be going out at peak. Make like Ron approaching Honeydukes, stick your tongue out and Go Go Go!

15/04/2022

The Secrets of Dumbledore
I saw it last night. I have some thoughts...

The movie showcases Rowling's thoughts on love, the Brexit vote & Prime Minister David Cameron; ultimately it's a call to the LGBTQ community. The Secrets of Dumbledore is a heart-swelling climax for Newt's arc, the apex of Tina and Jacob Kowalski's love story. It's a conclusion to many of the key threads that were grown in the first 2 movies. Just as Rowling promised 'answers'.

If it continues from this point on it's Dumbledore's adventure and the resolution of his lost love for Grindelwald; as Dumbledore walks away on his mission, the call to the LGBTQ community is 'Do you want a love story in the wizarding world? Or are you happy with Marvel's hyper Gonadal men?'

I love it, I think it's the best yet, packed with action, and heart, and beasts and kinetic wizarding duelling an absolute 🤯 Rowling tour de force. The audience ratings presently place it above the first episode on Rotten Tomatoes.

Sure the critics say they can't understand it, as they did the last episode, but it's like an IQ test for them: too stupid for complex tormented characters, too boneheaded for complex fantasy elements such as the blood pact pendant, or Credence's Obscurial cloud of hate and bitterness, the abandoned child's baggage.

The critics are simply obsolete Cleansweeps in a world of Firebolts, they get left behind. Their brains have been marvelled to mush.

Its action, its thrills, its turns and arcs deserve a big-screen experience. I can't imagine if we get the final 2 they'll beat this.

I think it's all right 👍

02/03/2022

I've measured the font size of JK Rowling's 3 credits and I'm giving Warner Brothers a pass.

But the crank is still watching 👀

Watch the new trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore only in theaters April 15. -----------------https://www.facebook.co...

13/12/2021

Gave me shivers.

Having watched it a few too many times I love everything, as was planned, except maybe Mads Mickkelson, I hope he's brilliant. I pray.

Giving Muggles wands is a bit like arming house-elves though, things are getting desperate. I've seen how that goes.

Christmas Pig is a whole new world in 1 volume. Fantastic Beasts is the Prime of Dumbledore in 5, well if the world can rouse interest in Othering. Have I said I like the Christmas Pig? A mission of love.

You are invited back to the magic. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore is in theaters April 15, 2022. -----------------https://ww...

27/11/2021

Wonderful and moving, it touched my heart, arguably even better than the Ickabog 🤯 Maybe hate crucibles aren't such a terrible thing always. If only the haters could be this sublime - go to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmenrOOL78

Just ahead of the holiday season, author J.K. Rowling reads an excerpt from the heartwarming new book inspired by her son’s toy pig. It’s her first children’...

22/10/2021

We have all the information you need to get involved in the LEGO® Harry Potter Magical Mystery Hunt right here

25/07/2021

Remus Lupin's keeping busy...

The actor on his new novel about an irascible director, his faux-feud with Christopher Eccleston and his ‘secret’ marriage

21/04/2021

This is the best.

16/04/2021

Ah, this amused me, given the controversy of last year. Merlin bless our time-poor teenagers!

Best get back to work, unicorns need their grub.

Isn't this so cool? Which ones your favorite? My Instagram: itsliza_funVIDEO NOT MINETags: ...

01/04/2021

If you're in Edinburgh Madam Coulter's demon/daemon? has a talk! I suspect Monkeys need pandemics every year, or it's just the zoo for them. Maybe we should make the Forbidden forest's centaurs missionaries, seed them around the world's monkey habitats.

Join Lisa Roet the Australian artist as she discusses her work and how it relates to pressing conservation issues.

30/01/2021

OMG Mrs Coulter's demon is clambering around Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens, watch out children, Gobblers aboot!

Jack Thorne, who co-wrote The Cursed Child with Rowling also adapted the BBC's 'His Dark Materials', in collaboration with Philip Pullman - the first series has more foreshadowing, seeding, of later characters than Pullman's opener 'Northern Lights'.

And I'm just a Potter guide. Ah well.

Pullman / Lyra's Oxford is vastly less visited than Edinburgh, and brimming with its own antique charm, a ripe prize for another trilogy (in fact 5 books now, but who needs math).

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/lyras-oxford-walking-tour-philip-pullman-book-dust-trilogy-la-belle-sauvage-northern-lights-his-dark-materials-a8005131.html

04/08/2020

JK Rowling's brother in laws cafe is part of it. Get Ron-ing.
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/eat-out-to-help-out/find-a-restaurant

So so so many scrumptious restaurants in Edinburgh to gorge in, I feel like H.'s cast a pigtail jinx on moi.

08/04/2020

Oh Jo...

J.K. Rowling has paid a touching tribute to the late Alan Rickman who played Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film adaptations. 

06/04/2020

JK Rowling's recovered. Wonder if chocolate was involved, cures a lot that. .

The Harry Potter author announced that she beat COVID-19 using a technique with "no nasty side effects."

30/03/2020

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/start-writing-fiction

There's a good number of courses on Coursera which you can audit for free
https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=fiction%20writing

but our OU one has interesting collaborators talking about how they started writing: Louis de Bernières, Patricia Duncker, Alex Garland, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Tim Pears, Michèle Roberts and Monique Roffey.

Get started with fiction writing, focusing on the central skill of creating characters. Join this practical online course from The Open University.

04/03/2020

When Rowling first moved to Edina in 1993, she lived almost opposite here, on the other side of the meadows. Her new wizarding school 'like a small town', had a profusion of towers.

The Royal Infirmary had a festival of towers broken by what appear to be pigeon doors, while a big thick central clock tower rose higher than them all, like the Astronomy tower.

Since then developers bought the place, knocked some stuff down and it's now a mish-mash of yuppie towers and the old stone infirmary. The pigeon doors are safely slattered and the Meadows have more cricketers and students than sheep. Both are less smelly. Generally.

Crime writer Ian Rankin moved into a penthouse of one of the glass yuppie towers last year.

https://goo.gl/maps/33e9USz64xfM4W1L7

If things have gone to convention Rowling would have been at the house warming, perhaps knocking back Fire Whiskies.

If you're thinking about booking a HP tour this Easter, please don't hesitate, smaller tours are safer tours, that's me.
x
Sam.

06/12/2019

Sybil Trelawney is prophesising we're going to have to eat our own pets. I love it! This is the best thing in my day.

Imagine her telling that to Lavender Brown, 'there cometh a day when the person you most cherish is dinner'. Poor Blinky.

She also announces the London underground is going to be improved, much more genteel than the sardine crush it is today. Emma's a phenomenon.

The star, 60, spoke outside the BBC Broadcasting House in central London on Thursday evening as part of Extinction Rebellion's latest climate change protest.

04/11/2019

04/11/2019

29/10/2019

Victory to the king's of Huff: Poufsouffle.

Sounds better in French.

If you enjoyed the tour I'd love you too review.
http://bit.ly/review_TripAdvisor
& Google:
www.g.page/PotterTour/review

Steady flights
X
Sam.

17/10/2019

Victory to the lions. Roar. God save us.

If you enjoyed the tour please review.

Google:
www.g.page/PotterTour/review

And ESPEACIALLY TripAdvisor:

http://bit.ly/review_TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor reviews are my lunch, tea and breakfast.

Don't forget your Goggles before setting flight, it's drizzle all the way now. Jingle drizzle, Jingle drizzle, Jingle drizzle all the way.
x
Sam.

13/10/2019

My parents have been cleaning out their wardrobe, they say they don't need these any more, because they're through with giving me advice. God bless them.

"We think our customers will see the value, if not the cloak."

27/09/2019

King Charles the second looks away, can't cope with all the magical wickedness on Edina's fair streets. Total Dursley.

If you enjoyed the tour please review me:
http://bit.ly/review_TripAdvisor

It's stopped raining! Purple clouds at night, Xenophilius's delight.

Thank you so much for choosing me, I'm flattered and pleased.
X
Sam

25/09/2019

Happy Spooning!

Hagrid looks like a lumberjack today! I think Mad Eye's been dying his beard. Dobby's eyes have shrunk a bit, they look like teeny weeny human eyes... funny.

God bless your eyes, all your funny wee humong eyes.

If you enjoyed the tour please review. If you didn't... Don't!
X
Sam

20/09/2019

Victory to the ravens, bravo.

We survived the anti capitalist march without hugging a single tree. This is fortunate you never know where a bow truckle's lurking with their long fingers too gouge your eyes out. Just ask Mad Eye Moody about it, he'll tell you 'Never ever ever trust a tree, unless it's paper or IKEA furniture.'

If you enjoyed the tour please review, here, Google and especially
http://bit.ly/review_TripAdvisor

Merlin bless
X
Sam

16/09/2019

Fabulous day in the Sahara sun darting from shade to shade before we cook.

Thanks for coming on the tour guys, sticking with it, solving our constitutional crisis.

If you enjoyed the tour please review, here Google and especially
http://bit.ly/review_TripAdvisor

Thanks so much, I need all the help in the kingdom
X
Sam.

11/09/2019

Victory to the lions. I reckon they were cheating again, some plant in the crowds muttering hexes to handicap the other players. Or they're downing Felix Felicis, seen that before.

Thanks for coming, dealing with my Percy impression 'keep up, keep up!'.

If you thought the tour was bearable, please review. If you thought it wasn't, don't! Save your typing for love.
X
Sam