You're queuing in the rain at eleven-thirty at night to buy a book that, at best, is bit of shallow frippery, convinced that if you don't then the fifteen hundred that went missing from a warehouse somewhere will mean that you'll never manage to buy one at all.
Not that it matters because, under normal circumstances, you'd never have bought one in the first place.
But hey...it's Harry Potter. It's encouraging the kids to read if nothing else.
But that's the problem...they're not reading anything else. Just Harry Potter! It's enough to put them off reading decent stuff for life. It's just a brand name they have to have like Addidas or Coke.
So there you are, wet and miserable and bored hoping to get hold of a copy of a bland, meaningless children's book before some fat council estater gets her hands on it...and suddenly you realise...there's nothing you can do about it. You're being manipulated. You're being abused. You're mind is not your own. You never did this over Peter Pan or Dr Dolittle. You are just another statistic of media control convinced that you'll be missing out if you don't stand in the rain at such an ungodly hour.
And all because Professor Dumbledorf dies in the book.
Yeah...that's right...it's Dumbledorf who kicks the bucket! So now you know. So buy something worthwhile instead
Go home and open your mind to the possibilities of not being controlled by peer group pressure.
Anyhow...whilst I'm here, I thought I'd post a photograph of the hospital where I had my gallbladder out and where, for the umpteenth time, I happened to be the other night. Seeing as I've so far spent about two thirds of my life over the last three years in and out of the bloody place I've come to regard it as my second home and even asked my brother to take this photograph with his new digital camera.

Unfortunately he didn't manage to capture the peacocks wandering free range all over the place. (No...I'm not kidding...they chase the squirrels and dance in the fountain! I believe the surgeon throws them scraps out of the back door.) So now you know where your National Insurance contributions are going and why the NHS is up shit creek. Still...it's cheaper than a weekend in Brighton and the drugs that they dose you with, free of charge, are of a considerably better quality.

Deputy Vice Assistant Editor's note:

"they're not reading anything else"
Not exactly. For example, the children read here something different.