This post has nothing in it but fluffy animals in woollen clothing

B re-reads Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Christ I love this book. I know I said that Order of the Phoenix wasn’t as bad as I remember it being, but then I re-read Half-Blood Prince and it is so freakin’ fantastic that book 5 is once again ordinary.

I’m not at all ashamed to say that I cried when Dumbledore dies. Looking back at it, you see the slow build towards it but as a reader, Harry's shock is your shock. How can Dumbledore die? It's DUMBLEDORE! This is why you should read the books when they come out and before watching films. I’m so glad I was one of the tens of millions of Harry Potter fans who read the books immediately and so was not spoiled by the internet spoilers ‘Snape kills Dumbledore’. I read it and was full of:

It's still so emotional.

All of the scenes where Harry and Dumbledore dive into the penseive are fascinating. So much more so when reading the books back to back because you are more amazed than. Rowling showing us young Riddle, making us understand where he comes from and why he is the 1/7-of-a-man that he is, is just a brilliant storytelling technique.

Creepy evil child.

The denouement comes a little earlier in this book. Because Dumbledore can't explain everything at the end … because he's DEAD!

Don't stand near edges. Or people with evil-sounding names and animated tattoos.

The revealment of the challenge facing Harry (and Ron and Hermione) in the destruction of Voldemort's horcruxes is so daunting, even to the reader. It's like a window into the seventh book, where we know exactly what the next installment will be about and we're desperate to go there.

Slughorn is a great character and I think brilliantly protrayed in the movie by Jim Broadbent.

Painful memories are painful to extract.

Then of course there is this moment:

!!!

Image not by me, by an artist calling herself Kama, from here.

Like all Harry Potter fans I wish there was SO much more of this!

I just love book 6. There seem to be fewer of the signals than the earlier books but it's reaching the end. The smug re-reading in this book comes from the recognition of horcruxes, understnading the background to Snape and in the crazily obvious Ron / Hermione sexual tension. Side note: Lavender Brown sounds like such a scary girlfriend, we would not be friends. All the 'romance' in HBP is supremely entertaining and so accurately high school.

Bullies wear black. And have emo tendencies.

Loyal readers, we are leaving you...

B and I are going to Vietnam!!

We leave tonight, and we will be back very early in the morning on Sunday September 18. We will blog some time after that, probably with photos and hilarious anecdotes about our trip.

Just so you know (and can be suitably envious), we arrive in Ho Chi Minh City this Sunday, after a short stop in Bangkok. We plan to travel from there to Da Lat, then up the coast to Hue and Hoi An. After some fantastic food and also tailoring, we will go north to Hanoi. We plan to see Ha Long Bay, and also Sa Pa and nearby mountains.

So, you know, be jealous.

The Dress Memory project

Freelance writer and editor Lorelei Vashti is an avid collector of vintage clothes, on indeed, clothes. She began this project when she realised she couldn’t clear out her over-stuffed wardrobes because the clothes in them were too full of memories that would be discarded along with the dresses.

This project or website is all about her reliving those memories and sharing the stories.
As we all know, clothes can be so evocative and full of memories. Whether they are the obvious associations that come with a piece of clothing or jewellery handed down to us from a parent or grandparent, the wonderful find you bought at an op shop and had a great night in, or the cheap t-shirts you bought online and wore for 6 months of travelling. Clothes gather stories and associations as much as the next thing and this is one woman sharing her clothing memories in a sweet and funny way.

There are going to be a total of 24 dresses and stories, shared out over 6 months. This is dress 13, the most recent one. If you want to look at it yourself, go to Dress Memory.

You'll have to go to the website to read the story.

Photograph by Lee Sandwith and taken from the Dress Memory website.

B re-reads Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix

I won't lie – this is my least favourite HP book. In fact, it's the only episode I prefer the movie over the book. Because the book is short and well-edited, unlike the book.

Re-reading it now, I find I'm not as pissed off at Harry as I remember being. He is still an annoying, selfish overly-dramatic snot who can't manage his temper or his testosterone. But somehow, it doesn't last for as long as I thought. The irritation I feel at the book is annoyance at Harry for the first third of the book and then anger at Bitch-Features Dolores Umbridge for the rest. With intermittent Harry-anger as well.

Bitch-features!

However, all that annoyance-whingeing aside there is so much to love about this book. I adore everything to do with the DA. The Harry / Cho story I'm not keen on, however it's kind of important as character development for Harry and the progression of the romantic story lines, which feed and bounce off each other for four novels.

Luna is just fantastic. How can you not love Luna? I think she's brilliantly portrayed in the movie – just as I imagined her to be. Different and dreamy and wise beyond her years.

Don't mess with Luna.

Then of course this is a starring book for the Weasley Twins. The novel is full of their Weesley Wizard Weezes, their glorious fireworks – which allow the teachers to rebel against Umbridge (bitch features) – and then when they leave so dramatically – it's fan-freaking-tastic!

And then there's ... foreshadowing!

“De - men – tors,” said Harry slowly and clearly. “Two of them.”

“And what the ruddy hell are Dementors?”
“They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban,” said Aunt Petunia.
“How d'you know that?" He asked her, astonished.
Aunt Petunia glanced Uncle Vernon in fearful appology, then lowered her hand slightly to reveal her horsy teeth.

“I heard – that awful boy – telling her about them years ago,” she said jerkily.

She means James. NO she doesn't. 'That awful boy' is the young Severus Snape. But we won't know that for another 1,000 page.

When they walk into the Hogs Head for their first DA meeting:

The barman sidled towards then out of a back room, He was a grumpy-looking old man with a great deal of long grey hair and beard. He was tall and thin and looked vaguely familiar to Harry.

Because he's Dumbledore's brother! And we won't find that out for another 1,000 pages either!

The scenes in the Ministry are horrifying, because they're ALL HARRY'S FAULT! So dark and full-on. Then … when Sirius … dies ... oh wait, give me a minute ... re-reading it, I still cried.

Don't mess with Dumbledore. He's a total bad-ass.

B re-reads Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The book opens with 'The villagers of Little Haggleton still called it the Riddle House...' and I was completely non-plussed for a moment until I remembered how awesomely this book opens! Not with Dursleys and Harry being treated badly – that doesn't come around until chapter 2. No, the start of GoF is intense!

This is such a good episode in the series. There are some really glorious scenes, such as when the Weasleys come to pick Harry up for the World Cup, the World Cup itself, dress robes, dance lessons ... anything that features the suddenly cool and hot Ginny. (I'm a total Ginny fan girl)

The scenes where Harry and Ron are struggling to ask out a couple of girls to the Yule Ball are just so accurately written you can't help but smile the whole way though. Ron's a bit of a tosser, only wanting to take the prettiest girl possible and J.K. Rowling also gives us the first hints in the series of Ron and Hermione and their upcoming emotional tug-of-war in Ron's petty anger and jealousy of Viktor Krum and Hermione's unhappiness at Ron's shallowness and bitterness.



I have bad memories of the horror and embarrassment that went along with having to ask boys to dance practise and eventually graduation in primary school. High school dances were easier – that asking to dance was just a tap on the shoulder, and shrug of acceptance and then some uncomfortable grinding and ass-grabbing.

The dance lessons scenes in the movie don't exist in the book, but I forgive the movie makers, just for this:



Goblet of Fire also has my favourite little moment in the series and it goes something like this:

Moody swept the dead spider off his desk and onto the floor.“Not nice,” he said calmly. “Not pleasant. And there's no counter-curse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."

Thrills me very time. Shivers down the spine sort of stuff.

It's in GoF that we first learn of Snape's Death Eater past and the absolute faith Dumbledore has put in him and his conversion to the right side. Harry sees all this in the Penseive and when he asks Dumbledore why he trusts that Snape stopped supporting Lord Voldemort;
“Harry, that is a matter between Professor Snape and myself”.

But WE KNOW!

Then of course, there are final scenes where Voldemort comes back. There is no way anyone could have been expecting that at the start of the book. These books tend to have whole block of chapters at the end where you can't put the book down! That starts here somewhere around the beginning of the third task somewhere around page 540 and doesn't stop until page 636.
It's SO GOOD!



The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Harry...and Harry stared back into the face that had haunted his nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes, and a nose that was as flat as a snake's, with slits for nostrils …

Lord Voldemort had risen again.



Shit is getting REAL!

Missoni for Target

There has been a trend over the last few years for designer collections for lower-cost fashion outlets. H&M have had innumerable collections – Karl Lagerfeld, Lanvin, Stella McCartney, Roberto Cavelli, Jimmy Choo, Matthew Williamson and Versace. Stella McCartney gets around because last year she did Target.

Now the most recent collection is Missoni for Target. It isn't just clothes, it's vases, pillows, kid's outfits, a laptop bag and even a bicycle! I kind of want some of it. If it makes it to Australia.

I might almost ride this bicycle!