#Fleur needs to learn how to be precise in her wording

[chuuulip]

The First Kiss of Love

Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Female Reader

Warning:  Fluff with a smidges of angst

Words: 3262

Prompt: hey i was wondering id you could do a hannibal lecter one where the reader doesnt realize that hannibal likes her and she gets jealous when hes talking to another woman. when she calls him out on it he cant help but laugh. the reader is basically a oblivious dummy type and way too much of a klutz .

Summary: “Dr. Bloom is really beautiful.” your small, joyless voice continues its sentence. “Ah...yes indeed.” Hannibal replies casually.

A.N: This is for an anon that request some Hannibal fanfic. I’m sorry that it takes me so long xD I hope you like it! whoever you are ❤️ Thank you for @jewels2876​​ for helping me with this piece, love you ❤️ Also tagging fellow Hannibal fans 😉 @venusdemonroe​​​ and @detectivehannibal​​​ thanks for feeding me Hannibal content and discuss him with me ❤️

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It’s been a couple of months since you’ve worked with Dr. Lecter. You were once a librarian; due to an accident, you lost your job as a consequence of a long time recovery.  Hannibal Lecter literally was an angel or your angel to be precise. Vividly, you remember the time you met him. By chance, Hannibal is in the clinic when you do your physiotherapy. He catches a small stack of books that you buy that day. He manages to balance the books in his left hand while his right-hand catches you before your face kisses the floor.

Long story short, both of you have some sort of conversation that leads to you applying for a job to be Hannibal’s secretary. You are excited but also nervous when you do your interview. You have no idea that Hannibal is a well-known psychiatrist not only just in Baltimore but also in Maryland. There is a fear that Hannibal will not choose you because of your clumsy tendencies. You are naturally what people will call a klutz. Physical activity somewhat hinders your ability to shine among others. You are either too slow or too weak. Not to mention lucky stars seem to distance themself from you. But not that day, the day when you get an email of your employment. Hannibal is pretty impressed with your CV and how good your skills on scheduling and data management, 

“Good morning.” the soft, accented voice of Hannibal greets you. Today, he wears a dark blue windowpane pattern jacket suit. He chooses a somewhat dark metallic floral pattern adorning the red-brown tie. His white buttoned-up shirt makes the color of his suit and ties pop. Hannibal always dresses elegantly, something that you always look forward to seeing.  

“Good morning, Dr. Lecter.” You stand up and follow Hannibal inside his office. He takes a seat on his brown leather chair. Everything looks immaculate as always.

“Schedule for today?” he unbuttons his suit jacket and you quickly help him hang the suit. “Thank you, my dear, you didn’t need to do that.”

“It’s alright Dr. Lecter.”

Sometimes when it’s only you and Hannibal in the office, he accidentally calls you my dear. You aren’t sure if it's because that’s the way he usually addresses someone he is in contact on a daily basis, or it means something more? Oh, you wish.

“Dr. Lecter…, for this morning you will have two appointments. Mrs. Potter and Ms. Randall. Also-- Mr. Franklin said he might need to reschedule.” Your slightly breathy voice points out other appointments Hannibal has outside the office. Your work had become kind of a blend between his secretary and personal assistant, to be honest. It was actually Hannibal's idea to engage you more into work that’s not strictly his office related. Not that you are complaining because it let you take a peek on Hannibal’s other persona. Not to mention that the payment is pretty generous. 

Not once does Hannibal ask your input on what type of thing should be added in his office, and by that, you are pretty proud of yourself. Not a lot of people give any thought about your opinion. Although Hannibal, like when his office has this sleek look and somewhat minimalist style, he always mixes something that you could say was classic inside his office. You have been inside his office quite a lot, but sometimes you help him tidy up his books and document. He’s somewhat more of a hard copy type of person than a soft copy one. Like you. You like the smells of an old book although some of Hannibal’s books smell too clinical for you. Like the smells of a hospital or a place with a lot of disinfectants.  

Pretty proud of your experience as a librarian in the past, and knowing Hannibal is a perfectionist himself, you practically turned the side of his office into a perfect mini library. The medical record shorts are alphabetically arranged while his other books are listed by genre, then in an alphabetical manner as well. When Hannibal stays longer in the office, sometimes you catch him drawing. A hobby that he said he has since childhood. One day he told you, “Growing up, I found my hobby really useful when I decided to be a medical doctor.” and you can’t help but agree. After he finishes with what he sketches at that time, he specifically calls you into his office and shows you the final product. That action simply makes your heart flutter in excitement.

“Thank you, you can leave for now.” He gives you his subtle yet beautiful smile. Those eyes of his when he smiles always send some sort of quick rush to your brain.

Giving Hannibal a short nod, you quickly excuse yourself. You stumble upon your own shoe and almost fall, face first. Luckily you can prevent that from happening, hoping Hannibal doesn’t notice, although you think he did. Scurrying from his office, you station yourself on your spot. Continue typing and archiving what Hannibal asks you. 

Sipping your now cold latte, your eyes shift to the books next to your PC. It’s a book called Les Fleurs du mal renaissance, a volume about French poetry that Hannibal had lent you after you finish some short of psychology 101. You have read a few pages of it, and since it’s in French, it takes you some time to understand it. 

Sometimes Hannibal invites you to his office to let you read his book while he draws things. Trying not to get caught red-handed, you glance at him from the corner of your eyes, savoring the scene in front of you. Wondering what Hannibal actually does on his day off, is there anything he can’t do? Your brain likes to take a detour on what Hannibal does at home when he’s not seeing other people’s minds.

A soft clink of steps on the mahogany floor wood, momentary pauses your fingers on the keyboard. 

“Good morning Mrs. Potter.” you stand up immediately. Greet her with a polite, shy smile. One of the things you are still learning from working with Hannibal is being confident. Since the secretary is usually portrayed as bold and beautiful, while you on the other hand are quite the opposite, Hannibal makes sure you take your time to adapt from ‘less contact with people at work’ to ‘in contact with different people almost every day.’

“I’m here for my appointment.” her British accent tickles your ear. It’s rare for you to meet a Brit, especially as posh as Mrs. Potter. Although you never glance at a patient’s medical record, you do actually google them. When you find out Hannibal’s reputation, you know that most of his patients are a somewhat well-known person. Mrs. Potter is an owner of exquisite but limited jewelry store on the east coast. From several articles that you read, she has had quite a lot of scandal. Despite that, you will not deny her beauty. She may be quite older than you, but the way her cheekbones stay supple and very few wrinkles decorating her face sometimes makes you jealous. 

“Yes, sure. Please wait a moment,” immediately, you walk to Hannibal's office door that's just a foot away from your desk. Giving a soft knock, you open the door and inform Hannibal that Mrs. Potter is already here. He gives you a quick nod, and you open the door wider, to let Mrs. Potter start her session. 

Hannibal isn’t a strict boss. Or that’s actually what you thought about him. Of course, you are a professional employee as you can be, but sometimes you spend time reading the book you borrow from Hannibal between your desk job. Mostly because you already do whatever Hannibal tasks you with. On some occasions, you join Hannibal when he attends some appointments, such as when he needs to be a keynote speaker in a well-known conference around Maryland and DC. An experience that you guess is his way to widen your social ability. 

“Thank you Mrs. Potter. I’ll see you in the next session.” Hannibal’s accent cues you to stand up and bid your goodbye to Mrs. Potter. The rest of the day comes out like it usually is. Typing and arranging schedules for Hannibal while also scrolling on another book to read. Even though you were a librarian before, there’s just so many books and so little time to read. 

When it’s time for you to go home, you knock on Hannibal’s office door and open it slightly when he answers you with a soft, “come on in”. You excuse yourself while also giving Hannibal’s friend a smile. Although Hannibal doesn’t have a lot of appointments today, his friend, Jack Crawford visits the office and you know that means Hannibal will stay late until dinner time.   

*** 

The next day your work finished earlier than you thought so you spend some time at work to continue reading the poetry book. Some people may find it weird that you like to stay a little bit longer at work than going back home. There’s always this thought of knowing there is someone close to you, without the need to do conversations in every millisecond, calming. When your eyes shift to your gold bronze table clock, you haven’t realized that you are pretty late, as the sky already turns dark. 

You know Hannibal is still in the office and you plan to excuse yourself before it’s getting really late. You don’t want Hannibal to drive you back home since you feel embarrassed about it. He always makes sure you arrive at home safely when you spend more time at the office or going home pretty late since Baltimore isn’t the safest place on earth. However, there is always a thought in your head that Hannibal being a little bit protective towards you, his employee because you are just a much of a klutz and he feels responsible. 

You aren’t sure what possessed you to move too quickly and it just messes up your footing. The point of your left oxford shoes hit the castor office chair. Ungracefully you trip to the floor and bring the chair with you. The falling chair let out a loud bang while you landed on your hands and knees, grimacing in pain. 

You aren’t sure when but your brain kind of mid freeze for a second. When you look up, you see Hannibal crouching down and calling your name, worried, “-- are you ok? Can you stand up?”

“I--I’m ok Dr. Lecter,” you try to stand up but you hold up your right hand in a sign of I need a minute. 

Hannibal takes care of the office chair first, putting it back in its original position. He carefully lifts you up, supporting you and letting you sit back on your office chair. “I’m sorry my dear, but I need to check?” He asks you for your permission and you quickly give him your approval. With an expert examination of his hands, Hannibal checks your knees for any swelling or visual deformity. Since your past accident, you are prone to any joint and soreness on the knees. Delicately, he gives a little pat on both your knees. “I think everything is ok, you may need to have some pain killers.”

“Thank you Hannibal.” you blurt it out. Sometimes you call him by his first name when you aren’t in office hours, although rarely.

He graces you with that smile of his, subtle yet it always makes your heart quiver, the kind of smile you infrequently see. You notice that sometimes he has his professional smile, it is short and kind of cold. The smile you always notice when he meets his colleague. You don’t know a lot of Hannibal’s friends, but when he has some impromptu meeting with Jack, you slightly witness more smirk and sometimes there’s this naughty element like he is planning something evil, although humorously.

“Wait a minute, I will drive you home.” Hannibal left you to go inside his office. 

There’s a guilt in your stomach that you feel you are being a burden to your boss. When your concentration dispersed like vivid smoke, the corner of your eyes caught the beautiful woman you have seen a couple of times visiting the office. Unlike other women who mostly visit Hannibal for a session, this woman is indeed different. 

“Ms. Bloom.” You greet her. Your smile may look blankly courteous even, but you definitely are not in the mood to give her your big smile this evening.

“You look unwell, are you ok?” 

“I-- I’m ok.” you try to answer her, less tense.

“Alana?” your eyes shift to Hannibal as he opens his door.

“Hey, Hannibal. I try to call you but I thought I might as well just drop by.”

Hannibal’s eyes divert from you to Alana, and he gives Alana a quick nod, letting her quickly enter the office. “It will be quick. Can you wait for a while?” you give him a nod and smile at him nervously.

At first you aren’t sure why you are nervous but something finally clear on your head. Maybe you are jealous. You know a lot of women near Hannibal are not only beautiful, or rich, they are also acutely intelligent. Although you aren’t rich, you aren’t that bad looking and you will not say you aren’t intelligent but when you compare yourself to someone like Alana, there will always be inferiority engraved in your mind. Not to mention that she has known Hannibal longer and better than you.

Hannibal's office door opens and Alana exits the door with Hannibal following her. “I heard what happened to you from Hannibal.” Alana stops in front of your desk and gives you her sympathetic smile. “Get well soon.” She gives you a pat on your shoulder and says her goodbye to you and Hannibal.

“Shall we?” Hannibal changes his focus towards you and you nod in agreement. Let him help you out of the office. 

***

“So…,”

“So?” Hannibal glances at you momentarily while driving, asking you to continue what you have in mind.

“Dr. Bloom is really beautiful.” your small, joyless voice continues its sentence.

“Ah...yes indeed,” Hannibal replies casually. 

Your eyes glance at the dark street. Hannibal’s office is located in a quite busy place and it’s nice to see less traffic when you get out of the area. 

“Did both of you date?” you blurt it out. Your eyes widen in horrors as you blatantly just spill out something unprofessional. “Hanni-- Dr. Lecter, I-- I-- didn’t mean to pry on your personal life.” 

Hannibal looks at you and lets out a laugh. Something really rare, something that you even have witnessed. The crinkle on his eyes when he laughs lets his somewhat cool and calm demeanor melted. It takes you sometimes to register on what just happens. 

“I’m sorry my dear, that’s just quite funny.” Hannibal stops laughing and sends you a quick smile.

“Also that might not answer your question but the answer is no, Alana and I, we aren’t dating. I’m her mentor and our relationship is more of colleagues and friends.”    

You aren’t sure why you hold your breath, but after listening to Hannibal's answer, you let out a long exhale, feeling that something heavy has been lifted up from your shoulders. 

Hannibal’s Bentley stops in front of your apartment complex. Ever the gentleman that he is, Hannibal asks you if you need help. You decline his help as if you can’t embarrass yourself enough in one day. 

“Before you go, I have something to tell you.” Like a deer caught in a headlight, you look at Hannibal. He switches on the light inside the car and pulls his bag from the backseat. He handed you several papers that looked likely to be a job application. Your eyes widen, vision blurry as a sudden tears drop from your eyes. This is it, maybe Hannibal has enough of your clumsiness. He doesn’t find you worthy as he sometimes needs to ‘babysit you’ when you do something you don’t intend to do. 

Feeling that he may be approaching this the wrong way, Hannibal tries to comfort you. You put both of your hands in front of your chest, like a shield in a defensive manner. Try to accommodate his tall frame, awkwardly Hannibal turns his body to the passenger seat and embraces you. He shushing you and pat your heads 

When your silent cry turns into a hiccup but more calmer, Hannibal pulls away from you. With a stutter, you explain to Hannibal that you understand if he doesn’t want you to work with him again and you are thankful that he’s been a very great employer to you. 

“Hey,” Hannibal swipes the tears that rolls down on your cheeks with his thumbs, “--it’s not that. Look, my dear, the reason I handed this paper to you is not that I want to fire you, but I have been pretty impatient lately.”

You look at him, eyes full of question on what the fuck he means by that? Although you don’t let it out loud because you don’t want to make any rude comment. Because Hannibal doesn’t like that.

“I’m one of those people who do not agree with office romance.” 

Office? Romance? What the hell? No one has any romance in the office, you thought. 

“I have been pretty much intent to court you,” his eyes flicker to your lips and back to your reddish eyes. “Alana came today because she wants to give me the application personally, there’s a librarian vacancy in her University and I pretty much just want to hand it to you.” Your brain wiring, try to connect the words as if you forgot how to speak English.  

“Apologize if I’m being rude my dear, but I have observed you for some time and I encourage myself to just lay it all here so I didn’t make you upset. Of course, if I am proven wrong, you can stay and still work as my secretary. No harm, the position will always be yours.” 

“Hanni-- Hannibal, does this mean that you like ‘like’ me?” 

He answers you with a quick nod and the smile that always makes your heart flutter. You try to reach Hannibal but your knee prevents you from doing such a thing. Hannibal let out a small chuckle as he finds your difficulty quite amusing. 

You eye him in disbelief but your anger melts right away as his face gets closer to yours. His right hand's cup at the side of your face as his lips inches closer towards you. With eyes close, you feel the brushes of Hannibal’s lips. The kiss is soft and delicate as if he is just testing the water. 

You let your hands sneak at the back of his collar as you seek more contact. Both of your lips slide and glide against each other. Letting out a whimper, you grant Hannibal’s tongue to slip past your lips. Teasing and flicking languidly, exploring something that makes you shudders in want. 

After some time, Hannibal withdraws his lips from yours. Eyes fluttering open, you can see Hannibal’s pupils expand. He let his foreheads rest at yours while his hand still cups on your face. “So...I believe it is a 'yes''?” There's humor in his voice. 

With a broad smile and less reddish eyes, you answer Hannibal with a confident nod and grant him another kiss on the lips.

__

As always, like, comment and reblog are really appreciated ❤️. Let me know what you think about this xo

[awanderingdeal]

5 times a Tremblay sibling kept a secret and 1 time they did not - Noelle

Hi! So, I was going to write this as a 5+1 one-shot, but each individual story has gotten a bit too lengthy for that. I’m having great fun exploring the Tremblay siblings and their relationships with one another. I hope you enjoy it too!

CW: forced outing and wedding talk. Please message me if you feel like something needs to be added to this list. 

Rating: T

See my masterlist for future and previous chapters!

Thank you to @the-mouse-in-a-jumper and @anderperries  for betaing this!

And last, but most certainly not least, a massive thank you to @lumosinlove for the creation of the sweater weather universe and the wonderful OC’s (including the Tremblay siblings) within it.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Keep them covered,” Noelle said, her voice laced with a hint of hesitation. She was confident that Sydney was going to love the dress, it was an exact replica of the one that her sister had drawn in her wedding scrapbook. The problem was in the obtaining of that scrapbook. 

"They are!" Sydney laughed, “When can I see? Am I finally going to find out why you have been holed up in here?” 

Noelle tried to run her fingers through her buzz cut. A nervous habit. She still wasn't used to the short length even 3 weeks after the spontaneous decision. It was now or never. "Okay, you can open them,” she rushed out, squeezing her own eyes shut as she said the words, not wanting to see Sydney's reaction. 

“Wow, Nolly. It’s beautiful.” Sydney gasped. Noelle opened her eyes to see Sydney's hand reaching out to brush against the delicate ivory lace. "It looks just like -" Sydney paused, her eyes narrowing as she whipped her head around to look back at Noelle. Yeah, there was the anger that Noelle had been expecting. "How did you know? I've only - Did you? You couldn't have! That book is in my - What the fuck, Noelle?!" Sydney spat out the words. Noelle wanted to explain but the questions just kept coming. "How could you? I can't believe you'd invade my privacy like this." Sydney's hand finally dropped from where it was inspecting the dress.

"Syd, please. Just let me explain," Noelle begged, "I know I've done some pretty selfish things before, but I promise there's an explanation." 

Sydney raised an eyebrow and Noelle suddenly felt like she was ten years old again, standing beneath their father's steely gaze, explaining their neighbour's broken window.

"Oh, go on then, Noelle. Wriggle yourself out of this one," Sydney scoffed.

"Okay, well," Noelle began. "So, maybe this whole thing didn't start off with the best of intentions. I needed to borrow some money and I still owed you for those concert tickets and I know you keep emergency cash in your keepsake box," she paused, risking a look at her sister. She looked as furious as Noelle expected. Still, it was Sydney, and not Logan, so she was still standing there. "Bear with me, I'm getting to the part where you don't kill me, promise."

"Get there quicker," Sydney ground out. She might have been the most patient of her siblings, but she was still a Tremblay after all. 

"Alright, alright," Noelle flashed her hands in surrender. "I was going to replace the money, I swear. I just needed $100 quickly and I didn't want to ask Papa et Maman again so soon after last time."

"Noelle, I don't see how your ability to drain your allowance in record time gets to you stealing something that was clearly private," Sydney snapped. 

"Well, I was looking for the money when I came across your wedding scrapbook. I'm not going to lie, I started looking through it with the intention of absolutely rinsing you. Wait," Noelle quickly rooted through her purse, finding the black scrapbook, 'The Dream' written in Sydney's precise lettering across it. "Here," Noelle breathed, holding it out. Sydney snatched it, clutching it to her chest. 

"It's just, you always chirped at me for doing things like this growing up, and there you were… Anyway, that doesn't matter now. I was going through it and it became obvious that," Noelle reached out to touch Sydney's arm. "If you don't want to talk about it, we don't have to. We can pretend I never saw."

"Bit fucking late for that now, isn't it Nolly," Sydney's eyes were watering. She never cried. 

Noelle worried at her lip, "I'm sorry," she breathed. "I didn't think. You know I never think."

“So yeah, you established that I was raging lesbian." Sydney pulled away from her, rubbing at her eyes. Noelle winced, both at the words and the obvious wall that Sydney was putting up. They'd worked on their relationship a lot in the past few years and Noelle was afraid she might have ruined it. "Carry on, because I really am struggling to see how this dress came from that."

"Yeah, so I realised...that." Noelle took a deep breath, knowing that she had a limited number of words before she lost Sydney's attention. "And I wanted you to know that I don’t care, that I love you, but you know me, I’m not really the best with words. And then I saw the dress and I knew I could make it...and just...Sydney, please don’t hate me.”

There was a deafening silence as Sydney paced back and forth. It was long and Noelle wanted to say more, but she didn’t know what. She watched as Sydney stopped in front of the mannequin. It seemed like an age before she moved. “I wasn’t ready,” Sydney whispered. “I wasn’t ready and you took that from me. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me but you have. When are you going to learn to think, Noelle?”

Noelle didn’t reply. She couldn’t reply. Not when the words coming out of Sydney’s mouth sounded so much like the ones she had heard a thousand times before from their mother. Her eyes dropped to the floor, feeling like a scolded child. Honestly, she hadn’t thought of how much this could hurt Sydney. Sure, she had been nervous that Sydney would be angry that she had read the scrapbook, but mostly because Sydney liked to pretend she was above that kind of thing. “I’m sorry.”

Noelle heard Sydney turn around and walk the short distance to stand in front of her. “Look at me,” Sydney insisted. Despite the fact that she didn’t want to see the hurt in her sister’s eyes, Noelle followed the instruction, not wanting to annoy her any more than she already had. 

“You can say sorry all you like. It means nothing if you keep doing the same stupid things. You're twenty now, Nolly. You’re going to be playing professionally next year if the scouts have any sense. You can’t keep fucking up,” Sydney lectured.

Noelle squashed the urge to tell Sydney where to get off with her parenting. She didn’t really have the room to complain. “Okay, so you don’t like it. I’ll get rid of it. Can we just pretend this didn’t happen?” 

Sydney gave a small laugh. It was the last thing Noelle had expected. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, it’s perfect.” 

Noelle chanced a smile, “It’s all your design. I didn’t know you could draw like that, honestly.”

“I didn’t draw it,” Sydney said. Noelle noticed her playing with the fleur-de-lis hanging around her neck. She was nervous. “Spoons did.”

It took Noelle a beat to reply, but when she did it was loud, “Wait. Spoons. Spoons as in Spooner? As in Melodie Spooner. As in the Star’s Melodie Spooner. As in your team mate, Melodie Spooner! Wait a minute.” Her eyes locked with Sydney’s, “Did you tell your team before you told us?”  

“No, I haven’t told the team yet.” Sydney sighed. “Not that I would apologise even if I had. I can come out to whoever I want, whenever I want,” she added indignantly. 

“If you haven’t told the team yet…” Noelle began, and then she squealed with excitement. “Holy shit! Is she your girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend? This is so cute!”

Sydney clamped her hand over Noelle’s mouth, “Tell the whole house, why don’t you.”

Noelle stopped bouncing up and down. “Sorry, sorry. I’m just so happy for you. You know I really don’t care that you’re...you know?”

Sydney grimaced as she pulled her hand away from Noelle’s mouth, rubbing the traces of saliva on her shirt. “You are aware that you can say lesbian, right?” 

��Right, yeah, sorry,” Noelle mumbled. “So...you like the dress? Will you wear it to your wedding?”

Sydney rolled her eyes, “A bit premature, don’t you think? And, we already established that I liked the dress. I am still mad at you, by the way. Breathe a word about this to anybody and I will not forgive you. I mean it. No second chances on this one.”

Noelle nodded quickly, pretending to zip her mouth closed, “I won’t tell anybody, I swear.” 

Sydney nodded, and Noelle watched her take in the dress. It was relatively simple: a halter neck with an empire waist that fell to the floor. 

“I did add one small addition, I hope you don’t mind,” Noelle said, manipulating the material of the dress just below the waist. 

“Pockets,” Sydney admired. “Genius.”

“I thought so.” Noelle agreed. She cocked her head. “So, I know you said that you were still mad at me, but can I use this for my final?”

“Don’t push your luck, Nolly.”

[januarywren]

Wrote a little drabble last night - it was only supposed to be a few hundred words but got away from me! Thank you to anyone who's sent me a kind message or left a comment on my work, my health has been so, so terrible lately and I haven’t had the chance to reply to them all. 💕

-

“It’s all bills, bills, bills. That’s my only answer now,” Percy said, pointing to the watch on the table. Hermione knew the silver watch well, having seen Percy wear it since the first time they’d become acquainted again.

Her cart had run into his - literally - in Aisle 9 causing a tower of discounted soup cans to come crashing down. She’d been mortified, her flushed cheeks hidden by her knit scarf as she’d stuttered her apologies.

She’d only felt worse when she realized the man, she’d run into was Percy. Percy Weasley, the eldest brother of her childhood friend, Ron. She’d been thick as thieves with him growing up, her house neighboring his, while on the other side of the Weasleys were the Potters.

She, Ron, and Harry had been affectionately nicknamed the ‘Golden Trio’ and every adult knew when they trooped through the neighborhood, they were up to something wicked.

“Ah - Granger -“ Percy’s tone had warmed after he’d recognized her. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has,” she’d agreed.

They'd made small conversation as they worked to restack the cans, neither of them having the idea to leave the mess for one of the store's workers. Percy worked for the Council, Hermione learned and rented a flat of his own ("The Burrow’s far too crowded now, with Fleur and Victoire,” he’d explained dryly).

If she felt a flutter in her chest when their hands brushed, well -

She’d firmly ignored it, knowing nothing had ever come of the childhood crush she’d harbored on him. Percy had never been the popular sibling; overshadowed by Bill’s quiet yet intelligent manner, Charlie’s boisterous courage, a pattern that only continued with the charming twins, easy-going Ron, and spitfire Ginny. Sometimes, Hermione wondered if the Weasleys truly saw Percy, as she watched him become shorter with others, and worry at his tie until she could mirror his actions as her own.

She'd felt more at ease with Percy, knowing he would never pick her up and swing her around, as Charlie did, or tease her as the twins insisted on. He was the only one to ask after her cat, Crookshanks, and had once brought her toffees for Halloween ("Ron was outraged your parents won’t let you trick or treat,” he’d explained, smiling wryly. “And I happen to agree."). She'd been thrilled by his attention and the tentative friendship between them.

She’d cried over leaving the Weasleys, and the Potters too, after her parents decided to move.

“Wasn’t it a graduation present from Arthur?” Hermione asked, glancing from the watch to her gaunt-looking friend. He hadn’t looked well for weeks, though he wore familiar dress shirts buttoned up to the collar, and P & W cuff links on the sleeves.

There’d been a downsizing at the council, and Percy had been laid off from his job - an awful shame, Hermione thought, as he was precise, more so than anyone she’d known, with an infallible memory. He’d single-handedly created the record system the council used, after thirty years of shoving handwritten notes and memos in countless cabinet drawers and cardboard boxes.

“I have nothing else that will pay these,” Percy replied stiffly, nodding toward the stack of bills near them. “It’ll secure the flat for another month.”

Hermione swallowed, thinking of the assistance programs she knew. “Have you tried -“

“I have,” Percy interrupted, reeling off on his fingers the options he’d looked into. “Staying here for another month is the best option that I have, unless I move back to the Burrow,” something they both knew he would hate to do. He’d moved out on his own as soon as he was able to, something that had helped his relationship with his family.

Hermione nipped at her lip, a sudden thought occurring to her.

"You know, you could move in with me," she started, glancing at the single plant in the room. It was a sad little fern that she'd given Percy after Cormac McLaggen had left it on her desk. Even with a new girl on his arm every week, Cormac hadn’t decided to leave her alone - she often came back from lunch and found a ‘present’ on the reference desk, with his business card attached.

She hadn't rung him yet.

Percy straightened. “I couldn’t possibly -“

“You could,” Hermione countered. “It’s only Crooks and I, unlike the Burrow. I don’t suppose you want to share a room with the twins again?” Her eyebrow lifted.

“I…” his mouth closed, and he drummed his fingers against the table. “I suppose your idea has merit -“

“It does,” Hermione laughed, twirling one soft curl around her finger. “Really Percy, I won’t be finished with my thesis for months yet.”

It was the reason why she’d returned to the town, the library offering her a position while she worked on finishing her journalism degree. She’d been offered positions closer to university but had followed her heart back to the town (even if she cringed at the mention of her ‘heart' as if it were some Hallmark movie).

"You can have the spare bedroom if you don't mind Crooks sneaking into your room at night. He considers the queen bed his own, no matter how many cat trees I buy him instead.”

She knew Percy was considering the idea, as he reached for the watch his late father had given him and weighed it in his hand. “I believe I can handle that,” Percy said, his lips curling upward in a tentative smile. “Crooks would make a better roommate than Fred or George.”

“And I’ve sent out my resume throughout town,” Percy added, a nervous tick in his jaw. “I’ve contacted Kingsley too, as I heard he plans to go into private practice.” Kingsley had stepped down from heading the council two years before, as his investments grew. “I shouldn’t be with you longer than a month or two, and I will help however you,” he hesitated a moment, “you need me, Hermione.”

Hermione laced her fingers together and nodded.

She had little thought that Percy (or any of the Weasleys) would use her, having found a second family with them and the Potters. She'd felt terrible when she heard the news of Arthur passing, remembering how kind the man was. She hadn't been able to take time off from school to attend the funeral, though she'd sent cards to all the Weasleys.

Ginny had been especially glad to hear from her, and they continued to write still, though Hermione was more likely to see her at the library. Ginny volunteered there, confiding that Molly decided to spearhead the local women’s committee - soon, they were making more pies and jams than they knew what to do with, and the church’s flowerbeds glistened, free from any troublesome weed.

“You know, I have shelves overflowing with books at the cottage,” Hermione confided. “I’m so busy restocking them at work, that I hardly have time to re-shelve my own.”

He glanced at her; his brow furrowed as he knew she was trying to put him at ease. He'd never quite known what to make of the bushy-haired girl that his younger brother had clung to, nor the warm and fiercely intelligent woman she'd become. It was the highlight of Percy's week to spend time with her, though it was hardly something he'd confess.

Yet.

He squared his shoulders, determined to send out more resumes when he had the chance. There was a reason why the Weasleys were known for their tenacity, a quality that made them all play fiercely on the sports field (even Percy, who’d fenced during university).

“That’s something I can do,” Percy said, putting the watch on again. It felt right on his wrist, the choice to sell it one that weighed on him more than he’d said.

It was the only memento he had from his father, and Percy could remember when he’d given it to him - he’d been right off the podium, clutching his diploma in his hands, when his father had surprised him with it. “Keep it,” Arthur had insisted, seeing his son’s surprise at unwrapping the watch his father always wore. “I’m proud of you, son.”

“Roommates then?” Hermione asked, holding her hand out to him.

Slowly, his fingers closed around her own. “Roommates.”

-

Thank you for reading! 💕 I hope to write more soon, depending on my health, and how university goes - I start my online classes again tomorrow, and I’m a bit nervous about it, with how my health is going. *Fingers crossed*! 

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Chapter 24 - Epilogue

by Dan H

Wednesday, 01 August 2007Dan concludes his review, having abandoned any semblance of impartiality, bless his bitter little heart.~

Previously: Harry does nothing of any interest for 23 chapters. We finally destroy one single solitary Horcrux.

Chapter Twenty Four: The Wandmaker

In which we learn a bunch of shit about wands that will be contradicted by the end of the book.

This chapter opens with a genuinely touching scene in which Harry buries Dobby by hand (as opposed to using magic). It's really sweet, although perhaps I would have found it more affecting if Dobby hadn't died out of sheer authorial malice.

So Harry dithers over whether to go for the Hallows or the Horcruxes, and thinks about all the shit that's happened and what it could all mean. He spends a really, really long time thinking about Dumbledore, and what his plans for the whole thing were.

So then Harry goes and talks to the Goblin they rescued from the Malfoys (did I mention the goblin? There was a goblin). The Goblin is all "you totally rock Harry Potter, because you sometimes treat other races with the barest minimum possible level of decency when you remember to." You see, it's because Harry understands love.

So Harry goes and talks to Ollivander about his broken wand. I mean seriously, it's not even worth doing jokes about, is it.

Having got his penis-metaphor out of the way, Harry then talks some more about Wand-Lore with Ollivander. Here we learn that it is the wand that chooses the wizard, not the other way around, and that if you take somebody's wand by force, that wand will work better for you than one you just picked up somewhere.

In particular, the discussion goes like this:

"I took this wand from Draco Malfoy by force," said Harry. "Can I use it safely?" "I think so, subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master."

This all leads into a big discussion of the Elder Wand and how to take control of it you have to kill its previous owner or some such shit like that.

All of which turns out to be nonsense. In fact the rules for wand ownership seem to be roughly these:

Every wand has a True Owner.

When a wizard takes a wand from another wizard, he becomes the True Owner of every wand of which that wizard was previously True Owner.

"The Wand Chooses The Wizard" is crap, the thing about the Elder Wand changing hands through murder is crap. Like all the rest of the magic in Harry Potter, wands aren't mysterious or mystical, they follow simple rules which can be written down and followed very, very easily.

This will all become apparent later on, when it is revealed that Harry's act of yanking some wands out of Draco's hands made him the True And Destined Owner Of the Most Powerful And Destructive Wand In History.

Lame.

This chapter ends with another flash of Voldy-vision, as we see the Dark Lord claiming the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb. But it's okay, because he's not the True Owner of it, because of rules one and two above.

Chapter Twenty Five: Shell Cottage

In which Harry spends so much time sitting on his arse doing nothing that it's not even funny.

This chapter is short, at a mere thirteen pages, but that is precisely thirteen pages longer than it needs to be.

Harry gets all weird about how Dumbledore is totally alive, and totally talking to him by weird magical means. It's like that Buffy episode where Giles thinks that a poltergeist is Jenny, but it isn't. Only with more sucking.

Bill and Fleur carry on being shit. Fleur carries on 'aving zee most stupeed accent ever written, and doing that really fucking annoying thing that French characters in books always do, where they put one French word into every sentence so that they wind up sounding like they're failing their GCSE oral.

During the big slew of inactivity, Lupin shows up to tell everybody that Tonks has had their baby. His opening line of dialogue is truly, truly, truly stupid:

"It is I, Remus John Lupin ... I am a werewolf married to Nymphadora Tokns, and you, the Secret Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in case of emergency!"

Okay, I get that he's trying to convince them that he isn't a Death Eater using Polyjuice (it's nice that somebody in the Potterverse has worked out how trivial it is to use), but none of the information he gives is secret, except for the stuff about Bill being the Secret Keeper, and since the Fidelius charm already prevents people from getting into the cottage, it's a bit of a waste of breath.

Remus asks Harry to be godfather to his child, then leaves.

Harry decides to break into Gringotts with the help of a Goblin. He bargains the Sword of Gryffindor for this, because apparently it belongs to the Goblins anyway. In one of the few moments of (a) this book being remotely interesting and (b) my finding a piece of Fantasy Worldbuilding worth listening to, we learn that Goblins believe that anything they make remains the property of its original creator, and that if they make something for somebody else, that something should go back to the goblins once said somebody dies.

So they're off to Gringotts. Four hundred and fifteen pages in and we're onto Horcrux number two!

Chapter Twenty Six: Gringotts

In which they finally run out of fucking Polyjuice.

They Polyjuice Hermione into Bellatrix, give her Bella's original wand (which Ollivander conveniently identified for them), and head for Gringotts.

And they use the Invisibility Cloak, of course they use the invisibility cloak.

Anyway, Hermione has trouble working with Bellatrix's wand (because she "had not won its allegiance by taking it personally from Bellatrix" - although as we will learn by the end of the book, casting Expelliarmus on whoever did take it personally from Bellatrix, or on anybody who had ever cast Expelliarmus on Bellatrix at any point in the past, should also have worked). Blah blah some crap, blah blah diagon alley.

They head to Gringotts, where they are interrupted by another Death Eater, who asks Hermione-as-Bellatrix how she managed to get hold of a new wand, since the only Wandmaker in England is currently AWOL and hers was known to have been stolen by Harry Potter. Tragically, Hermione does not respond by saying "I don't know, the same place the new intake of Hogwarts students got theirs I suppose."

By the time they get to the main desk of Gringotts, the jig is totally up. All the crap with the Polyjuice and the Goblin and all the rest has been for nothing. From the security of his invisibility cloak, Harry uses the Imperius curse to get past the goblin on the desk. I'd like to think that this marked a genuine change in Harry's character, but it totally doesn't. He was in a difficult situation, he took the easy way out. I'd also point out that, compared to turning your target irreversibly into a drooling lunatic (like Hermione did to Xenophilius Lovegood) the Imperius Curse doesn't seem half bad. It gets your target to do what you want and go where you want, but so does a Confundus charm.

Just so we get the message that we're now in the company of dark, edgy Harry Potter, he uses the Imperius curse a couple more times, and each time it seems not so much like an unforgivable violation of somebody's free will, but a comparatively harmless way to get somebody to look the other way for five minutes. It's rather like the Jedi Mind Trick, in fact.

So they get deeper into Gringotts, and it's revealed that yet, they do have a couple of defences, in the shape of some water that washes away magical concealment (wouldn't it be better to have that before you get into the building - and shouldn't the Ministry invest in some of it as well?) and a blind dragon which is scared of loud noises.

Impregnable, huh?

So they head to the Lestrange vault, and realise that they find that every time they touch something, it multiplies itself and becomes burning hot. How the hell do the Lestranges expect to get anything out of there, I ask you? Or does it only work if you aren't the rightful owner of the vault? In that case, why not just rig the door to only open for the right person? They could use that "flesh memory" shit which snitches are apparently built with.

Seriously, though, this is what I hate (okay, one of the many things I hate) about Rowling's universe. It's all so arbitrary. Everything works according to these stupid rules which operate on the basis of pure plot-convenience. Like the poison in Book Six which "has to be drunk" in order to get at the Horcrux. All throughout this book, the "magic" is arranged so that the "only thing to do" is whatever the hell JK Rowling wants to have happen next. It's fucking lazy.

So they grab the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, but they lose the Sword of Gryffindor. Don't worry, though, they can still pull it out the Sorting Hat.

Actually, thinking about it, wouldn't that have been a better, faster way to get the Horcruxes together: just get a True Ravenclaw, a True Hufflepuff and a True Slytherin to yank the damned things out of the Sorting Hat. Except, of course, that wouldn't be the way it Had To Be Done.

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Final Hiding Place

It's Hogwarts.

Chapter Twenty Eight: The Missing Mirror

In which we get yet another dose of Dumbledore backplot.

So Harry is off to Hogwarts, because he saw in Voldemort's mind that the last Horcrux was there. He also saw that Voldemort had only just realised that his Horcruxes were in danger at all.

I mean, seriously, I get that he's arrogant, but you'd think that however overconfident you were, spending eleven years as less than a ghost would teach you some level of caution. I mean, I don't like leaving my keys where I can't see them, let alone fragments of my actual goddamned soul. But Voldemort, intent as he was on finding the Elder Wand, has just decided to take it on trust that his immortal soul is nice and safe and not hacked into bits with the Sword of Gryffindor.

Seriously, this guy totally deserves to get killed by his own rebounding curse.

Harry and co Apparate into Hogsmeade, where they immediately set off the alarm system and get set upon by death eaters, but the bartender at the inn takes the rap for them, and pulls them out of the shit.

I mean seriously, how many times can somebody get rescued from their own fuckups by smarter more capable people and still be considered a hero?

The bartender turns out to be none other than Aberforth Dumbledore. Woohoo, we're in for some more exciting Dumbledore backstory.

Aberforth tells us the exact same story we have heard six times already: Dumbledore hung out with Grindelwald for three months in the eighteen fifties, there was a fight and their sister got killed in the fallout. Aberforth thought it was Dumbledore's fault, Dumbledore thought it was Dumbledore's fault, Grindelwald ran off to be a Nazi somewhere.

Harry gets into Hogwarts through a secret passage which Neville created using the Room of Requirement. Because Neville rocks.

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Lost Diadem

In which Harry is systematically upstaged by every single character in the book.

Neville takes Harry into his secret military base in the Room of Requirement. Neville, incidentally, also has honest to god scars from standing up to the Death Eaters in charge of Hogwarts. Notice that's "standing up to" not "throwing a tantrum at" which was the best that our hero ever really managed.

Neville fucking rocks. No wonder Voldemort didn't mark Neville as an equal, he knew when he was outclassed.

It turns out that Dumbledore's Army, freed from having to put up with Harry's complete inability to get over himself for eight seconds, has gone on to actually be useful and effective. They offer to help Harry, and Harry has an attack of stupid.

"You don't understand." Harry seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours. "We - we can't tell you. We've got to do it - alone." "Why?" asked Neville.

Harry Potter everybody: whiny shit with a messiah complex, completely incapable of independent thought. Eventually they do in fact manage to convince him that he's being totally totally stupid. But wouldn't it have been nice if he'd just not been stupid in the first place?

So the DA go off to fight Death Eaters while Harry looks for the Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, which somebody else told him might be the best place to start. Seriously, Harry does nothing for himself in this book. Or in any of the previous books come to think of it. But it's okay because he's "brave".

Harry and Luna try to sneak into the Ravenclaw common room to catch a look at the statue of their founder. In a rare moment of actually being kinda cool, we find that the Ravenclaw common room is not protected by a password but by a riddle (more of a koan, really: the question asked of Harry and Luna is "what came first, the phoenix or the flame?"). Needless to say, Luna answers the riddle, not Harry.

Worst. Hero. Ever.

They get to the common room, and are immediately ambushed by an interchangeable Death Eater.

Chapter Thirty: The Sacking of Severus Snape

In which Snape appears for ten seconds and utterly steals the show.

Oh look, they've summoned Lord Voldemort again. Pity they couldn't summon somebody actually scary instead.

So the Dark Lord is on his way, and all the people that are actually cool rush to the defence of Hogwarts. Harry, on the other hand, runs around looking for somebody to tell him what to do next. He eventually decides to start taking orders from the ghosts.

Everybody mills around in the corridors, and all the parents seem to have shown up. Molly Weasley continues to be completely fucking shit, insisting that Ginny can't fight because she's only sixteen.

Everybody gets ready for battle.

Oh, and Snape leaves so that he can get killed.

Chapter Thirty One: The Battle of Hogwarts

In which a battle presents no impediment to the interminable exposition.

While the rest of the student body are actually getting stuff done, and preparing to lay down their lives in battle against the Dark Lord, Harry goes off looking for a plot dump.

He finds it in the shape of the Grey Lady, ghost of Ravenclaw tower, who reveals that she is actually Helena Ravenclaw, daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw. Wow. Words cannot explain how little I care about that. She also reveals that she stole her mother's diadem, and that she hid it in a tree in Albania (the very Albania where Voldemort once went! Amazing isn't it). Harry suddenly remembers that he saw a diadem in the Room of Lost Things in the previous book (funny how he can remember that, but not - say - things that happened two chapters ago). He goes to get it.

While Harry is doing this, Ron and Hermione dash of to have sex in the Chamber of Secrets, which Ron manages to open by imitating Harry's use of Parseltongue. That's right folks, the magical language Harry carries in his soul as a result of his connection with the Dark Lord can be picked up by any schlub who pays attention for five minutes.

Hermione destroys the cup offstage, so we miss the big plot point, and get the ghost story. Oh JK, you master storyteller you.

Then the Troika go to the Room of Requirement and start ransacking it for Horcruxes. It's a good thing Harry happened to see it in the previous book really, or they'd be totally fucked.

In the Room of Requirement they meet Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe and Goyle have been presented previously as a bit thick, but basically just your average bully types. In this scene, though, they're positively retarded. In, like, an actual way, rather than the way in which the whole book is retarded.

"We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion charms now! And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"

I've typed a lot of quotes into this article (I intended to do one a chapter, but I couldn't quite bring myself to), and fuck me JKR uses a lot of exclamation marks. Also: for fuck's sake, if you can cast a Dissillusionment charm, you should damned well be able to say "Dissillusionment charm".

Anyway, it turns out that Draco, Crabbe and Goyle have shown up to kill Harry, or bring him to the Dark Lord or something. I would like to believe that Draco is only doing this because he fears for the safety of his family, but since every single Slytherin turned against Hogwarts in the crunch, I think he's probably just being Evil.

So Crabbe or possibly Goyle summons Fiendfire, which is wild and uncontrollable and, conveniently, one of the few things that can destroy a Horcrux. This kills Crabbe, and allows Harry do demonstrate his heroism by rescuing Draco.

They get outside to see the penultimate (they think) Horcrux bleeding itself to death, and meet up with Fred, Percy and some nameless others. Percy gets quite a nice moment of redemption, where he apologises for trying to have a career when he should have just settled into virtuous poverty like the rest of his family. Then Fred gets killed in a horrible explosion.

Poor Fred. Ah well, it's not like he and George had distinct personalities anyway.

Chapter Thirty Two: The Elder Wand

In which Snape gets it for spurious reasons.

This chapter begins with Harry being Really Really Upset that Fred is dead.

The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant lain down their arms?

Oh just shut up! Just shut the fuck up JK Rowling. If you want us to mourn the death of a minor character, spend some fucking time developing them instead of telling us how we should all be really sad and shocked that they died.

So the battle rages on. Harry decides he's got to go find Voldemort, because he has to kill Nagini and end the plot once and for all. Also: he has to overhear Snape's final confrontation with Voldemort.

So Harry sneaks into the Shrieking Shack with his posse in tow, and we see Voldemort killing Snape in order to become True Master of the Elder Wand. Snape coughs his memories into a jar, and Voldemort calls an intermission in the battle, instead of just killing Harry where he stands.

I fucking hate this book.

Chapter Thirty Three: The Prince's Tale

In which all the fanfic turns out to have been right.

Snape was in love with Lily.

Harry is a Horcrux.

Dumbledore is an asshole.

Chapter Thirty Four: The Forest Again

In which the forest still fails to be remotely threatening.

This chapter makes me genuinely uncomfortable. Not in a "it's so dark and edgy and outside my comfort zone way". In a "I seriously am beginning to find JK Rowling morally despicable" kind of way.

Harry discovered, through Snape's memories, that he (Harry) is a Horcrux, and that the only way Voldemort can be defeated is if he (Voldemort) first kills Harry, thereby destroying the fragment of his (Voldemort's) soul which is inside him (Harry).

Harry, being the braindead personality-free fucktard he is, accepts this at face value, and marches off to die, pausing briefly to tell Neville to kill Nagini if he gets the chance. I'll say this for Harry, he knows how to leave things in the hands of better men.

He realises that "I open at the close" (the cryptic message inscribed on the snitch that Dumbledore gave him) means "I open when you're marching off to sacrifice yourself pointlessly". So the snitch opens, and he gets the (new, not-cursed) Resurrection Stone out of it. He puts on the ring and turns it, and all the dead people in the book (well, James, Lily, Lupin and Sirius at least) show up in spectral form to tell him how proud they are that he's off to commit suicide by means of Dark Wizard.

I mean, seriously, this is all kinds of fucked up.

Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily as though she would never be able to look at him enough. "You've been so brave." He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough. "You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are ... so proud of you." "Does it hurt?" The childish question had fallen from Harry's lips before he could stop it. "Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

I'm sorry, but that's just wrong on so many levels.

Now I admit, all through this book, I've been annoyed by the overprotective coddling of Molly Weasley, who won't let anybody under the age of thirty do anything that might be considered dangerous, but I'd even take that interfering old biddy over this creepy band of suicide groupies.

I mean seriously: the Potters both sacrificed their lives to save Harry, but now they're all in favour of him rushing headlong into his inevitable destruction? And what's with Sirius' "being dead is totally cool" speech? I mean seriously, this is exactly the kind of shit that Christian Fundamentalists have fits over, and with good reason.

Harry confronts Voldemort. Voldemort kills him.

I really, really wish this article could end here.

Chapter Thirty Five: King's Cross

In which JK Rowling, through Dumbledore, tells us how to feel about Harry.

I almost cannot bring myself to write about this chapter, in which Harry has a vision of Dumbledore in King's Cross station, and Dumbledore explains the plot to him again for old times' sake.

So it turns out that Harry isn't dead after all, because of the Very Special Bond between Harry and Voldemort, but Voldemort did ironically manage to destroy the fragment of his soul which was inside Harry all this time.

Wow. Convenient.

Then Dumbledore gives us a big speech about how fucking wonderful Harry is. You see Dumbledore sought the Deathly Hallows himself, but he sought them for bad reasons. Which in this case means "any reason at all." Harry, on the other hand, is Good and Pure, because he went through his entire life without having a fucking clue what he was doing. Because Harry was a passive little pussy who never did anything, never achieved anything, never had any ambition or even motivation.

"You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."

So Harry, by blindly and unquestioningly allowing Voldemort to kill him, has shown himself to be a better man than any other.

I'm sorry, but I find that genuinely offensive.

I'm going to go into more detail about this in my post-book wrap up, because I think it bears some close analysis, but for now I'll make a couple of simple points.

Every single man, woman, and child in Hogwarts is risking their life to defeat Voldemort. Every single one of them is confronting death (or, if you prefer, "Death") and every single one of them has accepted that there are far worse things than dying. But their sacrifice doesn't count, because they're actually fighting, which is to say, they are trying to survive. In the new morality Rowling wants us to accept, the only true way to show courage is to lie down and just accept death.

Furthermore, Harry's stoic acceptance of his mortality is grossly undermined by the fact that he actually doesn't die. His great sacrifice is actually just another instance of him doing nothing by himself, and relying on other people to make things turn out alright.

Consider: if Harry actually had died, his mastery of the Elder Wand would have died with him, and Voldemort would have been able to carry on slaughtering to his heart's content. He would have still had one Horcrux left, and Hogwarts would have been destroyed.

This is the emotional and moral crux of the book, and it sucks beyond the telling of it.

Chapter Thirty Six: The Flaw in the Plan

In which all that seemed wrong was now right and those who deserve to are certain to live a long and happy life, ever after.

Voldemort seems to have collapsed, as well you might after nuking your own soul. He sends Narcissa to check whether Harry is alive, but when she realises that he is, she asks him (in a whisper) whether Draco is still alive.

Seriously, I love the Malfoys. I mean compare Narcissa - whose first and only concern is for her child, so much so that she risks defying the Dark Lord who, let's face it, isn't exactly known for his forgiving nature, just to know if he's alive or dead - compare her with Lily Potter, who just moments ago was cheerfully watching her son go to his certain death.

So Voldemort carries Harry's "dead" body to the front lines and does his big "ha ha, I've won you bunch losers" speech.

Everybody acts really sad that Harry is dead. Then Neville rushes the Dark Lord. Because Neville fucking rocks.

The Dark Lord disarms him, binds him, and then puts the Sorting Hat on his head and sets it on fire. Dude, you know she's reaching when she kills the goddamned Sorting Hat.

Neville breaks free of Voldemort's curse (which I like to think is Neville being a badass, but it is later revealed to be the Power of Harry's Big Love Death Sacrifice), pulls the Sword of Gryffindor out of the sorting hat, and totally decapitates Nagini. Because he has had it with this motherfucking snake, oh yes.

So then the shit hits the fan, and Harry jumps under his invisibility cloak again. There's a bunch of really badly written action. Molly Weasley takes out Bellatrix Lestrange in what our esteemed editor would identify as the Battle Between The Virtuous Woman And the Sinful Woman. Harry finally reveals himself, and reveals too that he has learned from Dumbledore the capacity to make long stupid speeches.

I'm going to reproduce this in full, and I'll say beforehand that Voldemort is totally right about everything:

"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me." Voldemort hissed. "Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today Potter?" "Nobody," Harry said simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good ..." "One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?" "Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

Umm ... yes. Yes to every single one of them. At no point was it suggested that Lily Potter deliberately invoked ancient magic when she put herself in front of her son. Harry certainly didn't go to the graveyard by choice, and he had no idea that his wand would magically prevent Voldemort from hurting him. So yes, it was in fact all accidental. Harry Potter: the boy who was too dumb to die.

There's one more bit I want to draw attention to in this speech, because I find it so abominably offensive.

"I was ready to die to stop you hurting these people ... I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding?"

This comes back to my point from further up (and I'll come back to it again, because it genuinely sickens me). Why the fuck is Harry's sacrifice more significant than anybody else's? Why did Harry's "willingness to die" create a special magic forcefield around Hogwarts, but not the willingness to die of every single other person in the damned school?

Essentially, Harry is setting himself up here as a literal Christ figure. The perfect innocent, going meekly and willingly to his death in order to take the place of the whole world. The thing is, though, Jesus was supposed to actually be God. His sacrifice (according to Christian tradition) was greater than the sacrifices of normal men because he was not a normal man. He was God, suffering as a man for the sins of man. Harry Potter is just a miserable self-involved kid with a martyr complex.

Harry carries on talking for another three pages. Then Voldemort tries to curse him, but his curse rebounds because of that bullshit with the Elder Wand really belonging to Harry because he "conquered" Draco.

Of course with the Dark Lord fallen, his entire army disperses without a word.

They collect their dead, and we find that Mr and Mrs Remus Lupin are among the fallen. Harry is momentarily sad.

The final page of the book shows Harry with the Elder Wand, which is now most definitely His. In a scene which I think sums up the vacuous nature of the entire series, he uses the Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick, to magically repair his old wand.

Because lord knows, we wouldn't want the events of the last six hundred pages to have any consequences now, would we.

Epilogue: Nineteen Years Later

In which we learn that nothing that happened in the entire series meant shit.

Harry is married to Ginny. Ron is married to Hermione.

Back when I read The Order of the Phoenix, one of the few things I liked about it was the fact that Ginny seemed to have got over her crush on Harry. I thought that it was a refreshingly subtle, and subtly mature message to put into a children's book: sometimes you just get over people.

It saddens me greatly that JK Rowling, divorcee and single parent that she is, would feel the need to present such a naive view of romance. It seems like she spent so long talking about Death, she couldn't find anything to say about Life beyond "you grow up, get married, and have children."

Harry and Ginny's children are called James, Lily, and (as I am sure you already know) Albus Severus.

I think this, more than anything else, shows how deeply immature the series is. Harry goes through seven years of constant danger, he suffers torment, loss and even death. He touched the soul of the greatest Dark Wizard who ever lived, and practised the blackest of magic when he was forced to. But has he grown as a person? Has he changed? Not at all. His life still revolves around James and Lily, Dumbledore and Snape.

I also find it more than a bit offensive that Ginny (who we learn in

this interview

goes on to be an international sports superstar) doesn't seem to get any say in naming her own kids. I know it's an epilogue, I know it's sweet and everything, but her brother died at Hogwarts as well. The epilogue essentially says "And Harry Finally Got The Happy Family He'd Always Longed For". Never once does it consider the fact that after seven years he might want something else.

Coming Soon: My thoughts on the book as a whole, and the series in general.

Wardog at 15:46 on 2007-08-10I'm sorry I keep quoting David and Hannah at you but they're one of the few people to whose arguments I would naturally grant credence and they both very much enjoyed DH. David pointed out that there's something very different in fighting in a war in which there's a chance you might get killed and knowing walking to your death - thus Harry's sacrifice has more nobility and courage attached to it than you're giving him credit for. I guess it's the difference between rushing the Bastille and going to the guillotine..permalink - go to top

Dan H at 16:00 on 2007-08-10There is indeed a difference between fighting in a war in which there's a chance you might get killed and knowingly walking to your death. Knowingly walking to your death is easier. Harry doesn't really have a choice. He's "the chosen one". Colin Creevey, however, could have just walked away from Hogwarts and nobody would have thought the less of him for it. I'd also point out that Harry didn't sacrifice himself to *save* anybody. He sacrificed himself to *kill* somebody.permalink - go to topArthur B at 17:10 on 2007-08-10I have to say that I'm also deeply uncomfortable with any situation where deliberate suicide is actually a good idea. Walking bravely to the guillotine, I don't count as suicide, because you don't normally have much choice as to whether or not you get your head hacked off: the only choice is whether you cry and whine and piss your pants, or whether you walk with your head held high and, possibly, impress the crowd with your stoic acceptance of your fate. Walking to a duel which you are going to deliberately lose, because you think a loophole in the metaphysics in the universe will allow you to become Master of Death and give you the power to be the Messiah, isn't the act of a brave or noble individual. It's the act of a paranoid schizophrenic.permalink - go to topDan H at 17:15 on 2007-08-10He's not even doing it because he knows about the loophole, though. He's doing it for the same reason he does everything (see next article): Because He Thinks Dumbledore Wanted Him To.permalink - go to topArthur B at 17:31 on 2007-08-10So it is, in fact, literally true that if Dumbledore asked Harry to jump off a cliff, Harry would do it. (Which is kind of odd, in a series of books where mistrusting authority is supposedly a recurring theme.)permalink - go to topWardog at 21:51 on 2007-08-11I can't believe I'm trying to defend JK. I really have no investment in this, which is why I'm doing such an appalling job of it. But surely Harry has just as much right to walk way than Colin Creevy? He could go and live with Hermione's parents in Australia. I mean, through Snape's memories Harry sees what Dumbledore always intended for him (that he should nobly sacrifice his life) and *chooses* to do it anyway. An alternative reading might be that Harry realises that, rather than run around desperately trying to find alternative solutions to the Voldemort Problem, the adults around him have essentially groomed him into a passive matyr figure who will Do The Right Thing, even though it means his own death. And by the time he realises how thoroughly screwed he is, it's in the middle of the final battle and there's nothing much he can do short of pegging it. To *choose* what other people want you to do is still a choice, and after all that's happened to him, that Harry still has enough love in his heart to lay down his life is, y'know, pretty damn noble. For the record, I don't actually buy this. I don't actually buy that it's harder to walk knowingly into death than take a chance on it in a battle. Given a choice, I'd go for the battle and hope to find somewhere to hide.permalink - go to topWendy B at 23:29 on 2007-08-13Daniel --- I just wanted to say that you are not alone in your suffering. I've been working on a review of DH from my Livejournal site, but the 7th book seems to have killed my will to write. I am reading the book one more time to possibly find redeeming value, besides inducing millions of otherwise illiterate youngsters to get interested in reading. Beyond the insufferable plot details/holes you chronicle above, the series up through B6 appeared to be a gigantic and elegant mystery puzzle to be unveiled. And then on 7/21 we discover that it was an UNSOLVABLE mystery --- in B7 she introduced new characters and clunky plot devices. at the 11th hour (it burns! it burns!), to contort and bring the damn story to a close. All her prior book "clues" that fandom crawled over with a tweezer --- they weren't clever clues at all. Bah...but I loved this essay and laughed through the entire series. I might not write a thing but just refer folks here. Wendypermalink - go to topDan H at 15:13 on 2007-08-16the series up through B6 appeared to be a gigantic and elegant mystery puzzle to be unveiled. And then on 7/21 we discover that it was an UNSOLVABLE mystery I think that's part of why I found the last book so unsatisfying. While I wasn't ever massively into the "puzzle box" aspect of the books, I can understand other people being into it. But the last books lost sight of even that giving us, as you say, a bunch of new characters and clunky plot devices which came out of nowhere (or at the very least, out of previously untouched areas of her notes). If you do manage to get your review finished, I'll be very interested in seeing it. permalink - go to topWendy B at 16:18 on 2007-09-16Daniel...you might get some traffic to these articles as I posted the links within an essay I just posted to LiveJournal's hp_essays: http://community.livejournal.com/hp_essays/239017.html Wendy Bpermalink - go to topDan H at 12:24 on 2008-03-25On the Dumbledore side of things, I just don't understand how she can have a character that she spends half the book going off on a tangent about their unnecessary backstory (although it is a tangent away from that fucking tent so maybe I shouldn't complain) - the point of which is supposed to reveal that he turned away from power and ideas of sacrificing people for the 'greater good' - only to have him control and use every single character to the point where the entire book is just enacting his great Masterplan! Surely that contradicts a bit?!! JK is chronic for this: her Good characters behave exactly the same way as her Evil characters, except that everything that is a sign of an evil character's Evilness is a sign of a Good character's Goodness. Cases in point: Draco is evil because he "bullies" Harry. James is good because he "sticks up" for people against Snape (Harry similarly does a lot of "sticking up" for people that involves dogpiling defenseless Syltherins). Umbridge is a "racist" because she thinks Hagrid being a half-giant makes him a bad teacher. Harry, Ron and Hermione treat the full giants with patronizing contempt, and this is a sign that they're great humanitarians. Voldemort hates Muggles because he's evil. All the other Wizard treat Muggles like vermin but it's okay because they're endearingly careless about it. Then of course there's the fact that Harry's furious desire for vengeance is apparently a sign of his great capacity for "love". p.s ooh look, my first post. How exciting :) Welcome aboard.permalink - go to tophttps://me.yahoo.com/a/tjLTVHEducFb4rKDHU5DukBHtQcCbTVMEEq55v0CxV4-#5e156 at 20:29 on 2009-07-29Dan doesn't realise just how absolutely spot on he is. I remember the Magnet series in 1930 where the Remove overthrow a demonic temporary headmaster from Greyfriars. Did anyone else read the Magnet when it was still being published? DH should have followed the Hogwarts front with Neville and Luna leading the rebellion against the Carrows. Or better yet, Voldemort should have made himself headmaster and Neville should have barred him out, that would have made for an infinitely better story. Voldemort really was no more capable than the wicked headmasters who sometimes got foisted on Greyfriars were. But instead... JKR wrote so much about nothing happening that she seemed as nihilistic as Samuel Beckett.permalink - go to topGamer_2k4 at 21:20 on 2011-06-02I know I've been guilty of some serious comment thread necromancy as of late, but I've got a question. "I think so, subtle laws govern wand ownership, but the conquered wand will usually bend its will to its new master." Is this an inaccurate transcription, or does the book really have run-on sentences like that? I've seen a few other quotes from the book with similar use of commas, and it's almost painful to think that writing that bad can make it past an editor and into the final version of a book.permalink - go to topDan H at 21:36 on 2011-06-02I'm honestly not sure if I transcribed that right or not, although to be honest I'm not overly fussed by slightly long sentences and I think Orwell would have supported the choice of a comma over the semicolon (although I think the line would sound better split into two sentences: "I think so. Subtle laws govern...").permalink - go to tophttp://sunnyskywalker.livejournal.com/ at 02:52 on 2011-06-03I don't remember about that particular quote, but I do remember noticing several instances of comma splices while reading the book and wondering why the editor didn't, as Dan suggests, split the sentence in two or something, because there didn't seem to be any good reason to have them. (I accept that sometimes there is a good reason. JKR didn't have it.)permalink - go to tophttp://vonnemattheus.livejournal.com/ at 00:21 on 2012-05-04The Horcrux hunt should have been a dangerous and exciting adventure, instead of the Camping Trip from Hell plot you get in sitcoms like Bottom. It was like watching someone else play Zelda really, really badly. Also, I thought there was an expiry date on the Mother's Love charm that keeps Harry's arse above ground? The best part of the book is when Harry is at his parents grave were, for some reason, he starts thinking of them rotting underground. JK even uses the word "Mouldering".permalink - go to tophttp://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/ at 03:01 on 2012-05-04Inspired by that scene, I buried my old HP books in the backyard after Deathly Hallows, but when I dug them up recently, they weren't nearly as decomposed as I had hoped. I don't think the maggots or the bacteria liked them very much either.permalink - go to topFurare at 13:28 on 2012-05-04Since this article was bumped onto the front page again, I noticed the comment about JKR's abuse of commas. I was reminded of reading the climax of Half Blood Prince; it's supposed to be really exciting and everything, and all I remember thinking is "Wow, are there four separate clauses separated by commas in that sentence?" I thought that several times. It's really quite shockingly badly-written in places.permalink - go to top

[180abroad]

Day 61: Yet More Paris

We decided to spend our last day in Paris visiting a few final sights on the central island and in the Latin Quarter across the Seine.

Starting with a return to Notre Dame, we saw that the bread festival was still running. It was free to enter, so there was no need to ask whether we would take a look.

We got to see bakers preparing breads and pastries firsthand. And of course, the finished products were all on offer. We had just eaten breakfast back home, but we made a note to come back for lunch.

Right outside the tent,where we had left it, was the main facade of Notre Dame. Feeling much better than we did the last time we were here, we decided to linger a bit and appreciate the various statues, researching who they all represented.

We confirmed that the headless gentleman guarding the left portal is Saint Denis, Paris’s first appointed bishop and one of its patron saints. The story goes that after being beheaded by the city’s Roman priests, Denis proceeded to pick up his head and carry it several miles across the city, preaching as he walked. Only after he finished his sermon did he collapse and die for good.

Next, we walked through the side gardens to the Deportation Memorial at the end of the island behind the cathedral.

The Memorial is dedicated to the Jews and other prisoners who were rounded up by the Vichy puppet government during World War II and deported to Nazi concentration camps.

I went into the memorial expecting it to be an interesting side-show to our day’s sightseeing. It turned out to be the main event.

The first thing you see of the memorial is a low, ugly concrete slab with the name of the memorial scratched roughly into the side like the etching of a prisoner on a cell wall. A narrow gap in the slab reveals stairs leading down into a small, drab courtyard.

The courtyard’s concrete floor is rough and uneven, forcing you to walk carefully and uneasily to the long, narrow entryway. Inside, the memorial is dark, colorless, and claustrophobic. And the walls are covered in writing using the same prisoner scrawl. Every detail is intentionally and masterfully designed to make you feel imprisoned and vulnerable.

After squeezing through the entryway, you are immediately faced with the monument’s centerpiece: a long corridor studded with thousands of tiny crystals along each side. Two hundred thousand crystals, to be precise--one for each prisoner deported from France, abandoned by their homeland to a cruel fate at the hands of merciless evil.

On the floor of the corridor is a tomb containing the remains of an unknown deportee, recovered from a Nazi camp after the war.

Moving to the side, you step into a series of rooms detailing the horrors of the Nazi deportation and concentration camp machine.

You see a map showing the Nazi camps. I knew there were a lot more camps than just the famous ones like Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau, but I never imagined just how many there actually were. Every single one of those dots is a camp. And even that is just a sampling. Altogether, the Nazi death camp system included more than 40,000 sites across Europe and North Africa.

Another map numbers precisely how many people were deported from each district of France. Somehow, seeing the numbers broken into such cruel specifics makes them even harder to stomach.

By this point we were both starting to tear up in spite of ourselves. No deportees were ever actually held at this site, but it seems to channel a dark power nonetheless.

In another room, the names of various detainment and extermination camps are etched across all four walls. A stark touchscreen terminal presents detailed information and photographs for more camps that we could stand to scroll through.

Next, you’re taken through a black hallway, studded with small brick windows where you can read about each step that prisoners would go through, from deportation to the end.

You also learn about the ways that the prisoners were able to hold onto scraps of their humanity. They would write poetry and Christmas cards with stolen pencils and scraps of paper. One prisoner made a painting with pigments improvised from rust, soap residue, and dried paint chips from his cell wall. He painted it on newsprint with a piece of straw from his bedding.

When they could, individual prisoners assigned to factories would commit acts of sabotage--usually on the order of misassembling bullets so that they wouldn’t fire properly. When caught, such saboteurs would be executed in especially painful and public ways to discourage others from following their example.

Copies of SS documents show the clinical detachment of the officers who ran the camps and the atrocities they casually suggest to improve their efficiency.

As you leave the memorial, the final words etched above the door read:

“Forgive, but never forget...”

Emerging back into the sunlight gardens behind Notre Dame, it took us a while to regain our composure. And we were so glad that we had the chance to visit this amazing and powerful place.

I shudder to think what it will be like to visit Auschwitz and Dachau later this summer.

Life must go on, however, and it was well into the early afternoon. We got some very tasty sandwiches from the bread festival tent, then headed over to walk through the Latin Quarter on the southern Left Bank of the Seine.

Though lined with a colorful mixture of fancy boutiques and ethnic takeout joints today, this was historically a neighborhood of students, workers, and social malcontents. Because of that, it was also where riots and revolts often began, including the failed 1832 revolution that inspired the second half of Les Miserables. Although the specific battle shown in the musical didn’t exactly happen, it’s easy to picture the narrow, winding streets filled with makeshift barricades.

At the center of the Latin Quarter, we found the Place St. Michel with its dramatic statue of the archangel Michael.

Our last destination was at the western tip of the central island: the Palais de la Cite, featuring the still-operational High Courts, the defunct Conciergerie prison, and the spectacular Sainte-Chapelle cathedral. We started with the cathedral.

When you first enter the cathedral, it is spectacularly adorned but a bit cramped--even for a private royal chapel. That’s because the bottom floor was for the servants and other commoners. The lion’s share was reserved for the king and royal family on the next floor up.

One interesting detail is in the ceiling. At first glance, it looks like a night sky. We’ve seen similar (if less spectacular) executions of this concept in other cathedrals. But instead of stars, the ceiling is dotted with golden fleurs-de-lys--another reminder that the king stood above any ordinary person.

Up a steep and narrow spiral staircase, we came to the real show.

Almost every surface of the walls is covered in brilliant stained glass. And the few spaces where the builders were forced to put a support buttress are covered in vibrantly painted sculptures and murals.

It is easily one of the most visually impressive churches we’ve seen, but I have to say it didn’t really do anything for me on a deeper level. The kings who worshiped in it may have been devout believers, but in the end, it just seems like another decadent display of wealth and the glorification of inequality.

Leaving Sainte-Chapelle down a matching spiral staircase, we headed over to the Conciergerie museum.

The main entry chamber was filled with a series of wooden channels carrying water from the Seinne around the building. Apparently it was some kind of an art installation.

Nothing original from the Conciergerie’s days as a palace or a prison remain, but it still makes for an interesting side-trip for history-buffs. The standing displays and free map briefly explain the original roles of the larger rooms. Then they give you a crash course on how the justice system in the post-Revolution First Republic spiraled into a paranoid Reign of Terror--sowing the seeds for Napoleon to rise up on the promise of a return to sanity and stability.

You don’t get to see the actual cell where Marie Antoinette was held prisoner before her trial and execution, but you do see the chapel that her cell was converted into after the monarchy was restored to power.

Exiting the Conciergerie, you find yourself unceremoniously dumped out onto the sidewalk. As we were looking up how to get back home, we unfortunately fell victim to our first scam (not including the bracelet man in Rome, who we paid just to make him go away without threatening us). Fortunately, it was relatively harmless.

The way the scam works is that a pair of kindly-looking women walk up to you while you are looking at your phone or otherwise visibly distracted. They shove a clipboard into your hands and ask you to sign their petition. Not wanting to be rude, you take their pen and fill in your name just to make them go away. But when you get to the end of the line, you see the last column is marked “donation.” Rereading the paper more closely, you realize that it is actually a donation form, and you just made an embarrassing misunderstanding. On the lines above, you see how much other signers donated (assuming that the scammers didn’t just fill those lines in themselves).

Not wanting to back out, you fill in a small amount of money and hand over some Euros. With your money safely in hand, they turn around and inform you that there is actually a minimum donation, which happens to be double what you gave. At this point you’ll realize that this is obviously a scam, but they already have your money--why not try for more?

We firmly declined and just walked away, slightly embarrassed that we had finally fallen for a scam after avoiding them so well to date. (Except for the bracelet guy in Rome, but we just paid him a couple Euros to make him go away without threatening us or making a scene.)

Our embarrassing moment of the day taken care of, we enjoyed an uneventful trip home to enjoy an early evening and a late morning before heading out for Normandy tomorrow.

Next Post: Bayeux

Last Post: Versailles

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This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows

Sunday morning tv historically is low-hanging fruit for TV bosses.They know there’s a entire nation inevitably switching on; a 3rd hungover from the night time earlier than, a 3rd who have been up since 6am with youngsters and may’t cope with The Go Jetters anymore and third who simply need one thing on in the background whereas they scroll by means of their socials.

No one requires Query Time, just a few fodder to get you thru to lunch, which may solely clarify the reputation of the long-running Sunday Brunch on Channel four. Set in a chat present format over three hours (9.30 to 12.30), it’s interspersed with cooking segments and highlights of the week’s coming TV and music releases, all presided over by Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. It’s good, it’s advantageous, it’s Sunday morning TV.

Learn extra

Viewers surprised by ladies stockpiling meals for Brexit on This Morning

However earlier this month, ITV behemoth This Morning introduced that it too can be throwing its hat in the circle to seize some of that captive viewers again for his or her channel. And on Sunday 20 January – introduced by Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford – so started the first episode of This Morning on Sunday, on air for an hour at 10.30 to 11.30.

This weekend, Sunday Brunch boasted friends Rylan Clark-Neal (himself a This Morning presenter), Laurence Fox, Abigail Lawrie and Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox. Fleur East – recent from the jungle in I’m A Celeb – carried out.

This Morning on Sunday had: properly, Holmes and Langsford. Oh, and chef John Torode. Look, perhaps everybody was simply busy?

So how did the two shows play out and who gained the battle of the weekend? Right here’s what occurred, minute by minute:

The review

10.00 Sunday Brunch (SB): Half an hour earlier than This Morning begins, a newly hirsute Lovejoy – twiddling his beard – and Rimmer grilled actress Lawrie about her position in gritty Sky thriller, Tin Star. As Lawrie mentioned the darkish themes from present, together with a violent episode together with her on-screen father, Lovejoy goes full Partridge, off on a tangent, and jumps in: “I hear there was a cougar on the set. How big was it? Also, how you know if a cougar is going to smell you and go ‘oh, this is an actor and not dinner?’”. Lawrie, to her credit score, manages to politely reply and get to the finish of the interview with out rolling her eyes.

Kevin Clifton’s tattoo

10.30 This Morning on Sunday (TMoS): The acquainted strains of This Morning start as the opening credit roll, with headlines flashing up on partitions promising us ‘Bros: what happened next?’ and ‘Kevin Clifton’s tattoo’. We’re in for a wild journey immediately!

10.31 TMoS: Holmes and Langsford  – who is sticking firmly to the script by sporting a gray jumper with the phrase ‘Sunday’ on it – are shimmying on chairs to beige anthem, Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning. Holmes says: “Welcome to Sunday mornings and to This Morning on a Sunday, because you can’t get too much of a good thing.” This might later be proved as not the case.

Holmes and Langford (Photograph: ITV)

10.32 TMoS: Hey guys at house, what do you rise up to on Sunday? the Langsford-Holmes’ enquire. A painful try at banter ensues as the husband-and-wife duo attempt to burn one another about who does the least at residence at the weekends. “You get treated like a queen!” he tells Langsford, “I make an Ulster Fry!” “When you’re not reclining in your chair watching football!” she joshes again. Please, subsequent merchandise.

10.33 TMoS: Lastly, they announce, they’ll be discussing the difficulty that’s presently dividing the nation: Hen or beef roast? And may you will have Yorkshire puddings with each? Fortunately, they inform us, chef Torode shall be on the present to prepare dinner a particular dish. Ooh, what’s he making? A good, spicy Sri Lankan curry for this chilly climate? Perhaps a hearty Spanish paella or one thing? Beef. He’ll be making roast beef, potatoes and veg. This is actually the Brexit of chat shows.

Rylan Clarke-Neal will host a Saturday afternoon present on Radio 2

10.40 SB: Rylan Clark-Neal is on the couch, chatting about turning into the subsequent host of Grocery store Sweep (RIP Dale Winton) and his new present on BBC Radio 2. Clark-Neal’s truly fairly humorous, and of course, the video footage of Nicole Scherzinger telling him he’s by means of to the subsequent spherical of the X Issue is all the time going to be the spotlight of any present it options in. Chalk one up for the Sunday Brunch workforce. Particularly as Clark-Neal reveals he was out getting pissed with Caroline Flack til 7am, simply two hours earlier than the video was filmed.

10.41 TMoS: First correct phase of the present and it’s the cheery story of a Love Island contestant’s brother realising he had testicular most cancers. Wait! This is only a clip from final weeks present! Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield are interviewing him prefer it’s not even Sunday! We’ve been robbed. Change again over to SB.

From Partridge-esque to precise partridge

10.50 SB: They’ve received the full line-up of visitors munching on recreation. Lovejoy goes from Partridge-esque to precise partridge (breasts full of fig, because you ask), whereas Laurence Fox pipes up: “I can’t eat mallard as my son would kill me.”. He eats stuffed mallard.

10.53 TMoS: One other repeated interview. It’s Strictly‘s Kevin Clifton getting a tattoo saying ‘I love Glasgow’. Look, it’s too boring to get into right here.

10.55 TMoS: They’re providing money bungs to maintain watching now, with the announcement of their £100,00zero money prize. (Aspect notice: how do you get signed as much as be the superstar announcer of these? Sweetest job in showbiz: every week’s work in a Maldives resort to learn out a telephone quantity). Then, it’s a montage of Gino DeCampo’s greatest bits. This is the equal of your aunt posting a video of This Morning on Fb, captioning it: “Phil and Holly cracking up on the show today – gave me the giggles too! Xx”

11.00 SB: The SB lot breakout halftime martinis to have fun the world’s greatest martini being introduced in the UK this week. It’s not even noon! Lovejoy slurs “it’s going to become a new traddissshhun.” Assume the producers may need one thing to say about that. Nonetheless, cheers!

11.04 SB: Fox steps as much as make a vinegar-braised hen with Rimmer, which finally ends up wanting a lot nicer than it sounds.

11.05 TMoS: Good god, Alice Beer continues to be going on about methods to make your garments look like they’ve been to the dry cleaners once they haven’tZzzz. This was deemed value repeating from the week of content material? Don’t remind us that our laundry basket is at present overflowing. Allow us to have this one morning with out occupied with home tasks, FFS.

Nick Knowles (Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Pictures)

11.08 TMoS: One other interview from earlier in the week, Nick Knowles speaking about auctioning up his pants from I’m a Celeb for charity. Holmes tells Langsford she’s made a stunning cup of tea, and he simply can’t have a cup of tea with no biscuit. Eats a biscuit. Langsford then tries to open up the debate “milk in first or not?” to which even Holmes shuts down with “I couldn’t care less.” It’s hardly the black/blue or white/gold gown furore, is it?

11.15 SB: Fleur East is being interviewed and actually eager to stay to the script about why she and Simon Cowell and his label Syco parted methods: “We were just on separate paths”, she chirps brightly. Kudos to Lovejoy – he goes in with the query all of us need to know: “How much is it was to do with Simon Cowell?” She excellently deflects the query. On going chart-success for you now, Fleur.

11.17 TMoS: Lastly! A reside slot and never a repeat. However it’s simply Torode telling us how one can prepare dinner an enormous rack of three ribs of beef. Veganary? Pfffft, not on our watch, snowflakes. He explains the key to flavour in a roast is the juices in the tray afterwards. Exhausting to pay attention as Holmes could be seen at the edge of the display, lifting a Yorkshire pudding and making an attempt to surreptitiously eat a bit morsel – you’ve been clocked.

11.20 SB: They’ve pulled out the massive weapons with Jason “Foxy” Fox from SAS Who Dares Wins. Lovejoy and Rimmer are struggling to include how cool they assume he’s. Lovejoy strokes his personal beard once more with pleasure.

11.22 TMoS: “Have you seen the Bros documentary?” asks Langsford. Sure. Final yr, together with the relaxation of the nation. There’s an enormous construct as much as present the previous (repeat) interview of the Goss bros after that battle in the This Morning dressing room. “Look at that body language!” says Langsford. She and Holmes then talk about preventing with households and Langsford repeats 3 times that Holmes is “a sulker.” And on that pass-agg word, it’s throughout till subsequent week. Time to modify again to Sunday Brunch for relaxation of the morning, now.

Over on social media and viewers appeared to be in equal measures confused and irritated to seek out that This Morning was primarily repeats of segments from the earlier week’s shows.

One Twitter consumer stated: “What a disappointment! It’s just a show made up of repeats from the previous week’s show.”

Disgrace it’s simply clips from the week and never new content material. Bit of a cop out. *turns @SundayBrunchC4 on as an alternative* #thismorning #sundaybrunch

— Amy Lee (@Amykinsypoo) January 20, 2019

Thought it was Monday and I used to be late for bloody work once I turned on the telly to see @thismorning! What they enjoying at?! Don’t prefer it. Keep in your lane #thismorning

— Kimberley Walker (@KimberleyHW) January 20, 2019

WHAT a disappointment it’s only a present made up of repeats from the earlier week! Shall be watching #SundayBrunch from now on @thismorning #ThisMorning on Sunday

— Janbo25 (@JaniceGilfillan) January 20, 2019

Finally, it appeared to boil right down to the content material: do viewers need reheats of lukewarm footage from the week earlier than, or getting caught into breakfast cocktails with Rylan Clark-Neal whereas laughing at Lovejoy’s beard? The viewing figures will quickly tell us.

In the imply time, move one other slice of the stuffed mallard, will you?

The post This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows appeared first on List Technology.

[aethermystfan-blog]

This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows

Sunday morning tv historically is low-hanging fruit for TV bosses.They know there’s a entire nation inevitably switching on; a 3rd hungover from the night time earlier than, a 3rd who have been up since 6am with youngsters and may’t cope with The Go Jetters anymore and third who simply need one thing on in the background whereas they scroll by means of their socials.

No one requires Query Time, just a few fodder to get you thru to lunch, which may solely clarify the reputation of the long-running Sunday Brunch on Channel four. Set in a chat present format over three hours (9.30 to 12.30), it’s interspersed with cooking segments and highlights of the week’s coming TV and music releases, all presided over by Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. It’s good, it’s advantageous, it’s Sunday morning TV.

Learn extra

Viewers surprised by ladies stockpiling meals for Brexit on This Morning

However earlier this month, ITV behemoth This Morning introduced that it too can be throwing its hat in the circle to seize some of that captive viewers again for his or her channel. And on Sunday 20 January – introduced by Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford – so started the first episode of This Morning on Sunday, on air for an hour at 10.30 to 11.30.

This weekend, Sunday Brunch boasted friends Rylan Clark-Neal (himself a This Morning presenter), Laurence Fox, Abigail Lawrie and Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox. Fleur East – recent from the jungle in I’m A Celeb – carried out.

This Morning on Sunday had: properly, Holmes and Langsford. Oh, and chef John Torode. Look, perhaps everybody was simply busy?

So how did the two shows play out and who gained the battle of the weekend? Right here’s what occurred, minute by minute:

The review

10.00 Sunday Brunch (SB): Half an hour earlier than This Morning begins, a newly hirsute Lovejoy – twiddling his beard – and Rimmer grilled actress Lawrie about her position in gritty Sky thriller, Tin Star. As Lawrie mentioned the darkish themes from present, together with a violent episode together with her on-screen father, Lovejoy goes full Partridge, off on a tangent, and jumps in: “I hear there was a cougar on the set. How big was it? Also, how you know if a cougar is going to smell you and go ‘oh, this is an actor and not dinner?’”. Lawrie, to her credit score, manages to politely reply and get to the finish of the interview with out rolling her eyes.

Kevin Clifton’s tattoo

10.30 This Morning on Sunday (TMoS): The acquainted strains of This Morning start as the opening credit roll, with headlines flashing up on partitions promising us ‘Bros: what happened next?’ and ‘Kevin Clifton’s tattoo’. We’re in for a wild journey immediately!

10.31 TMoS: Holmes and Langsford  – who is sticking firmly to the script by sporting a gray jumper with the phrase ‘Sunday’ on it – are shimmying on chairs to beige anthem, Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning. Holmes says: “Welcome to Sunday mornings and to This Morning on a Sunday, because you can’t get too much of a good thing.” This might later be proved as not the case.

Holmes and Langford (Photograph: ITV)

10.32 TMoS: Hey guys at house, what do you rise up to on Sunday? the Langsford-Holmes’ enquire. A painful try at banter ensues as the husband-and-wife duo attempt to burn one another about who does the least at residence at the weekends. “You get treated like a queen!” he tells Langsford, “I make an Ulster Fry!” “When you’re not reclining in your chair watching football!” she joshes again. Please, subsequent merchandise.

10.33 TMoS: Lastly, they announce, they’ll be discussing the difficulty that’s presently dividing the nation: Hen or beef roast? And may you will have Yorkshire puddings with each? Fortunately, they inform us, chef Torode shall be on the present to prepare dinner a particular dish. Ooh, what’s he making? A good, spicy Sri Lankan curry for this chilly climate? Perhaps a hearty Spanish paella or one thing? Beef. He’ll be making roast beef, potatoes and veg. This is actually the Brexit of chat shows.

Rylan Clarke-Neal will host a Saturday afternoon present on Radio 2

10.40 SB: Rylan Clark-Neal is on the couch, chatting about turning into the subsequent host of Grocery store Sweep (RIP Dale Winton) and his new present on BBC Radio 2. Clark-Neal’s truly fairly humorous, and of course, the video footage of Nicole Scherzinger telling him he’s by means of to the subsequent spherical of the X Issue is all the time going to be the spotlight of any present it options in. Chalk one up for the Sunday Brunch workforce. Particularly as Clark-Neal reveals he was out getting pissed with Caroline Flack til 7am, simply two hours earlier than the video was filmed.

10.41 TMoS: First correct phase of the present and it’s the cheery story of a Love Island contestant’s brother realising he had testicular most cancers. Wait! This is only a clip from final weeks present! Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield are interviewing him prefer it’s not even Sunday! We’ve been robbed. Change again over to SB.

From Partridge-esque to precise partridge

10.50 SB: They’ve received the full line-up of visitors munching on recreation. Lovejoy goes from Partridge-esque to precise partridge (breasts full of fig, because you ask), whereas Laurence Fox pipes up: “I can’t eat mallard as my son would kill me.”. He eats stuffed mallard.

10.53 TMoS: One other repeated interview. It’s Strictly‘s Kevin Clifton getting a tattoo saying ‘I love Glasgow’. Look, it’s too boring to get into right here.

10.55 TMoS: They’re providing money bungs to maintain watching now, with the announcement of their £100,00zero money prize. (Aspect notice: how do you get signed as much as be the superstar announcer of these? Sweetest job in showbiz: every week’s work in a Maldives resort to learn out a telephone quantity). Then, it’s a montage of Gino DeCampo’s greatest bits. This is the equal of your aunt posting a video of This Morning on Fb, captioning it: “Phil and Holly cracking up on the show today – gave me the giggles too! Xx”

11.00 SB: The SB lot breakout halftime martinis to have fun the world’s greatest martini being introduced in the UK this week. It’s not even noon! Lovejoy slurs “it’s going to become a new traddissshhun.” Assume the producers may need one thing to say about that. Nonetheless, cheers!

11.04 SB: Fox steps as much as make a vinegar-braised hen with Rimmer, which finally ends up wanting a lot nicer than it sounds.

11.05 TMoS: Good god, Alice Beer continues to be going on about methods to make your garments look like they’ve been to the dry cleaners once they haven’tZzzz. This was deemed value repeating from the week of content material? Don’t remind us that our laundry basket is at present overflowing. Allow us to have this one morning with out occupied with home tasks, FFS.

Nick Knowles (Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Pictures)

11.08 TMoS: One other interview from earlier in the week, Nick Knowles speaking about auctioning up his pants from I’m a Celeb for charity. Holmes tells Langsford she’s made a stunning cup of tea, and he simply can’t have a cup of tea with no biscuit. Eats a biscuit. Langsford then tries to open up the debate “milk in first or not?” to which even Holmes shuts down with “I couldn’t care less.” It’s hardly the black/blue or white/gold gown furore, is it?

11.15 SB: Fleur East is being interviewed and actually eager to stay to the script about why she and Simon Cowell and his label Syco parted methods: “We were just on separate paths”, she chirps brightly. Kudos to Lovejoy – he goes in with the query all of us need to know: “How much is it was to do with Simon Cowell?” She excellently deflects the query. On going chart-success for you now, Fleur.

11.17 TMoS: Lastly! A reside slot and never a repeat. However it’s simply Torode telling us how one can prepare dinner an enormous rack of three ribs of beef. Veganary? Pfffft, not on our watch, snowflakes. He explains the key to flavour in a roast is the juices in the tray afterwards. Exhausting to pay attention as Holmes could be seen at the edge of the display, lifting a Yorkshire pudding and making an attempt to surreptitiously eat a bit morsel – you’ve been clocked.

11.20 SB: They’ve pulled out the massive weapons with Jason “Foxy” Fox from SAS Who Dares Wins. Lovejoy and Rimmer are struggling to include how cool they assume he’s. Lovejoy strokes his personal beard once more with pleasure.

11.22 TMoS: “Have you seen the Bros documentary?” asks Langsford. Sure. Final yr, together with the relaxation of the nation. There’s an enormous construct as much as present the previous (repeat) interview of the Goss bros after that battle in the This Morning dressing room. “Look at that body language!” says Langsford. She and Holmes then talk about preventing with households and Langsford repeats 3 times that Holmes is “a sulker.” And on that pass-agg word, it’s throughout till subsequent week. Time to modify again to Sunday Brunch for relaxation of the morning, now.

Over on social media and viewers appeared to be in equal measures confused and irritated to seek out that This Morning was primarily repeats of segments from the earlier week’s shows.

One Twitter consumer stated: “What a disappointment! It’s just a show made up of repeats from the previous week’s show.”

Disgrace it’s simply clips from the week and never new content material. Bit of a cop out. *turns @SundayBrunchC4 on as an alternative* #thismorning #sundaybrunch

— Amy Lee (@Amykinsypoo) January 20, 2019

Thought it was Monday and I used to be late for bloody work once I turned on the telly to see @thismorning! What they enjoying at?! Don’t prefer it. Keep in your lane #thismorning

— Kimberley Walker (@KimberleyHW) January 20, 2019

WHAT a disappointment it’s only a present made up of repeats from the earlier week! Shall be watching #SundayBrunch from now on @thismorning #ThisMorning on Sunday

— Janbo25 (@JaniceGilfillan) January 20, 2019

Finally, it appeared to boil right down to the content material: do viewers need reheats of lukewarm footage from the week earlier than, or getting caught into breakfast cocktails with Rylan Clark-Neal whereas laughing at Lovejoy’s beard? The viewing figures will quickly tell us.

In the imply time, move one other slice of the stuffed mallard, will you?

The post This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows appeared first on List Technology.

[jimeshbathija3896-blog]

This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows

Sunday morning tv historically is low-hanging fruit for TV bosses.They know there’s a entire nation inevitably switching on; a 3rd hungover from the night time earlier than, a 3rd who have been up since 6am with youngsters and may’t cope with The Go Jetters anymore and third who simply need one thing on in the background whereas they scroll by means of their socials.

No one requires Query Time, just a few fodder to get you thru to lunch, which may solely clarify the reputation of the long-running Sunday Brunch on Channel four. Set in a chat present format over three hours (9.30 to 12.30), it’s interspersed with cooking segments and highlights of the week’s coming TV and music releases, all presided over by Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. It’s good, it’s advantageous, it’s Sunday morning TV.

Learn extra

Viewers surprised by ladies stockpiling meals for Brexit on This Morning

However earlier this month, ITV behemoth This Morning introduced that it too can be throwing its hat in the circle to seize some of that captive viewers again for his or her channel. And on Sunday 20 January – introduced by Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford – so started the first episode of This Morning on Sunday, on air for an hour at 10.30 to 11.30.

This weekend, Sunday Brunch boasted friends Rylan Clark-Neal (himself a This Morning presenter), Laurence Fox, Abigail Lawrie and Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox. Fleur East – recent from the jungle in I’m A Celeb – carried out.

This Morning on Sunday had: properly, Holmes and Langsford. Oh, and chef John Torode. Look, perhaps everybody was simply busy?

So how did the two shows play out and who gained the battle of the weekend? Right here’s what occurred, minute by minute:

The review

10.00 Sunday Brunch (SB): Half an hour earlier than This Morning begins, a newly hirsute Lovejoy – twiddling his beard – and Rimmer grilled actress Lawrie about her position in gritty Sky thriller, Tin Star. As Lawrie mentioned the darkish themes from present, together with a violent episode together with her on-screen father, Lovejoy goes full Partridge, off on a tangent, and jumps in: “I hear there was a cougar on the set. How big was it? Also, how you know if a cougar is going to smell you and go ‘oh, this is an actor and not dinner?’”. Lawrie, to her credit score, manages to politely reply and get to the finish of the interview with out rolling her eyes.

Kevin Clifton’s tattoo

10.30 This Morning on Sunday (TMoS): The acquainted strains of This Morning start as the opening credit roll, with headlines flashing up on partitions promising us ‘Bros: what happened next?’ and ‘Kevin Clifton’s tattoo’. We’re in for a wild journey immediately!

10.31 TMoS: Holmes and Langsford  – who is sticking firmly to the script by sporting a gray jumper with the phrase ‘Sunday’ on it – are shimmying on chairs to beige anthem, Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning. Holmes says: “Welcome to Sunday mornings and to This Morning on a Sunday, because you can’t get too much of a good thing.” This might later be proved as not the case.

Holmes and Langford (Photograph: ITV)

10.32 TMoS: Hey guys at house, what do you rise up to on Sunday? the Langsford-Holmes’ enquire. A painful try at banter ensues as the husband-and-wife duo attempt to burn one another about who does the least at residence at the weekends. “You get treated like a queen!” he tells Langsford, “I make an Ulster Fry!” “When you’re not reclining in your chair watching football!” she joshes again. Please, subsequent merchandise.

10.33 TMoS: Lastly, they announce, they’ll be discussing the difficulty that’s presently dividing the nation: Hen or beef roast? And may you will have Yorkshire puddings with each? Fortunately, they inform us, chef Torode shall be on the present to prepare dinner a particular dish. Ooh, what’s he making? A good, spicy Sri Lankan curry for this chilly climate? Perhaps a hearty Spanish paella or one thing? Beef. He’ll be making roast beef, potatoes and veg. This is actually the Brexit of chat shows.

Rylan Clarke-Neal will host a Saturday afternoon present on Radio 2

10.40 SB: Rylan Clark-Neal is on the couch, chatting about turning into the subsequent host of Grocery store Sweep (RIP Dale Winton) and his new present on BBC Radio 2. Clark-Neal’s truly fairly humorous, and of course, the video footage of Nicole Scherzinger telling him he’s by means of to the subsequent spherical of the X Issue is all the time going to be the spotlight of any present it options in. Chalk one up for the Sunday Brunch workforce. Particularly as Clark-Neal reveals he was out getting pissed with Caroline Flack til 7am, simply two hours earlier than the video was filmed.

10.41 TMoS: First correct phase of the present and it’s the cheery story of a Love Island contestant’s brother realising he had testicular most cancers. Wait! This is only a clip from final weeks present! Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield are interviewing him prefer it’s not even Sunday! We’ve been robbed. Change again over to SB.

From Partridge-esque to precise partridge

10.50 SB: They’ve received the full line-up of visitors munching on recreation. Lovejoy goes from Partridge-esque to precise partridge (breasts full of fig, because you ask), whereas Laurence Fox pipes up: “I can’t eat mallard as my son would kill me.”. He eats stuffed mallard.

10.53 TMoS: One other repeated interview. It’s Strictly‘s Kevin Clifton getting a tattoo saying ‘I love Glasgow’. Look, it’s too boring to get into right here.

10.55 TMoS: They’re providing money bungs to maintain watching now, with the announcement of their £100,00zero money prize. (Aspect notice: how do you get signed as much as be the superstar announcer of these? Sweetest job in showbiz: every week’s work in a Maldives resort to learn out a telephone quantity). Then, it’s a montage of Gino DeCampo’s greatest bits. This is the equal of your aunt posting a video of This Morning on Fb, captioning it: “Phil and Holly cracking up on the show today – gave me the giggles too! Xx”

11.00 SB: The SB lot breakout halftime martinis to have fun the world’s greatest martini being introduced in the UK this week. It’s not even noon! Lovejoy slurs “it’s going to become a new traddissshhun.” Assume the producers may need one thing to say about that. Nonetheless, cheers!

11.04 SB: Fox steps as much as make a vinegar-braised hen with Rimmer, which finally ends up wanting a lot nicer than it sounds.

11.05 TMoS: Good god, Alice Beer continues to be going on about methods to make your garments look like they’ve been to the dry cleaners once they haven’tZzzz. This was deemed value repeating from the week of content material? Don’t remind us that our laundry basket is at present overflowing. Allow us to have this one morning with out occupied with home tasks, FFS.

Nick Knowles (Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Pictures)

11.08 TMoS: One other interview from earlier in the week, Nick Knowles speaking about auctioning up his pants from I’m a Celeb for charity. Holmes tells Langsford she’s made a stunning cup of tea, and he simply can’t have a cup of tea with no biscuit. Eats a biscuit. Langsford then tries to open up the debate “milk in first or not?” to which even Holmes shuts down with “I couldn’t care less.” It’s hardly the black/blue or white/gold gown furore, is it?

11.15 SB: Fleur East is being interviewed and actually eager to stay to the script about why she and Simon Cowell and his label Syco parted methods: “We were just on separate paths”, she chirps brightly. Kudos to Lovejoy – he goes in with the query all of us need to know: “How much is it was to do with Simon Cowell?” She excellently deflects the query. On going chart-success for you now, Fleur.

11.17 TMoS: Lastly! A reside slot and never a repeat. However it’s simply Torode telling us how one can prepare dinner an enormous rack of three ribs of beef. Veganary? Pfffft, not on our watch, snowflakes. He explains the key to flavour in a roast is the juices in the tray afterwards. Exhausting to pay attention as Holmes could be seen at the edge of the display, lifting a Yorkshire pudding and making an attempt to surreptitiously eat a bit morsel – you’ve been clocked.

11.20 SB: They’ve pulled out the massive weapons with Jason “Foxy” Fox from SAS Who Dares Wins. Lovejoy and Rimmer are struggling to include how cool they assume he’s. Lovejoy strokes his personal beard once more with pleasure.

11.22 TMoS: “Have you seen the Bros documentary?” asks Langsford. Sure. Final yr, together with the relaxation of the nation. There’s an enormous construct as much as present the previous (repeat) interview of the Goss bros after that battle in the This Morning dressing room. “Look at that body language!” says Langsford. She and Holmes then talk about preventing with households and Langsford repeats 3 times that Holmes is “a sulker.” And on that pass-agg word, it’s throughout till subsequent week. Time to modify again to Sunday Brunch for relaxation of the morning, now.

Over on social media and viewers appeared to be in equal measures confused and irritated to seek out that This Morning was primarily repeats of segments from the earlier week’s shows.

One Twitter consumer stated: “What a disappointment! It’s just a show made up of repeats from the previous week’s show.”

Disgrace it’s simply clips from the week and never new content material. Bit of a cop out. *turns @SundayBrunchC4 on as an alternative* #thismorning #sundaybrunch

— Amy Lee (@Amykinsypoo) January 20, 2019

Thought it was Monday and I used to be late for bloody work once I turned on the telly to see @thismorning! What they enjoying at?! Don’t prefer it. Keep in your lane #thismorning

— Kimberley Walker (@KimberleyHW) January 20, 2019

WHAT a disappointment it’s only a present made up of repeats from the earlier week! Shall be watching #SundayBrunch from now on @thismorning #ThisMorning on Sunday

— Janbo25 (@JaniceGilfillan) January 20, 2019

Finally, it appeared to boil right down to the content material: do viewers need reheats of lukewarm footage from the week earlier than, or getting caught into breakfast cocktails with Rylan Clark-Neal whereas laughing at Lovejoy’s beard? The viewing figures will quickly tell us.

In the imply time, move one other slice of the stuffed mallard, will you?

The post This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows appeared first on List Technology.

[superplhis-blog]

This Morning on Sunday vs Sunday Brunch: who triumphed? A minute-by-minute review of the weekend shows

Sunday morning tv historically is low-hanging fruit for TV bosses.They know there’s a entire nation inevitably switching on; a 3rd hungover from the night time earlier than, a 3rd who have been up since 6am with youngsters and may’t cope with The Go Jetters anymore and third who simply need one thing on in the background whereas they scroll by means of their socials.

No one requires Query Time, just a few fodder to get you thru to lunch, which may solely clarify the reputation of the long-running Sunday Brunch on Channel four. Set in a chat present format over three hours (9.30 to 12.30), it’s interspersed with cooking segments and highlights of the week’s coming TV and music releases, all presided over by Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. It’s good, it’s advantageous, it’s Sunday morning TV.

Learn extra

Viewers surprised by ladies stockpiling meals for Brexit on This Morning

However earlier this month, ITV behemoth This Morning introduced that it too can be throwing its hat in the circle to seize some of that captive viewers again for his or her channel. And on Sunday 20 January – introduced by Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford – so started the first episode of This Morning on Sunday, on air for an hour at 10.30 to 11.30.

This weekend, Sunday Brunch boasted friends Rylan Clark-Neal (himself a This Morning presenter), Laurence Fox, Abigail Lawrie and Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox. Fleur East – recent from the jungle in I’m A Celeb – carried out.

This Morning on Sunday had: properly, Holmes and Langsford. Oh, and chef John Torode. Look, perhaps everybody was simply busy?

So how did the two shows play out and who gained the battle of the weekend? Right here’s what occurred, minute by minute:

The review

10.00 Sunday Brunch (SB): Half an hour earlier than This Morning begins, a newly hirsute Lovejoy – twiddling his beard – and Rimmer grilled actress Lawrie about her position in gritty Sky thriller, Tin Star. As Lawrie mentioned the darkish themes from present, together with a violent episode together with her on-screen father, Lovejoy goes full Partridge, off on a tangent, and jumps in: “I hear there was a cougar on the set. How big was it? Also, how you know if a cougar is going to smell you and go ‘oh, this is an actor and not dinner?’”. Lawrie, to her credit score, manages to politely reply and get to the finish of the interview with out rolling her eyes.

Kevin Clifton’s tattoo

10.30 This Morning on Sunday (TMoS): The acquainted strains of This Morning start as the opening credit roll, with headlines flashing up on partitions promising us ‘Bros: what happened next?’ and ‘Kevin Clifton’s tattoo’. We’re in for a wild journey immediately!

10.31 TMoS: Holmes and Langsford  – who is sticking firmly to the script by sporting a gray jumper with the phrase ‘Sunday’ on it – are shimmying on chairs to beige anthem, Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning. Holmes says: “Welcome to Sunday mornings and to This Morning on a Sunday, because you can’t get too much of a good thing.” This might later be proved as not the case.

Holmes and Langford (Photograph: ITV)

10.32 TMoS: Hey guys at house, what do you rise up to on Sunday? the Langsford-Holmes’ enquire. A painful try at banter ensues as the husband-and-wife duo attempt to burn one another about who does the least at residence at the weekends. “You get treated like a queen!” he tells Langsford, “I make an Ulster Fry!” “When you’re not reclining in your chair watching football!” she joshes again. Please, subsequent merchandise.

10.33 TMoS: Lastly, they announce, they’ll be discussing the difficulty that’s presently dividing the nation: Hen or beef roast? And may you will have Yorkshire puddings with each? Fortunately, they inform us, chef Torode shall be on the present to prepare dinner a particular dish. Ooh, what’s he making? A good, spicy Sri Lankan curry for this chilly climate? Perhaps a hearty Spanish paella or one thing? Beef. He’ll be making roast beef, potatoes and veg. This is actually the Brexit of chat shows.

Rylan Clarke-Neal will host a Saturday afternoon present on Radio 2

10.40 SB: Rylan Clark-Neal is on the couch, chatting about turning into the subsequent host of Grocery store Sweep (RIP Dale Winton) and his new present on BBC Radio 2. Clark-Neal’s truly fairly humorous, and of course, the video footage of Nicole Scherzinger telling him he’s by means of to the subsequent spherical of the X Issue is all the time going to be the spotlight of any present it options in. Chalk one up for the Sunday Brunch workforce. Particularly as Clark-Neal reveals he was out getting pissed with Caroline Flack til 7am, simply two hours earlier than the video was filmed.

10.41 TMoS: First correct phase of the present and it’s the cheery story of a Love Island contestant’s brother realising he had testicular most cancers. Wait! This is only a clip from final weeks present! Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield are interviewing him prefer it’s not even Sunday! We’ve been robbed. Change again over to SB.

From Partridge-esque to precise partridge

10.50 SB: They’ve received the full line-up of visitors munching on recreation. Lovejoy goes from Partridge-esque to precise partridge (breasts full of fig, because you ask), whereas Laurence Fox pipes up: “I can’t eat mallard as my son would kill me.”. He eats stuffed mallard.

10.53 TMoS: One other repeated interview. It’s Strictly‘s Kevin Clifton getting a tattoo saying ‘I love Glasgow’. Look, it’s too boring to get into right here.

10.55 TMoS: They’re providing money bungs to maintain watching now, with the announcement of their £100,00zero money prize. (Aspect notice: how do you get signed as much as be the superstar announcer of these? Sweetest job in showbiz: every week’s work in a Maldives resort to learn out a telephone quantity). Then, it’s a montage of Gino DeCampo’s greatest bits. This is the equal of your aunt posting a video of This Morning on Fb, captioning it: “Phil and Holly cracking up on the show today – gave me the giggles too! Xx”

11.00 SB: The SB lot breakout halftime martinis to have fun the world’s greatest martini being introduced in the UK this week. It’s not even noon! Lovejoy slurs “it’s going to become a new traddissshhun.” Assume the producers may need one thing to say about that. Nonetheless, cheers!

11.04 SB: Fox steps as much as make a vinegar-braised hen with Rimmer, which finally ends up wanting a lot nicer than it sounds.

11.05 TMoS: Good god, Alice Beer continues to be going on about methods to make your garments look like they’ve been to the dry cleaners once they haven’tZzzz. This was deemed value repeating from the week of content material? Don’t remind us that our laundry basket is at present overflowing. Allow us to have this one morning with out occupied with home tasks, FFS.

Nick Knowles (Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Pictures)

11.08 TMoS: One other interview from earlier in the week, Nick Knowles speaking about auctioning up his pants from I’m a Celeb for charity. Holmes tells Langsford she’s made a stunning cup of tea, and he simply can’t have a cup of tea with no biscuit. Eats a biscuit. Langsford then tries to open up the debate “milk in first or not?” to which even Holmes shuts down with “I couldn’t care less.” It’s hardly the black/blue or white/gold gown furore, is it?

11.15 SB: Fleur East is being interviewed and actually eager to stay to the script about why she and Simon Cowell and his label Syco parted methods: “We were just on separate paths”, she chirps brightly. Kudos to Lovejoy – he goes in with the query all of us need to know: “How much is it was to do with Simon Cowell?” She excellently deflects the query. On going chart-success for you now, Fleur.

11.17 TMoS: Lastly! A reside slot and never a repeat. However it’s simply Torode telling us how one can prepare dinner an enormous rack of three ribs of beef. Veganary? Pfffft, not on our watch, snowflakes. He explains the key to flavour in a roast is the juices in the tray afterwards. Exhausting to pay attention as Holmes could be seen at the edge of the display, lifting a Yorkshire pudding and making an attempt to surreptitiously eat a bit morsel – you’ve been clocked.

11.20 SB: They’ve pulled out the massive weapons with Jason “Foxy” Fox from SAS Who Dares Wins. Lovejoy and Rimmer are struggling to include how cool they assume he’s. Lovejoy strokes his personal beard once more with pleasure.

11.22 TMoS: “Have you seen the Bros documentary?” asks Langsford. Sure. Final yr, together with the relaxation of the nation. There’s an enormous construct as much as present the previous (repeat) interview of the Goss bros after that battle in the This Morning dressing room. “Look at that body language!” says Langsford. She and Holmes then talk about preventing with households and Langsford repeats 3 times that Holmes is “a sulker.” And on that pass-agg word, it’s throughout till subsequent week. Time to modify again to Sunday Brunch for relaxation of the morning, now.

Over on social media and viewers appeared to be in equal measures confused and irritated to seek out that This Morning was primarily repeats of segments from the earlier week’s shows.

One Twitter consumer stated: “What a disappointment! It’s just a show made up of repeats from the previous week’s show.”

Disgrace it’s simply clips from the week and never new content material. Bit of a cop out. *turns @SundayBrunchC4 on as an alternative* #thismorning #sundaybrunch

— Amy Lee (@Amykinsypoo) January 20, 2019

Thought it was Monday and I used to be late for bloody work once I turned on the telly to see @thismorning! What they enjoying at?! Don’t prefer it. Keep in your lane #thismorning

— Kimberley Walker (@KimberleyHW) January 20, 2019

WHAT a disappointment it’s only a present made up of repeats from the earlier week! Shall be watching #SundayBrunch from now on @thismorning #ThisMorning on Sunday

— Janbo25 (@JaniceGilfillan) January 20, 2019

Finally, it appeared to boil right down to the content material: do viewers need reheats of lukewarm footage from the week earlier than, or getting caught into breakfast cocktails with Rylan Clark-Neal whereas laughing at Lovejoy’s beard? The viewing figures will quickly tell us.

In the imply time, move one other slice of the stuffed mallard, will you?

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