7 Reasons

Tag: harry potter

  • Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Believe Harry Potter Exists

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Believe Harry Potter Exists

    As you may have noticed, here at 7 Reasons we have a habit of belittling other people’s muppetry. The question, ‘Is Harry Potter Real?’, for instance, would have us stampeding towards our pencil cases. As indeed we did when we discovered this. However, when today’s guest post dropped on our inbox mat, we had to take a step back. And question ourselves. Because today we are confronted with seven compelling reasons that suggest maybe, just maybe, we were too quick to judge. Perhaps, just perhaps, Harry Potter does exist after all. So, with that in mind, let’s get to the post. Written today by massive Harry Potter nerd, Rachel, who went to boarding school and Oxford University just to have an education as close to the Hogwarts experience as possible.

    Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Believe Harry Potter Exists

    Come on, admit it: at least once in your life, you’ve fantasised about what it would be like to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Depending on the level of your Harry Potter obsession, you might even have gone as far as to have a careful think about which House you’d get put into by the Sorting Hat (definitely Ravenclaw for me). If you’re still waiting for that Hogwarts acceptance letter to drop down your chimney, check out our seven great reasons why you should hold out hope that the magical world of Harry Potter really exists…

    1.  Online Stores. Anyone looking for a reason to believe need search no further than their computer screen. A decent Google session later and you could quite easily purchase yourself a wide array of wizarding accessories. With anything from school supplies to apparel, time turners and hand carved wands available, any budding witch or wizard can easily stock up for their first day at Hogwarts. Just order your acceptance letter (again, available online) and head on down to platform 9¾ at King’s Cross Station.

    2.  Muggle Wear. When wizards attempt to dress in ‘Muggle clothes’, the result is notoriously hilarious: slippers with pinstripe suits, a middle-aged man sporting a flowery dress and a bowler hat, or unusual patterns and colour combinations, the ensembles that they come up with are anything but normal. I’m sure everyone has seen someone whose outfit garners a second glance or a funny look, someone who doesn’t seem to understand that you shouldn’t wear a dressing gown with skinny jeans. Maybe they were just cold? Or maybe they were an undercover wizard.

    3.  Supernatural Sightings. Yetis in Tibet, the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland or aliens in Roswell: hundreds of unbelievable, supernatural sightings and occurrences are reported every year. What’s easier to believe: that a UFO sighting is proof of alien life from space, or that it was just a glimpse of Mr Weasley’s flying Ford Anglia? Or even a small bespectacled boy riding on a hippogriff.

    4.  History. Ancient records are littered with references to the occult: Merlin in Camelot, witch hunts in Salem or stories of immortality elixirs – tales of witches and wizards permeate the fabric of our history. There’s no smoke, as they say, without fire.

    5.  Sweet Stuff. Sugar Quills, Fizzing Whizzbees, Butterbeer, Exploding Bonbons, Liquorice Wands, Jelly Slugs, Chocolate Frogs, Cauldron Cakes, Pumpkin Pasties, Firewhiskey, Pepper Imps, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, Acid Pops and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. I don’t know about you, but I’m not prepared to live in a world where these sweet treats don’t exist.

    6.  Quidditch. The strangest of games, Quidditch defies the laws of logic. Not only is this school sport played in mid-air (health and safety anyone?), but unless one of the teams is able to gain a lead of at least 160 points, the whole match, and subsequently the final score, rests on the shoulders of the Seeker. You can’t make this stuff up, so it must be real.

    7.  The International Statue Of Wizarding Secrecy. This may be the most obvious reason of all, but the only reason for not believing that Harry Potter is real lies in the absence of proof: why would we have proof? These are not wayward sorcerers who cast spells at random; the Ministry of Magic has rules about that sort of thing. Officially established in 1692, the Statue of Secrecy was created to “safeguard the wizard community from Muggles, and hide their presence from the world at large”. With such a law in place, I’m sure that any Muggle with proof would find themselves on the wrong end of a memory charm pretty sharpish.

    If you have any further reasons to add, please leave a comment below – we are the believers!

  • 7 Reasons Not to Have Children

    7 Reasons Not to Have Children

    A Child

    1.  Toys. There are toys everywhere.  If you have children, you have to get rid of your toys and replace them with stuffed animals and pushchairs.

    2.  The Zoo. Adults don’t take other adults to the zoo, they only take children there (a lot).  If you don’t have children then you don’t have to go to the zoo.  This is a good thing as zoos are expensive and alternately boring, terrifying, disgusting and smelly.  You can see far more interesting animals acting naturally in their own environments by watching David Attenborough documentaries from the comfort of your own sofa.  You can eat a sandwich while you do this.  Would anyone want to take a sandwich to the zoo?  Of course not, a monkey would probably throw its poo at you while you were eating; a monkey in a cage that has nothing better to do.  Who wants to visit the animal prison?  Not me.

    3.  Sport. Sport’s a lot better when you don’t have children.  If you participate in a sport on a regular basis then your spouse will rarely come to see you, and will take little interest in your performance when they do.  This is good, as you can exaggerate your sporting prowess in years to come.  When you have children, however, they will often get taken along to matches.  This is bad, as children can be observant and cruel.  If, for example, you turn out for a rugby team and are particularly injury prone, then having children is a very bad idea.  They stand on the sidelines watching you make your return to the team after a lengthy lay-off and, ten minutes into the match, when you break yet another bone (the collar-bone, for example), they exclaim “Christ!  He’s the Evel Knievel of Seaford Rugby Club”.  In years to come they will complain that they spent most of their childhood weekends in the Casualty Department waiting room while you went for stitches or to have a broken collar-bone/arm/ankle/ribs(3 times)/nose(monthly)/shoulder treated.  For the next twenty-five years or so their resentment at their lost childhood will manifest itself as a series of reminiscences at family gatherings whenever you mention your sporting career. “Was that the match when the nurse gave us chocolate?” one of your children will enquire, “No, it was the match when the ambulance crashed into the van” another will reply.  Children are so cruel that they may eventually write about it on a website.

    4.  Butt-Power. A small child will jump up and run to the centre of the café you’re dining in and, thrusting his right arm heavenward, shout with all the volume he can muster, “Butt-Power!” for no apparent reason.  The other customers will all turn to stare at you, the parent.  This is embarrassing.

    5. Money. Parents often complain about the costs involved in owning a child.  We’ve all witnessed first-hand how expensive children can be.  In the supermarket, harassed, distracted parents pushing a trolley full of the weekly shopping often miss several of the items that their mischievous progeny surreptitiously add to the trolley.  Nuts, biscuits, jam, cotton wool balls, muffins, string, children don’t care what they’re putting in there, they’re just “helping”.  Let’s say they get away with £5 of extra items per week, multiply that by the fifty-two weeks of the year and then multiply it by the eighteen years until they are grown-up.  That’s almost £5000 pounds worth of stuff that you don’t need.  That’s a lot.  That’s 5000 lottery tickets you could have bought.

    6.  Hair loss. Each generation grows successively taller, so your children are probably going to be taller than you.  This means that they will be able to see your bald spot.  They will draw it to everyone’s attention and call you “Baldy”.

    7.  Harry Potter. If you don’t have children then you don’t have to have anything to do with Harry Potter.  You don’t have to see the films, you don’t have to read the books, you don’t have to play the computer games, you don’t have to queue for hours outside Borders in the rain waiting for the latest edition, you don’t have to know anything about witches, warlocks, muggles, fairies or quidditch, you don’t have to talk total guff.  No children:  No Potter.