7 Reasons

Tag: kings cross

  • 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 Write On The Train

    7 Reasons Not To Write On The Train

    As a part of 7 Reasons Travel Week, we have decided to try something new.  Rather than writing this piece in a conventional location; a quiet atmosphere of consideration and reflection – or in the pub – it’s going to be written on the train during a journey from York to Kings Cross.  We like to think of it as a bold experiment into guerrilla style blogging, because that sounds more interesting than a man typing on a train.  Anyway, the guard has blown his whistle (or I’m having another acid house flashback) and we’re off.  Here are seven reasons not to write on the train.

    Space…The Lack Of

    1.  It’s Tight. No, not my prose style, my deadline – or even my trousers – I’m referring to the amount of room that I have at the moment.  I’m 6’2”.  The tiny seat that I am crammed into has sufficient legroom for an eight year old child (a small one).  My back is planted firmly into the back of my seat and my knees are jammed right up against the hard back of the seat in front of me, just under the “table”.  I’ve only been seated for ten minutes and I’m already in pain. Balanced on the teeny-weeny-tiny “table” in front of me is my very small netbook, a bottle of water, a pen, a notebook with a picture of a skateboarder on it (how cool am I?) and a pair of sunglasses.  The sunglasses aren’t meant to be on the “table”, they just keep being shaken from their resting place on top of my head.  They – for some reason – always land on the f key.  Anyway, ocular accoutrements aside, it is all essential writing gear on the “table” (well, I say on the “table”, I keep having to retrieve a lot of it from the floor).  This is because of…

    2.  The Shaking. The shaking of the train is making typing difficult, to say the least.  It causes me to accidentally touch the trackpad quite a lot, which makes the text I am typing suddenly begin to appear in the middle of a line I don’t want it to be on.  So if what you’re reading seems somewhat confused and incoherent, it’s because of the shaking and not, as is usually the case, because I’m confused and incoherent.  Jfmklsdjlggfkgnfk;gnf.g   (My apologies, that was my bottle of water leaping from the table and landing on the keyboard.  That happens quite frequently).

    My webcam captures the moment the flying bottle makes another guest appearance

    3.  The Mysterious Burning Smell. Oh yes, we have one of those.  It smells like an electrical fire.  I first noticed it shortly before the train ground to a halt in the middle of the countryside near Leeds.  Am I about to die in an inferno?  Where is the nearest door?  Why don’t the hammers next to the windows resemble hammers?  Is that a field full of cows that we’ll have to escape into?  Why didn’t I finish that packet of Hob-Nobs before we left the house?  I’m beginning to realise that my imminent death isn’t conducive to concentration.

    4.  The “WiFi”. The East Coast Mainline WiFi network is slower than the train itself.  In fact, it’s slower than me alighting from the train, going to the pub for a bit, growing a beard, taking a course in both basic and advanced basket-weaving, and then walking to Google’s office in California to get a printout of the web page that I now wish to view.  I keep checking back every five minutes or so, to see if my web page has loaded but no, it hasn’t.  And I may need to read that page on how to avoid being eaten by a cow as a matter of some urgency.

    5.  The Woman Next To Me. The woman sitting next to me, despite being approximately a foot shorter than I am, keeps complaining about the lack of legroom.  She also keeps staring at my screen, which is very off-putting.   She continually encroaches into my armrest territory, and when the train jars or shakes, her pointy elbow digs into my left arm and my ribs.  It serves me right for marrying a woman with sharp elbows, I suppose.    The woman next to me is now pulling a face.

    6.  Announcements. I’m being annoyed by the PA system and it’s causing me to become distracted and lurch into epistolary instead of writing properly.

    Dear PA System,

    I have heard the announcements now, and I understand them, thank you.  I couldn’t be more aware of the location of the buffet car, the name of the train manager, or the myriad ticket restrictions that apply to my journey.  I have now decided, as a consequence of the many announcements I have heard, that I will be taking my personal belongings with me when I leave the train.  Obviously, without your help, I would have abandoned all of my stuff and wandered off the train naked to begin a new life unencumbered by material possessions and socks.  Thank you very much for sparing me from this alternate and possibly quite chilly future. Yours sincerely,

    Passenger 12 (facing).  Coach C.

    7.  The Time. We’ve been on the train for two hours and we’re arriving at King’s Cross already.  That’s not enough time to write anything.  Where’s my delay?   Bastards!