I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One with my girlfriend this afternoon. I am not a massive fan of the franchise, but my girlfriend is and because I am a great boyfriend I took her to see it. Also I hope that I will gain some credits which I can cash in for grotesque and perverted sex at some point in the future. Relationships are a delicate balance.
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (though my girlfriend was annoyed that they had taken liberties with the book), but I found quite a good way to ruin it for anyone who is enjoying it. Every now and again after an important plot twist you just have to ask, "Why don't they magic it so that that character comes back to life?" or "Why don't they just magic it so that Voldermort is dead or becomes good?" If you do this enough it will eventually test the patience of the Harry Potter fan (who will be armed with such replies as, "That is protected by other magic" or something similar) and they will realise eventually how stupid the whole thing is and stop watching it. But also stop having grotesque sex with you. So maybe keep your mouth shut.
As we'd made our way to the Westfield we had passed a small group of maybe seven or eight football supporters (I think they were fans of Preston North End but I may be wrong) who had turned themselves into an intimidating force by walking through Shepherd's Bush chanting football statements in union. They knew that they were annoying and scaring people, but also knew that their strength in numbers would probably keep them safe from harm. I hated them for being complicit in this nastiness. I thought about turning to them and saying, "Hey, young fellows, you're being loud and a little bit threatening, could you keep it down a bit?" But self-preservation overcame my desire to create a comedic/violent moment and I kept my mouth shut.
They did make me laugh, though in a dark way and at their callousness when as one they spotted a man holding a sign directing people towards the nearest Macdonalds and without missing a beat and with seemingly no signal between them (as if they were psychic or part of the Borg collective) all pointed at him and sang "Two pounds an hour! Two pounds an hour!" before returning to their familiar territorial song and heading down into the tube. The fact that they would bother to do this, plus the expertise with which they pulled off the conceit was slightly tragic but impressive. It was the wit of the terraces, transposed to the streets, but it seemed from my experience of them at least that this group of men went everywhere, singing their songs in unison and commentating on the world around them via song. They got little joy from their joke, like it had just become a verbal tic that they all now had (like when Jay says "Simples" every time he means simple in the Inbetweeners, with no sense of getting pleasure from it any longer, just because that is what he does). Had I had a group of singing men with me I might have countered that the minimum wage is higher than two pounds an hour, but I don't have a group of men, and I don't know the exact figure, so I had to stay silent.
The men disappeared into the tube, singing about the superiority of Lancashire, with seemingly no awareness that most of the people around them were not from Lancashire and were thus being slighted by their words. They might have inadvertently offended someone.
