Harry Potter and the Cloak of Kevlar

Sometimes when kids play cowboys and Indians or Commandos and one of them pretends to shoot another, there would always be one kid who would claim to be wearing a bullet proof vest. This could sometimes extend to a bulletproof hat if the other kid claimed it was a headshot.

That's the problem I have with wizards in stories. Whenever they find themselves in danger or peril and it looks like there's no way out they always come out with something like 'There is perhaps one way, the Spell of Infinite Problem Solving'.

Then they spout a load of gibberish, wave their arms around a bit and some magic happens and the problem is solved. It is the same notion as the kid making up bullet proof clothing, changing the rules of the game to suit.
This sort of Get out of Jail free card is cheap story telling.

So it comes as no surprise that the Harry Potter phenomenon has passed me by. I have never read any of the books and only saw the first film which to my mind was a story about public school with added magic.

Now I'm all for books that encourage kids to read but that's the thing, these are kids books. Yet millions of adults read them and even worse used to queue all night outside book shops when a new one came out.

Then they try to justify this by calling these books 'Young Adult Fiction' instead of 'Childrens Books'.
If you start using labels like that then a baby could be classed a young adult, so are grown men and women going to start reading Mr Men books for their own entertainment as well?

I can prattle on like ths all day but it won't change the fact that J K Rowling has made gazillions out of this and millions of people all over the world enjoy these books. I have never read any of them and as such am not really in a position to criticize.

However this is my blog so I can write what I like. So I say that all wizards are cheating bastards who should use their brains to get out of problems instead of changing the rules.

Apart from Gandalf, he's alright.