I rounded off my extended weekend by seeing this film, and wow, Tasha actually had a point when she described it as the best – film – ever. Well I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly rocks 
and is much improved from the first three movies.
Best bit of the film: undoubtedly the scene with the Death Eaters at Quidditch World Cup. Far scarier than any confrontation with Voldemort could ever be because it felt very real – the costumes and fire deliberately invoking the terror of the KKK. I mean, I doubt I’ll ever be locked in a wand-duel with a wizard, but I can definitely imagine being in a big crowd of terrified people as a violent group wrecks havoc. Sinister!
Oh, and if you didn’t feel sorry for Hermione at the ball you clearly weren’t investing enough emotionally 
The challenges of the Triwizard Tournament were all very well done as you’d expect, and the film benefits from ditching most of the traditional Hogwarts stuff. (We don’t need to see another lesson with Snape to get the point.) However, it still falls down at points when trying to catch up with Rowling’s text. One minute everyone hates Harry (well, one scene in fact) but that’s all forgotten pretty quickly (the next scene actually). Rita Skeeter is disappointingly never really developed… she writes an article about Harry and then, ur, what exactly?
Overall though, the film is a triumph. Just make sure you’ve read the books first!
Edit: How could I forget?! The thrill of suddening seeing the good Doctor appear in the middle of a scene, now that was cool!
Which of these search engines are the best – Google, Yahoo… or MSN?
Don’t answer yet! Take the amazing Search Engine Experiment first and decide which one is really most relevant to you. It’s a blind test, and for what it’s worth, I picked Google each time.
Hat Tip: Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble.
Yes, it’s true, I have shamelessly stolen Alex Trafford’s design for a search box. But I’ve also played around with the comment form to give it a bit more sparkle, although IE users are left out here I’m afraid. It’s all part of my slow refresh of little bits of the site that need improving now that the newsness of the summer design has worn off. As ever – comments, questions, suggestions welcome!
David Tennant
Somehow I neglected to mention that this is a Four Day Weekend for me, as we’re having a double whammy of INSETs. Which is great, cause it means you can curl up in bed to avoid the cold cold weather!
Babbleblog
Jon Stewart
The way I found out about it was rather exciting too – a guy named David Johnson found my site, and sent me an email with the details. Cheers! 
And yes, don’t worry, my suspicious mind found out their phone number independently and phoned up to ask rather than buying online on the advise of a surprise email, just in case. But the tickets are now ordered, so yay!
And if anybody else feels like coming along, buy tickets now
Right… tonight it’s Certificate Presentation Evening so we’ll be dressing up to collect our ‘proper’ GCSE certificates. I’ve also won the Myers award for Humanities (just be assured of its l33tness and move on) and also, ur, 100% attendance last year. Hey, I don’t get ill, OK? I was even helping out with Hiten’s speech-writing the other day… 
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
