A 19th century Dorset poet. The Pottermania continues.

The decent feed at Ayers House was attended by about 50 members of the Society of Editors and their guests. Tom Burton was a topnotch invited speaker who gave us lively readings from (published) student poetry from his course at AU, "Reading and Writing Poetry". Some student writers achieve a high level of verse-excellence.

Next March Tom will again be performing in the Festival Fringe, bringing to a modern audience the work of 19th century Dorset poet William Barnes.

With the day in the city, I first had some business to see to, and then headed to the Palace Cinema and the marathon Part One of the new Harry Potter movie. I  napped through some of it. It is still a curiosity, both the book series and the film franchise. A mix of (too) much often arbitrary content, yet appealing to such a huge readership and screen audience; the right ingredients at the right time, which has led to enormous commercial success.

Of course, the human talents brought to bear to put Rowling's books on the big screen have been massive and she has become very very wealthy, the more so now as she herself co-produced (i.e. put money into) the making of this latest offering. One can only marvel at the whole phenomenon.