Tim Blair

Now you know why I always tell the bums -- Oops! I mean, the "homeless people" -- who try to hit me up for money that I have no cash on me.

That's DR Vitali Klitschko to you, bum. He's got a doctorate(and not in the fistic arts).

It's a wonder charlatans haven't picked up on something which adds to the overall versimiltude of the H.P. magical world, muggles do witness it but have memory speels cast on them. Rowling is the exception.
She is clealrly writing an account of the wizarding world.The struggle between Voldemort and his death eaters, the goodies, and the others led by H.P., the baddies, is true.
The reason, to guess, why she has decided on the form, children's story for the annals, is obvious.

Wizards don't wish to be bugged by mere muggles to do marvellous things for them.

At least now one has an explanation of the occasional clicks on the telephone line, not phone tappers but accidental linkage to something equivalent to floo powder and fireplaces.Since the old noggin has been wiped clean of what one saw, one cannot say what it is one saw down the telephone line, but it does happen.

We have street people here in Cape Town who act as "informal parking attendants", better known to motorists are "parking terrorists", because they sometimes vandalise your car if you don't pay after being semaphored into a space you can clearly see with your own eyes. They are now being regulated: this involves giving them Day-Glo yellow waistcoats and trying to weed out the obvious loons or petty criminals. Of course, a brisk trade in the yellow slickers has already sprung up.

Entrepreneurship! Doncha just love it?

With regards to your Bob Brown article, have you heard the latest joke going around? - Bob Brown walks into a bar...the barman says "Why the long face?"