Tuesday 31 March 2020

DOBBY & KREACHER, SLAVERY IN A WORLD OF WIZARDS

Dobby & Kreacher
In Hogwarts today, The Stones and The Grandma have been talking about slavery and freedom in the wizard's world with two nice elfs, Dobby and Kreacher, treated as slaves by their masters.

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration.

Slavery existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations. A person could become enslaved from the time of their birth, capture, or purchase.

Slavery was legal in most societies at some time in the past but is now outlawed in all recognized countries. The last country to officially abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981. Nevertheless, there are an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide subject to some form of modern slavery.

More information: Medium

The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In other areas, slavery continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most widespread form of slavery today; serfdom; domestic servants kept in captivity; certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves; child soldiers; and forced marriage.

The word slave is derived from the ethnonym, ethnic name Slav. It arrived in English via the Old French sclave. In Medieval Latin the word was sclavus; in Byzantine Greek σκλάβος. At a very early medieval date, when Christian government in most of Europe had collapsed, trading expeditions to eastern Europe brought back Slavs as slaves. An older interpretation connected it to the Greek verb skyleúo to strip a slain enemy.

The Grandma wants to add another kind of situation that she considers slavery. It is economic slavery that is produced when you are a victim of the economic social rules nowadays. This social pyramid that has not changed since the origins of humanity and this economic system that allows that, every time, rich people have more and poor people have less creating a big hole between one social range and the other and destroying the middle-class, the real motor of any society.

Before talking about Dobby and Kreacher, The Grandma wants to offer a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 to practice and study.


Dobby is a male house-elf who served the Malfoy family. His masters were Dark Wizards who treated him cruelly. He disobeyed his masters and tried to warn Harry Potter of the plot to have the Chamber of Secrets reopened. He came to know this via the contact between his masters and Lord Voldemort.

At the end of that school year, after Harry had vanquished the memory of Tom Riddle and slayed the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, he tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing Dobby. Harry accomplished this by placing the Diary of Tom Riddle inside his own sock. Lucius disgustedly ripped the sock off the book and threw the sock into the air, where Dobby caught it.

 More information: Wizarding World

Harry's only request in return for granting Dobby freedom was for Dobby never to try to save his life again.

Dobby suffered a period of unemployment, during which he was often ostracised for having no proper shame in regards to being out of work. He was generally pleased to be free, although he did enjoy working as a hobby.

Dobby was ecstatic to be out of the abusive hands of the Malfoys, but equally pleased to join the Hogwarts staff. At Hogwarts he could come and go as he liked, did not have many tasks, and those he did have were fairly simple. 

Dobby
Dobby was the resident house-elf of Malfoy Manor, serving Lucius Malfoy, his wife Narcissa, and their only son Draco. They treated Dobby with unkindness and cruelty, often reminding him to perform extra punishments on himself when he did something disagreeable to them. The Malfoys were harsh and abused Dobby often.

Dobby was threatened many times during his time serving the Malfoy family and told Harry Potter that he was accustomed to death threats, because he received them five times a day from the Malfoys. Though he always did as he was told, he knew that their behaviour was wrong and he longed to be free of them.

Dobby is a house-elf, much shorter in stature than humans, standing only about 1.06 m. He had large, tennis-ball-like green eyes, a pencil-like nose and long, bat-like pointed ears.

Before he was given freedom, he wore a body-covering pillowcase. Later at Hogwarts, he wore a mismatched variety of jumpers, shorts, and socks.

 More information: Wizarding World

Dobby is a brave, loyal house-elf, willing to put himself in dangerous situations when he knew it to be the right thing to do. He was also very loyal to the few friends he had. He considered himself to be a good house-elf, though other house-elves seemed to find his desires and proclamations of being a free house-elf to be shameful.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dobby is an old English word for a benevolent elf that would perform household tasks secretly in the night, like the elves in tales of the elves and the shoemaker. However, just as those elves disappeared when the shoemaker made them shoes, so the dobbies were said to disappear when offered clothing. Also called a Brownie. A dobby is also a small mechanical part in a loom that enables the weaver to create small geometric patterns.

More information: Screen Rant


Dobby is used to death threats, sir.
Dobby gets them five times a day at home. 

Dobby


Kreacher was a male house-elf who served the House of Black with fanatical loyalty for most of his life, until he was left to Harry Potter upon the death of Sirius Black.

He was particularly fond of his mistress Walburga Black but whose portrait still shrieked orders from the wall in the front hall of the Black house. After Mrs Black's death, Kreacher let the home fall into disarray, doing little, if any, cleaning.

He was also fiercely loyal to Regulus Black, and later to Harry Potter whom he fought for in the Battle of Hogwarts alongside many other house-elves. Kreacher survived the final battle of the Second Wizarding War; it is unknown what happened to him later in life, though he died at some point after Albus Potter went to Hogwarts.

When Lord Voldemort told Regulus Black that he needed a house-elf, Regulus volunteered Kreacher, saying it would be an honour to serve the Dark Lord.

Voldemort took Kreacher to the Crystal Cave and forced him to drink the potion in the basin so that Voldemort could place Salazar Slytherin's Locket in the basin.

Kreacher
The potion, the same one Dumbledore drank, caused Kreacher to have nightmarish delusions, intense stomach pains and made him dehydrated. 

Voldemort then left, leaving Kreacher to drink from the lake, as any water conjured evaporates, and die at the hands of the Inferi. However, Voldemort, in his arrogance, had never cared to learn that House Elves can apparate out of locations that Wizards and Witches cannot, so Kreacher, using his own special type of magic and not contained by the enchantments on the cave, was able to disapparate from the cave and follow his master's orders, to come home when he finished his task.

Kreacher is considered somewhat of a liability by the Order of the Phoenix, who used the Blacks' house as headquarters; as a house-elf, Kreacher overheard sensitive information, but was forbidden to disclose it.

Like all house elves, Kreacher was considerably smaller than a human. He was described as having a bulbous, snout-like nose, bloodshot eyes, many folds of skin, and white hair growing out of his bat-like ears. Dobby also knocked out half of his teeth with a punch in 1997, and it is unclear as to whether he had them magically grown back.

Kreacher was very loyal to all the members of the Black family except Sirius Black, whom he hated because he treated Kreacher poorly. He had a strong bond with Sirius' brother, Regulus Black and was devastated by his death. 

Kreacher was usually hostile, bitter and miserable and had a habit of insulting people, including his masters. He frequently called Hermione Granger a Mudblood. He hated taking orders from those he hated, often giving them a dirty look or a biting remark.

Kreacher's name is most likely derived from the word creature. Reminiscent of the German Kriecher derived from kriechen, meaning to creep, crawl, cringe, grovel, tuckle, or fawn upon."

More information: Wizarding World


Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry.
Yes, he is to be pitied.
His existence has been as miserable as your friend Dobby's. 

Albus Dumbledore

Monday 30 March 2020

POPPY POMPREY, THE MATRON IN THE HOSPITAL WING

Madam Poppy Pomfrey
Today, Deputy CMO Dr Jenny Harries says it could be six months or longer before the UK returns to normal from the coronavirus pandemic. She has said it before announcing some reviews of lockdown measures to take place every three weeks.

The situation is hard and The Stones and The Grandma continue in Hogwarts where magic protects them from this terrible virus. It will be very difficult to return to normality because after this experience our lives will have changed forever, like our parents, grandparents or greatgrandparents' lives with the Civil War or the World Wars.

The Stones have received the wonderful visit of DR, their Occupational Hazards' teacher who has been talking about labour risks in medicine, the sector that is being more affected in this crisis. They are in first line protecting us and exposing them to the most critical situations a human person can live.

It is always a good moment to recognize their incredible job and their tireleess work. We must always do it but, sadly, people in our society only reactionate when are in danger and appreciate the real important things when they realize they are going to lose them.

The Stones and The Grandma want to homage the sanitarian workers talking with Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the matron and nurse in the Hospital Wing, a part of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Madam Poppy Pomfrey represents this sanitarian sector so important in our society but remember that there are a lot of people who are working day-by-day to protect us and take care of us: drivers, supermarket's workers, farmers, firemen, civil volunteers, cleaning operators, factory workers, postmen, messengers... lots of people who deserve a great recognition not only today and because of this crisis, but always.


Madam Poppy Pomfrey is a British witch and the matron at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She was a very competent healer, having been in the position for, at least, the last quarter of the 20th century.

Madam Pomfrey is very possessive of the patients in her care while in the Hospital Wing, and their visitors upset her somewhat, as she frequently insisted they must rest and demanded the visitors leave. She was proficient in her area of expertise, healing magic,  and able to take care of some ailments in a heartbeat.

Harry Potter & Madam Poppy Pomfrey
She fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, the final battle of the Second Wizarding War, during which she personally dispatched at least one Death Eater in a duel, and was seen after the battle treating the wounded and attending to the dead.

Not much is known about Madam Pomfrey's life after the final battle. She had retired or was thinking of retiring, since Hannah Abbott reportedly applied for the position of Matron at Hogwarts. Regardless, either because she did not retire or because she was pulled out of retirement, Madam Pomfrey was working at Hogwarts in 2020.

Madam Pomfrey began her career at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry being trusted in that year by Headmaster Albus Dumbledore to escort new Gryffindor student Remus Lupin, who was infected with lycanthropy due to a bite from Fenrir Greyback, to the Whomping Willow every full moon.

At some point before 1 November, 1981, Madam Pomfrey complimented Dumbledore on a set of earmuffs he had recently acquired. The compliment made him blush in such a manner that would only be rivalled when Professor Minerva McGonagall compared his magical prowess favourably against those of Voldemort.

Madam Pomfrey administered Skele-Gro on Harry to regrow the bones in his arm after Gilderoy Lockhart's attempt to fix a Quidditch-caused broken bone failed disastrously. Pomfrey was annoyed that Harry had not been brought straight to her in the first place, as re-growing bones is a much more difficult task than mending bones, which she claims she can do in a heartbeat.

More information: Wizarding World

In the same year, Hermione Granger ended up in the hospital wing for a month after an accident in an unauthorised high-level Potion-making, Polyjuice Potion, left her half-feline; apparently the group felt comfortable letting Madam Pomfrey to treat her since she would not ask too many questions and just get on with the job in hand. Hermione was allowed visitors, but it bothered Madam Pomfrey somewhat.

Madam Pomfrey had retired or was thinking of retiring, since Hannah Abbott reportedly applied for the position of Matron at Hogwarts. She assisted prospective members of the then recently established Statute of Secrecy Task Force seeking a career as Magizoologists, whom she taught a rudimentary variation of the Mending Charm, hoping it would help them in the field.

Eventually, she would later teach the same members some advanced concepts relating to this spell, allowing them to improve its effectiveness. She also instructed them how to refine the Reviving Charm they learned from Rosmerta and upon being helped in tending to a student with a painful Quidditch injury, gave them practical advice over pain management to be applied to increase resilience. Regardless, either because she decided not to leave, or because she ended her retirement, she was working at Hogwarts in 2020.

Madam Poppy Pomfrey
Madam Pomfrey was described by her students as being exceptionally kind, but even more so strict. She was very obsessive, lining up her patients' sweet boxes in neat rows, and was intensely worried about all of the students under her care, believing even feasts to be risky.

Working in a school where magical accidents were almost an undeniable certainty, she appeared to have resigned herself to treating whoever came her way. Indeed, she never asked questions about how her patients received their ailments or questioning the sometimes ludicrous stories they told her, but instead immediately set to fixing them up.

She had a tendency to burst into tears at moments where great sorrow was appropriate, but she was capable of controlling herself if need be. She also has her standards and loyalty, as she would have resigned in protest when Minerva McGonagall was shot down by four Stunning Spells from a cowardly Ministry attack, were she not worried for the students.

Poppy juice, better known as opium, is one of the oldest known medicines; it has been used as a painkiller and soporific for, at the very least, thousands of years. King Tutankhamun's tomb contained jars of poppy juice, presumably to relieve the pain he suffered from a head injury. Although it is mostly known today as an addictive drug, opium's derivatives, such as morphine and codeine, are vital to modern medicine for their anaesthetic properties.

Pomfrey sounds like comfrey, a plant in the borage family which can be made into a soothing salve. Meanings of her names are, therefore, both in some way medically related. Pomfrey or Pomfret cakes, named after mediaeval names for the Yorkshire town of Pontefract, once a centre of liquorice cultivation, are small, sweet lozenges made from the roots of the licorice plant. Liquorice also has been a medicinal ingredient for hundreds of years.

More information: Pinterest

The Hospital Wing is a part of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It is run by Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the school's matron.

The students and staff who suffer mishaps and injuries during the school year, are sent or brought to the hospital wing for treatment. Poppy would prefer there be six visitors at one time for one person. There is a room adjacent belonging to the matron.

The hospital wing is well equipped to deal with all kinds of magical and mundane injuries, from broken limbs to regrowing lost bones. Only in the most severe cases are the patients sent to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries for further treatment, such as when Katie Bell touched a cursed Opal Necklace.

Located on the first floor, and later one or two floors up, the hospital wing is where Hogwarts residents go to have their medical needs met. Within the hospital wing are lots and lots of beds with white sheets, privacy screens, and bedpans. The entrance has double doors. Madam Pomfrey’s office is part of the hospital wing complex.

More information: Wizarding World


You should have come straight to me!...
I can mend bones in a second but growing them back.

Madam Poppy Pomprey

ITALY, GIGLIOLA CINQUETTI & 'NON HO L'ETÀ PER AMARTI'

Gigliola Cinquetti
Today, The Watsons continue working in Rennette Watson's candidature to participate in the next Eurovision Song Contest.

The Grandma has offered them a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example and she has been talking to them about Gigliola Cinquetti, the Italian singer who became one of the youngest one to win the Contest in 1964 singing Non ho l'età a beautiful song that was a great hit in the 60's.

Gigliola Cinquetti is one of the singers who have participated twice in Eurovision. She returned in 1974 with the song
but it was the year of ABBA and their Waterloo and came second.

The Grandma wants to remember Gigliola Cinquetti, the artist who represented a country that is able to pass the most terrible of all catastrophes but continue as beautiful and strong as always. Forza Italia!


Gigliola Cinquetti (born 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer and TV presenter.

Cinquetti was born in Verona. At the age of 16 she won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1964 singing Non ho l'età, with music composed by Nicola Salerno and lyrics by Mario Panzeri.

Her win enabled her to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 in Copenhagen with the same song, where she claimed her country's first ever victory in the event.

Cinquetti became the youngest winner of the contest to date, aged 16 years and 92 days. Only one younger artist has triumphed since; Sandra Kim in 1986.

The song became an international success, even spending 17 weeks in the UK Singles Chart and ending the year as the 88th best-selling single in the U.K. in 1964, something highly unusual for Italian-language material. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a platinum disc in August 1964. In 1966, she recorded Dio, come ti amo, which became another international hit.

 More information: Eurovision

In 1974, Cinquetti took part in the Eurovision Song Contest again, this time held in Brighton, Sussex, United Kingdom. Her song was called , which translates as Yes in English, and which became quite controversial in Italy at the time, with a referendum on the legalisation of divorce in the offing, because of the title, and came second to Swedish foursome ABBA with their song Waterloo.

Cinquetti scored a bigger UK hit single, in terms of chart placing, than she had ten years earlier, with an English-language version of , entitled Go (Before You Break My Heart), peaking at No. 8. 

Gigliola Cinquetti winning Eurovision in 1964
According to author and historian, John Kennedy O'Connor's, The Eurovision Song Contest -The Official History, the live telecast of her song was banned in her home country by the Italian national broadcaster RAI, as the event partially coincided with the campaigning for the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce which was held a month later in May.

RAI censored the song because of concerns that the name and lyrics of the song, which constantly repeated the word , could be accused of being a subliminal message and a form of propaganda to influence the Italian voting public to vote Yes in the referendum.

The song remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month.

An English language version of the song, Go (Before You Break My Heart), reached number 8 in the UK Singles Chart in June 1974.

More information: Elegancepedia

One of her other songs, Alle Porte del Sole, released in 1973, was re-recorded in English as Door of the Sun and Italian by Al Martino, two years after its initial release, and reached No. 17 on Billboard's Hot 100 in the United States. Cinquetti's own English version of the song was released as a single by CBS Records in August 1974, with her original 1973 Italian version on the B-side.

Cinquetti went on to co-host the Eurovision Song Contest 1991 with Toto Cutugno, who had brought the event to Italy with his victory in Zagreb the previous year -the country's first win in the contest since her own twenty-six years earlier.

In the 1990s she became a professional journalist and TV presenter, and she currently hosts the current affairs programme Italia Rai on RAI International.

More information: Eurovoix


Lascia che io viva un amore romantico
Nell'attesa che venga quel giorno
Ma ora no.


Leave me to live a romantic love
Waiting for that day to arrive
But not now.

Gigliola Cinquetti

Sunday 29 March 2020

YVAN GOLL, BETWEEN EXPRESSIONISM & SURREALISM

Yvan Goll and his wife Claire Goll
Today, The Grandma has been reading one of her favourite poets Yvan Goll, the Alsasian poet who was born on a day like today in 1891.

The Grandma loves poetry and Yvan Goll is one of the best poets of the last century, a great master who knew Joan Miró and was influenced by Surrealism and Expressionism

She has advised The Watsons to read a lot of poetry, especially French authors, to get inspiration to write a beautiful song that helps Rennette Watson to win the European Song Contest. Rennete has also read Goll's poems.

Yvan Goll (29 March 1891-27 February 1950) was a French-German poet who was bilingual and wrote in both French and German. He had close ties to both German Expressionism and to French Surrealism.

Yvan Goll was born at Sankt Didel, today Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, in Alsace-Lorraine. His father was a cloth merchant from a Jewish family from Rappoltsweiler in Alsace. After his father's death when he was six years old, his mother joined relatives in Metz, then a major town of Lorraine in the 1871 German Empire after 1918 the area was claimed by France.

In this predominantly Lorraine/French-speaking western part of Alsace-Lorraine, high school education inevitably involved German. Later he went to Strasbourg and studied law at the university there, as well as in Freiburg and Munich, where he graduated in 1912.

In 1913, Goll participated in the expressionist movement in Berlin. His first published poem of note, Der Panamakanal, contrasts a tragic view of human civilization destroying nature, with an optimistic ending which evokes human brotherhood and the heroic construction of the canal. However, a later version of the poem from 1918 ends more pessimistically.

More information: Asymptote

At the outbreak of World War I he escaped to Switzerland to avoid conscription, and became friends with the dadaists of Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire, in particular Hans Arp, but also Tristan Tzara and Francis Picabia. He wrote many war poems, the most famous being 1916's Requiem for the Dead of Europe, as well as several plays, including The Immortal One (1918).

It was in 1917, while in Switzerland that Goll met German writer and journalist Klara Aischmann, better known as Claire Goll. They settled in Paris in 1919 and married in 1921.

In his essays, such as Die drei guten Geister Frankreichs, Goll promoted a better understanding between the peoples of France and Germany, even though he was personally more attracted to France by the greater liveliness of the artistic scene there.

Yvan Goll's poems with Joan Miró's drawings
It was in Paris that his Expressionist style began to develop towards Surrealism, as witnessed in drama and film scenarios he wrote there, such as Die Chapliniade and Mathusalem

These works blend fantasy, reality, and the absurd, continuing and extending the Expressionist program of arousing audience response by means of shock effects. They also reveal the autobiographical nature of much of Goll's writing, but also his tendency to appear in the guise of a persona rather than in the first person. 

While in Paris he also worked as a translator into German and into French for Théâtre de l'Œuvre. He formed many friendships with artists and his collection The New Orpheus was illustrated by Georg Grosz, Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger. Marc Chagall illustrated a collection of love poems by both Golls, and Pablo Picasso illustrated Yvan's Élégie d'Ihpetonga suivi des masques de cendre.
 
Goll also published anthologies of other French and German poets, as well as translations. In 1924 he founded the magazine Surréalisme, publishing the first Manifeste du surréalisme and quarreled with André Breton and friends.

In 1927, he wrote the libretto for a surrealist opera, Royal Palace, set to music by composer Kurt Weill. He also wrote the scenario for Der Neue Orpheus, a cantata set by Weill, and the opera Mélusine, set by Marcel Mihalovici in 1920 and again, this time in German, by Aribert Reimann in 1971.

More information: Brooklyn Rail

As Nazi persecution grew in Germany during the 1930s, the theme of the wandering Jew became central to Goll's poetry. In 1936, he published an epic poem entitled La chanson de Jean Sans Terre with illustrations contributed by Marc Chagall.

Jean Sans Terre was the youngest son of Henry II of England; following the battle of Bouvines, John lost the duchy of Normandy to King Philip II of France, which resulted in the collapse of most of the Angevin Empire and contributed to the subsequent growth in power of the Capetian dynasty during the 13th century. The central figure, who wanders the earth in 69 smaller poems, belongs everywhere and nowhere. He looks for love and identity and yet the absence of these things also acts as a kind of freedom.

Yvan Goll's poems
From 1939–1947 the Golls were exiles in New York, where friends included Richard Wright, Stefan Zweig, Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, Piet Mondrian, and William Carlos Williams who translated some of Yvan's poems. Between 1943 and 1946, Goll edited the French-American poetry magazine Hémispheres with works by Saint-John Perse, Césaire, Breton... and young American poets.

In 1945, the year he was diagnosed with leukemia, he wrote Atom Elegy and other death-haunted poems collected in the English language volume Fruit From Saturn (1946).

This poetic language of this final phase in Goll's work is rich in chthonic forces and imagery, the disintegration of matter -inspired by the atomic bomb- alchemy, and the Kabbalah, which Goll was reading at the time. Love Poems, written with his wife Claire, appeared in 1947.

These poems, written in a pure and lucid style, speak of the poets' love and their need of each other, but also of jealousy, fear of betrayal, and a clash of temperaments. Goll's final works were written in German rather than French, and were collected by the poet under the title Traumkraut, a neologism -meaning something like Dream Weed.

Here, in his poetic testament, Goll mastered the synthesis of Expressionism and Surrealism that his work had hinted at most of his life; it was for this reason that he asked his wife to destroy all his previous work. These were eventually edited and brought to publishing by Claire.

Goll died aged 58, at Neuilly-sur-Seine, and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery opposite the grave of Frédéric Chopin.

In 1953 Claire confronted the poet's friend, Paul Celan with the accusation of plagiarism, unjustly claiming that Celan had copied from Yvan Goll's Traumkraut; Celan committed suicide in 1970.

Claire Goll died in 1977, and bequeathed to the town of Saint-Die-des-Vosges several French manuscripts, the couple's library, their works of art and furniture. The set -including a reconstruction of his Parisian apartment - is now on display at the Museum Pierre-Noël.



Breathe slowly you sick ones
At the wounded wall
Birds from ashes settle themselves on your hands
On your fragile fingers
The last day crumbles.

 
 Yvan Goll

Saturday 28 March 2020

THE DURSLEYS VS. THE POTTERS, TYRANNY VS. LOVE

The Dursleys
Although, The Stones & The Grandma are in Hogwarts, they know the whole world is not living its best moments.

It is time of solidarity, help and sacrifice but it is also time to remember who could have done more and did nothing. These bad decisions are having the worst cost, our own lives and our beloved ones.

It is time to stay at home with our families but because of The Stones and The Grandma are in Hogwarts where magic protects them, they want to talk about two important families in the history of this School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, The Dursleys and The Potters.

The Dursley family is a Muggle family, and the only known living close relatives of Harry Potter

Petunia Dursley was the older sister of Harry's mother, Lily Potter, but took the surname Dursley when she married Vernon Dursley. They had a son named Dudley.

Harry Potter's Muggle aunt and uncle met at work. Petunia Evans, forever embittered by the fact that her parents seemed to value her magical sister more than they valued her, left Cokeworth forever to pursue a typing course in London. This led to an office job, where she met the extremely unmagical, opinionated, and materialistic Vernon Dursley.

The Dursleys lived at 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, and often went out of their way to keep their neighbours oblivious to anything odd about their family, usually explaining away anything odd by telling people that Harry was a delinquent who went to a detention school far away. Harry did occasionally update them about Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

More information: Screen Rant

Vernon Dursley is an English Muggle, husband of Petunia Evans, father of Dudley and uncle-in-law of Harry Potter. He used to live at 4 Privet Drive along with his wife and son for nearly twenty years until they were forced into hiding during the escalation of the Second Wizarding War.

Vernon Dursley
After Petunia's sister Lily and brother-in-law, James Potter, were killed by Voldemort in their own home, Petunia remained the sole surviving blood relative of Harry's.

Both Wizard and Muggle law demanded that Petunia and Vernon be the new legal guardians of Harry Potter, which they accepted, albeit reluctantly. However, they disliked Harry and treated him badly, while spoiling and fattening Dudley.

Vernon was an arrogant, surly, combustible, blustering, abrasive, petty-minded man who was completely intolerant of people who were different than himself. Like Petunia, he detested magic and anything unusual or out of the ordinary.

More information: Wizarding World I & II

Petunia Dursley is an English Muggle woman, the elder daughter of Mr. and Mrs Evans and the sister of the Muggle-born witch Lily Potter. During her childhood, she broke off contact with her sister and refused to have any contact with the wizarding world.

She married a Muggle, Vernon Dursley and they had a son, Dudley. However, when Lily was murdered by Voldemort, Petunia became guardian of her nephew, Harry Potter, who was only an infant then.

Petunia Dursley
She neglected and treated him cruelly for the most part, and confined him to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, although she allowed him a room of his own after receiving his acceptance letters to Hogwarts in order to attempt to trick Hogwarts into not sending letters.

Petunia is a nosy, hostile and repressed woman who, like her husband, was fanatically obsessed with appearing normal. Petunia hated and is very much afraid of magic, and, indeed, anything out of the ordinary.

She blindly doted on her son Dudley, but shunned Harry throughout his entire childhood because of his peculiarities. In her spare time, Petunia often spied on her neighbours, and enjoyed gossiping about their often sordid secrets to her husband, and possibly her friends.

Much like the rest of the Dursley family, she was a spiteful bully, who was envious of those who possessed greater talent or ability than herself, particularly against her sister Lily and her nephew Harry.

More information: Wizarding World I & II

Dudley Dursley is the Muggle son of Vernon and Petunia Dursley and cousin of Harry Potter. He was obese and insolent as a result of his parents spoiling him throughout his childhood, although he became muscular in his teens.

Dudley Dursley
He and his gang often tormented Harry, taking after the example set by his parents, as well as other weaker and younger children in their neighborhood and at school.

Dudley was an unpleasant and spoiled child. His parents spoiled him to the point of becoming grossly obese, demanding, selfish, and manipulative, but most of all, extremely ungrateful.

During his eleventh birthday, he screamed when he received one gift fewer than the previous year, making his parents promise to buy him two more, and pretended to cry when he realised Harry would have to come with him for his birthday trip to the zoo.

Dudley had an awful habit of bullying children who were weaker and as much as five years younger than he was, and when he forgot his fear of Harry's powers, callously insulted him in any way possible, even jeering at Harry about his obviously disturbing nightmares.

More information: Wizarding World I & II


Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive,
were proud to say that they were perfectly normal,
thank you very much.
They were the last people you'd expect to be involved
in anything strange or mysterious,
because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

J. K. Rowling



James Potter, also known as Prongs, is an English pure-blood wizard and the only son of Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. He attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was sorted into Gryffindor.

When James started at Hogwarts, he met and became best friends with three fellow Gryffindor students: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. He also met Severus Snape, a Slytherin student with whom he became bitter rivals. During his seventh year, James was appointed Head Boy and began dating Lily Evans.

The Potters
After graduating from Hogwarts, he married Lily and together they had a son, Harry James Potter, of whom he made Sirius Black the godfather. James, Lily, and their friends all fought in the First Wizarding War as members of the Order of the Phoenix; he and his wife defied Lord Voldemort three times.

However, James and Lily were forced to go into hiding after a prophecy was made concerning Voldemort and their infant son. James and Lily were ultimately betrayed to Voldemort by one of their close friends, Peter Pettigrew.

As a result of this, James was tragically murdered by Voldemort on Hallowe'en in 1981, along with his wife while they were trying to protect Harry.

James was a clever and talented wizard, but very mischievous in his youth. He was arrogant and boastful, and occasionally bullied and jinxed other students just for fun, particularly his long-time rival, Severus Snape.

However, even in this stage of arrogance, he still displayed some positive qualities of character. Despite being a pure-blood, he strongly disagreed with the concept of blood purity and was disgusted with any prejudice towards Muggle-borns, and did not hold prejudice towards werewolves, such as Remus Lupin, who was one of his dearest friends.

More information: Screen Rant

Lily J. Potter is an English Muggle-born witch, the younger daughter of Mr and Mrs Evans, and the younger sister of Petunia Evans. She learned of her magical nature as a child, after Severus Snape recognised her as such and told her of the existence of magic.

Lily attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She was Sorted into Gryffindor House and was a member of the Slug Club. In her seventh year she was made Head Girl and began dating James Potter.

After Hogwarts, Lily married James. Along with their friends Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, the couple joined the Order of the Phoenix during the First Wizarding War. 

Lily & James Potter
She and her husband defied Lord Voldemort himself three times. Shortly afterwards, Lily and James had a son, Harry James Potter, of whom they made Sirius the godfather.

However, the family was forced to go into hiding after a prophecy was made concerning Lord Voldemort and their infant son. She and James were betrayed by Pettigrew and thus both were murdered by Voldemort on Hallowe'en night in 1981, while trying to protect their son.

Lily was known for being a vivacious, talented, and popular student. She was a responsible student and leader to be Head Girl in her final year at Hogwarts. Horace Slughorn noted that Lily was witty and charming. Remus Lupin once described her as an uncommonly kind person with a habit of seeing the best in others, even when they could not see it themselves.

Lily was a woman of sound moral principles and would stand by them no matter what it cost her, though her actions sometimes were ineffective. On at least one occasion, she called out James Potter and Sirius Black for their bullying of her best friend, Severus Snape.

When she realised Snape's devotion to Voldemort's genocidal cause, of which she was a target at the time, and increasingly deep fascination with the Dark Arts, caused her to end her friendship with him permanently.

More information: Wizarding World I & II


The Potter family is a very old one, but it was never
(until the birth of Harry James Potter)
at the very forefront of wizarding history,
contenting itself with a solid and comfortable
existence in the backwaters.

J. K. Rowling

Friday 27 March 2020

KATRINA & THE WAVES, 'LOVE SHINE A LIGHT' IN THE UK

Katrina and The Waves
Today, The Watsons are working with Rennette to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. They have created a new Facebook account for Rennette. She has also offered them a Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example to practice.

The Grandma has explained them the history of Katrina and the Waves, a pop British group that was very popular during the 80's and the 90's and winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997 representing the United Kingdom.

Katrina and the Waves were a British-American rock band best known for the 1985 hit Walking on Sunshine. They also won the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Love Shine a Light.

The band's earliest incarnation was as The Waves, a group that played in and around Cambridge, England, from 1975 to 1977 and featured guitarist Kimberley Rew and drummer Alex Cooper. This incarnation of The Waves never issued any recordings, and broke up when Rew left to join the Soft Boys.

A more direct ancestor of Katrina and the Waves was the band Mama's Cookin', a pop cover band hailing from Feltwell, England. This band, founded in 1978, featured American Katrina Leskanich on vocals and keyboards, and her then-boyfriend and fellow American Vince de la Cruz on vocals and lead guitar.


More information: Katrina and The Waves

By late 1980, Alex Cooper had joined the band on drums, with Bob Jakins on bass. Mama's Cookin' proceeded to gig steadily in England over the next two years, specialising in covers of songs by American acts such as Heart, Foreigner, Linda Ronstadt, and ZZ Top.

When The Soft Boys broke up in 1981, Rew contacted his old Wave-mate Cooper to see about renewing their musical partnership. Cooper convinced Rew to join Mama's Cookin', and the five-piece group (Leskanich/Rew/Cooper/de la Cruz/Jakins) was quickly renamed The Waves after the band Rew and Cooper had been in together in the mid-1970s.

The Waves were initially fronted by singer/songwriter/guitarist Rew, who brought a wealth of original material to the band. Leskanich, meanwhile, originally only sang lead vocals on the cover tunes in the band's repertoire. However, over the first year of The Waves' existence, Rew began to write material for Leskanich to sing, and she was soon the primary vocalist.


Katrina and The Waves won Eurovision in 1997
The Waves made their initial recorded appearances on a 1982 single Nightmare/Hey, War Pig!; both tracks were included on the 1982 Rew solo album called The Bible of Bop.

The Waves then issued their debut EP Shock Horror later in 1982. Around this time, bassist Jakins left the band, and de la Cruz took over on bass. Now a quartet, The Waves issued the single Brown Eyed Son in the UK in August 1982 before permanently renaming themselves Katrina and the Waves.

In early 1983, the fledgling band recorded -at their own expense- an LP of their original material designed to be sold at gigs. Rew wrote all the songs on this LP, and Leskanich sang eight of the album's 10 tracks.

The LP was shopped around to various labels, but only Attic Records in Canada responded with an offer. Consequently, although they were based in England, Katrina and The Waves' first album Walking On Sunshine was only released in Canada.

The album garnered enough critical attention and radio play, especially for the title track, to merit a Canadian tour. In 1984, the group released a follow-up album in Canada, Katrina and the Waves 2, with Leskanich now handling all the lead vocals. Rew was still the primary songwriter, but de la Cruz was also responsible for a few songs, including the Canadian airplay hit Mexico.


More information: Getty Images

Also in 1984, their song Going Down to Liverpool was covered by The Bangles, which added to their profile. With the group building a fan base with their recordings and extensive touring, major label interest began to build, and Katrina and the Waves eventually signed an international deal with Capitol Records in 1985.

For the first Capitol album, the band re-recorded, remixed, or overdubbed 10 songs from their earlier Canadian releases to create their self-titled international debut album in 1985.

The Katrina and the Waves album was a substantial critical and commercial success, and the group had a worldwide hit with the song Walking on Sunshine, no. 9 US, no. 8 UK, a completely re-recorded, and substantially rearranged version of the song when compared to its initial 1983 Canada-only release. A Grammy award nomination for Best New Artist followed, as did constant touring, both of which helped to spur moderate sales of new releases.


Katrina and The Waves won Eurovision in 1997
A follow-up single to Walking on Sunshine called Do You Want Crying, written by de la Cruz, also became a top 40 US hit, reaching no. 37 in the late summer of 1985.

However, the band's follow-up album to Katrina and the Waves, simply entitled Waves, did not meet with the same measure of success, either critically or commercially. Rew wrote only two of the 10 songs on the LP; de la Cruz and Leskanich each wrote four. Drummer Cooper, interviewed some years later, claimed It was (a) mistake when we started taking over from Kimberley in the musical contribution side. The second Capitol album was awful.

The album did spin off a minor UK and US hit in the form of the Rew-penned Is That It? no. 70 US, no. 82 UK, and Sun Street -a de la Cruz composition- was a UK top 30 hit in 1986. However, Capitol dropped the band after The Waves album.

The band subsequently recorded a 1989 album for Capitol-distributed SBK Records called Break of Hearts, a harder, more rock-oriented effort than their previous releases. The album included That's the Way which reached no. 16 in the US, credited to Leskanich/Rew, but subsequent singles, including Rock 'n' Roll Girl, failed to chart, and the band once again were dropped from their label.


More information: The Guardian

Throughout the 1990s, Katrina and the Waves recorded fairly steadily, though most releases were available only in continental Europe and/or Canada, and they issued no charting singles. They also recorded the song We Gotta Get Out of This Place with Eric Burdon for the TV series China Beach in 1990.

By the late 1990s, however, the band had all but disappeared -until they surprisingly, if briefly, surged back into the limelight by winning the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom on 3 May 1997 with the song Love Shine a Light. The song won by a then-record margin of 70 points over the Irish runner-up.

Love Shine a Light became Katrina and the Waves' biggest-ever UK hit, peaking at no. 3 in the UK Singles Chart.

Despite their return to the public eye in the UK, Katrina and the Waves were not able to follow up Love Shine a Light with another hit, and Leskanich left the group in 1998 after several disagreements within the band. Legal wrangling followed, preventing Leskanich from using the band name. Though attempts were made by The Waves to find a new Katrina to front the group, the three remaining group members eventually dissolved the band to pursue individual careers in 1999.



Love shine a light in every corner of my dream
Let the love light carry, let the love light carry
Like the mighty river flowing from the stream
Let our love shine a light in every comer of our dreams.

 Katrina and The Waves