The U-Bend #1: Introducing The Players
by Andrew Lee and Robert Lanto
“Welcome! Welcome to the new year at Hogwarts!”-Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)
Welcome to our new column on MuggleNet: The U-Bend! The U-Bend will be your home for reading our take on Harry Potter in the form of articles. Well, that and the occasional rambling story, but mostly articles. Now why is this column called the U-Bend? It is named in honor of Moaning Myrtles favorite toilet hideaway: the U-bend. And just like a U-Bend expect to see many twists and turns in our pieces.
Sometimes the articles will be written seriously, other times we’ll let loose and write witty and interesting stuff. You can always expect our usual twists and turns in analyzing parts of J.K. Rowling‘s world though. The essays will be about anything Harry Potter related: the characters in the books, their relationships, why Cedric was the man, movie hopes and rants, why potions is better than divination, anything you can think of! Well, except, we’ll try and not write anything offensive (we have to keep some semblance of order around here after all were not Slytherins). Otherwise, we’ll be pretty open about what we write. We plan to have an article up every 2 weeks (unless something interesting happens) along with our attempts at writing for The Burrow.
Of course, we like to make a good impression with the neighboring columns, so here’s a little info about the both of us. We both come from frostbitten and overly cold Quebec, Canada. We have been friends for a long time and both got interested in Harry Potter around the time the Philosophers Stone movie was coming out. We are writing these articles mostly for our enjoyment, but to also be recognized. Its our long term goal to work on a Potter film possibly as a behind the scenes correspondents (so if anyone from Warner Brothers is reading this: please contact us immediately!). Otherwise, its just something we do for fun, although Robert has expressed interest in getting one of those Lamppost cutouts used to advertise Prisoner of Azkaban.
On a more serious note, we really do enjoy writing the articles (well most of the time), and if youve read any of our past articles you know what to expect. For those who havent, FOR SHAME!! Anyways, we try to get people thinking about the little things in the books. We’ve said that Harry could turn to Billywigs, pondered whether Cho was a no, if Victor Krum has a dark secret and we’ve also written a letter supporting the Save Goblet of Fire Campaign. So we try to cover all our bases.
So as we get settled in our new home, remember that we do enjoy receiving your emails. We get so lonely otherwise. You can mail Andrew (aleen634@hotmail.com) or Robert (gr8guy@videotron.ca) with comments, criticism or general ideas youd like to see us talk about (trust us, we run out of ideas from time to time). Wed like to thank you for reading this and hope youll enjoy your time here as much as we enjoy it.