"Can I Still Read Harry Potter?" BBC R4 Thursday 12th November 2020

Or green dresses under overcoats. Let's do it

I would go on a Strike-themed pub crawl in a heartbeat! I would go dressed like Robin in my dreams

I do wonder who commissioned this.

I'm imagining a world where people make announcements in newspapers that they are no longer reading an author because of the author's views, in the manner of births, deaths and marriages.

David Sirloin, (they/them), Cambridge alumni, regrets to announce that due to the unacceptable public expression of the author JK Rowling, they will no longer be reading the Strike series. Family flowers only please. Donations can be made to [email protected]

seriously though! as far as I'm aware reading HP, Strike or any JKR work is not required by law. People do not have to read her books or watch any films or TV series based on her work.

it's a bit like having a real life version of the internet flounce. you dont want to read the books? fine but there's no need to have some massive flounce where you tell people that no you are definitely not reading the books ever again, listing all the reasons why you're not and then returning to tell us repeatedly that you NOT reading the books when 99% of people couldnt give a stuff

(Not sure about the actual dressing up, but I do quite fancy a Strike-themed pub crawl around Soho.)

I am, however, totally up for this. As a wink to cosplay, we could all wear green dresses or overcoats. That'd work.

If JKR didn't agree with me on everything, and actually expressed those views, I would obviously have an existential crisis, because it's not cosplay, it's helped me come to terms with my true identity as a big burly Cornishman. Never mind that I was Assigned Black Country at birth. She is allowed her views, but she should definitely keep them quiet for the sake of those of us who still haven't pulled a supermodel.

I also want to see Einstein in a clown outfit. But that’s because I’m not terribly, terribly serious and learned like Aja. Lighten up, Aja! Read the books, do your cosplay and let Jo have her terrible heretic thoughts. It’s all fine.

But if the private views of JRK wouldn't affirm you in your Doom Bar drinking, overcoat wearing, pack-a-day cigarette smoking ways, surely your PI cosplay world would come tumbling down. Don't you know other people, especially famous female authors, exist only to give your universe meaning?

(Not sure about the actual dressing up, but I do quite fancy a Strike-themed pub crawl around Soho.)

Well, quite. If I like something, I throw myself into it with enthusiasm, because I'm just that sort of person. But if I were to invest in Strike to the point of jacking in my job to become a private investigator and adopt a Cornish accent, a heavy drinking Doom Bar habit and a bulky overcoat and a limp, I would clearly have lost my grip on normality and I think the private views of Jo Rowling would be the least of my personal dilemmas.

However, should JK Rowling swivel 180 degrees and sign up to TWAW, I would still read the books, because I am an adult who recognises that it is possible to exist, interact with and indeed thrive in a world with other beliefs than my own.

I really don't understand why this is so hard.

It's insulting, from the title alone, and I'm not going to spend a minute listening to the bigotry and drivel it is so proud to herald. Never read a Potter or any book by Rowling and have been a longtime listener to Radio 4 with the radio permanently tuned to it but there's more and more noise in the programmes and less and less I listen to. I tried Times Radio but lasted10 minutes. It sounded like a phone-in / typical 'talk radio' which I dislike. That's hardly a fair trial, I know!

JKR wrote a series of books aimed at a readership of children. I am pretty sure she didn’t factor in the needs of dysfunctional adult snowflakes feeling sad and unloved because she didn’t think of including a cohort of trans wizards.

Yes Gibbons, according to the Twitter bio it's they/she.
What?? . It gets more ridiculous by the day 🤯
How can you insist on they whilst simultaneously accepting she?
Am I missing something obvious or is this as dumb and attention seeking as it looks?

I'm not sure that I can. Don't forget unecessary characterisation of women's rights group as t*phobic hate groups for 'balance'.

That got to me.

Have they stopped hounding people that don't pay their licence quite so enthusiatically now? We had a pretty much derelict house being renovated (no floors, walls, dodgy roof etc) and despite me calling them regularly to say that there wasn't even any electricity in the house, let alone BBC I had countless threats of debt collectors etc.

Harry Potter is an entertaining read for kids but hardly something to devote your life to. The fact the presenter is an obsessive fan says something about her maturity to start with. JK Rowling is entitled to her own opinions, regardless of what the people who read her books think!!

I like the 'dismay' expressed by the man interviewed and his reference to 'childish' and 'churlish.'

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena.

I suspect the confounding variable is autism.

Confession time. I've only read the first Harry Potter and have no plans to continue or return to it.

The Strike series, on the other hand, is an obsessive pleasure, and I can confirm that the most recent book is indeed transphobic because it doesn't manifest in the form of a tedious apologetic lecture focusing on the vital importance of pronouns to mental health. It's simply a rollicking good story that doesn't reference trans anything, and instead involves people being interesting. As I understand it, that will definitely put it in the bracket of transphobic AF, along with men wearing skirts and eyeliner and saying women menstruate.

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena

I was only half listening, as dh was in the kitchen talking at me about Things, but I think at one point the presenter described her/themself as 'a non binary person who also wants to be a wizard' or something like that (I should listen again...) The second half of that statement goes a long way to explaining the first, in terms of this person's maturity and grasp on reality.

" A generation who's critical thinking and scrunity are routinised" . Unbelievable. Very dissapointing, BBC Radio 4 ! In fact BBC in general, where is the balanced coverage of this debate. Where are the actual critical thinkers.

Can I still pay my licence fee and love the BBC and it’s ethos of public service broadcasting when I know that it’s being dominated by old fashioned sexists and men’s sexual entitlement campaigners..?

The childishness of the whole thing was overwhelming.

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena.

Every so often, I fall over Twitter threads where people are talking about how much they are dreading puberty

Given the cess pit that is Twitter, it is concerning prepubescent children are even on there.

One of the problems I’ve read with puberty drugs is the possible loss of sexual development, but maybe that’s not a bug, it’s a feature because the same group seem to see that sort of thing as icky

Children usually find sex icky, that is a good thing, they are supposed to. Children not thinking sex is icky is a red flag.