Donate £10 to Lumos and have dinner with JKR

[fromorbit]

JKR has made a very generous offer on Twitter:

J.K. Rowling
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1929113511004664078

I mean this, by the way. Donate £10 to lumos, I'll draw three names out of a hat and we'll have dinner. It could be KFC, but the wonderful JamesChiavarini has just suggested his restaurant, so it might be there instead (travel and accommodation on me if you're not in London).

Offer stands! Applications close at midnight on Monday. A £10 donation means your name will go into the draw.

https://wearelumos.org/how-you-can-help/donate/

If your name’s chosen and you’re outside London (or the UK) I’ll pay for travel and accommodation.

Once donations have been verified with Lumos I’ll select three donors’ names at random (can’t promise a literal hat, but who knows).

I’ll match the total sum donated to Lumos between first offer and midnight Monday.

And once my three fellow diners have been chosen, we’ll have a vote on whether we’re having KFC or going to Il Portico.

Additional offer from John Boyne:

John Boyne

£10 donated to Lumos. Whoever has the good fortune to win the raffle and have dinner with you, I'll donate £1,000 to the charity of his or her choosing.

This was inspired by JKR's ongoing twitter spat with Jolyon:

I've never sought to auction dinner with myself at a Michelin-starred restaurant with ‘a selection of wines from [my] own cellar’ as you have, Jolyon, but if anyone wants to bung Lumos £10, I'll draw a name out of a hat and we'll split a KFC bargain bucket.

Everything is not about you, boo.

About how trans women are getting jobs in hydraulic engineering in arid landscapes instead of biological women and about how Rowling's money could be used to sue employers to put a stop to this, as well as suing over the public display of pride flags in pride month too?

Every word of that dinner conversation that comes out of Rowling can be 100% predicted.

Chris, have a day off.

About how trans women are getting jobs in hydraulic engineering in arid landscapes instead of biological women

TBF there do seem to be rather a lot of transwomen in engineering. But who is moaning about that particular issue? I wouldn’t.
I am concerned that men are identifying as and accommodated as women in secure psychiatric facilities, but that would be uncomfortable conversation at the dinner table and I expect they’d avoid it.

Chris, you aren’t nearly interesting enough to be the topic of our conversation when we socialise. Get over yourself.

Oh I missed it. What a wonderful opportunity. Hope whoever gets it has a fabulous time 🥰

Males. Males invading female spaces. No one cares if these males are 'trans' or not.

You seem utterly obsessed with trans women. I wonder why that is?

Maybe, just maybe, the world doesn’t revolve around you, Copernicus.
There are 101 things we’d love to talk to her about before we get to ‘trans women’.

JKR would probably want to find out something about her guests - so unless any of them turn out to be raging TRAs the conversation might well cover quite a wide range of topics. I think I'd like to know who her financial advisors are, if she didnt mind sharing the information 😁And of course would have to find out her favourite biscuit, does she like Tunnocks and if she watched Angel which bloke was her favourite.

What would we talk about? What a great question!

I would imagine a brief flirt with ‘spells you’d include if you wrote a book’ and spells you wish were real. Then creatures that may or may not live in isolated corners of the forested world, and how big a spider can be and still be cute.

And whatever specialist information the guests might share about their lives. Likely to be a wide range of people, possibly from across the world, with all sorts of interesting backstories.

And perhaps a bit of brief fangirling about working with Helena Bonham Carter and Dame Maggie Smith. But there lies dangerous territory so perhaps not.

Go on then. State exactly what you pre-judge she will say.

We could use a reminder about how the people who love to hate women haven't actually understood what it is the women are saying, and just go off on their tedious flights of fantasy about all the bad and wrong things they surely think so they can pretend they're justified in their hatred.

I'm pretty sure the deadline is end of day tomorrow so I don't think it's too late for you to join in.

I would ask her who does her research for her the Strike books or whether she herself is out and about in cognito

I’d like to ask about her fascination for Canning Town, as i’m from that neck of the woods. There are several characters that who live there.
I’ll gladly take her on a tour, and show her the sights and smells of Canning Town.

There you go, you’ve still got time to enter the draw and then you can ask her.

I’d be interested in her research for the Parish Council murder she wrote. Can’t remember what it was called- should probably read it again.

Casual vacancy.

I would be rather interested in the hydraulic engineering, but I'd prefer to talk about her books.J ust no karaoke.

I once met a columnist for the Guardian (decades before the editors lost their collective minds). I was completely tongue-tied. So I probably won't talk much.

Edit: typos

Yes, that’s the worry. Tongue tied. Or wittering. Obviously it’s unlikely to be a problem as the odds are low, still…

Believe it or not every now and then I like to take a break from the TV and Internet for a few days, just so I don't have to hear or read about trans people. It's incessant!
I'd be quite happy to spend the evening just listening to my dinner companions or talking about travel and gardening

Hey, we can dream @myplace!

I met Sophie Kinsella a few years ago and just grinned at her like an idiot. I could cover up my inane wittering when I met Julia Donaldson by making it about the children. Not sure how I'll cope with JKR. Although, as you say, unlikely to win.

JKR has dinner with six individuals from across the globe (and who knows may include a trans person or two) all with very diff wet ent lives and life experience, and apparently all they will find to talk about are trans women?

Good lord, do get over yourself

Trans people??

Why in the world would I wish to talk about other people in the presence of our queen?

No! It would be the perfect opportunity to show JKR my Croc collection and tell her in minute detail how I came to own each and every pair.

Seriously! Talk about other people? As if!