broom Breaking News
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It is this time of the year again: Candles on the cake, presents in packs and
wishes in waiting. We work towards our welcome visit of the second celebration
of our creation two summers ago. One more month must be managed before our birthday brings a beaming party. We are happy to have helped ourselves to a habitat in your hearts and therefore thanking you tenderly and kissing your cousins we take a twig, ah, sorry, bow. |
Of course we offer to open new orbits to you with each edition of this
educational earthquake. Another of course comes in the costume of you contacting
us to note news and needed notices. A third of course is to keep up our
connection to our correspondents. As you see in a century when nothing is
certain we shall certainly save sincerity and help honesty to a higher height.
Thank you for your faith. (ALL) |
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(London) Ever since the alarming
arrest of charismatic Circe, the savage sorceress has been held hostage in a
tiny cell down in the coolest corridor of the Ministry for Magic. Afraid of attacks, the mean Ministry minions decided to do an unusual thing and hew a hole into the wide wall of Circe’s cell. By that, the whole Wizengamot was able to watch the wild |
witch but be protected from her
suave spells. The testing trial took only three days, then Circe was banned
from Britain for life. Rumours have it she immediately retired to an ill-fated
island before the coast of Greece. Valiant voyagers are requested to keep well away from the rare rocks. (ALL) |
Bavarian Bear Breaks Boredom
| (Germany) A brown bear beats the
Bavarian pleasemen, soldiers and citizens. It apparently attacked various wild
animals, but also some dull domestic ones. Since the brutal bear is the fantastic first specimen seen on German soil for centuries, people probably panic and get paralyzed. Which, in easily encountering a brown bear, is the most reasonable reaction. However, the bear brutally ripped |
some sheep savagely – as brown bears do. The bedevilled
Bavarians now scream for shooting the beastly bear. broom urges you to call
out against this senseless brutality. Horrid Hubert the Savage Sheep-Ripping
Rogue could easily be Cute Cuthbert the Cuddly Teddy Bear. Save the Bavarian
brown bear’s loveable life! Resistance Rocks! (ALL) |
Muggles, You Got Us Wrong!
| (The Wizarding World Being Mixed up with the Muggle World) Yes, of course we did say: Do something against those in power. However, we did not talk about your Muggle Prime Minister. Actually we were referring to our magical Minister Rufus Scrimgeour. You might want to remember that we did write: Let’s make Minister Scrimgeour the sole ass of |
the nation. Of course we are happy to learn how much influence our own monthly has, however, it would feel much better if you had used your power on the person we actually – well, let’s say featured. Now, we are obviously not the once to judge the behaviour – private or political – of Muggle politicians. We would therefore |
never dare to tell you where you can put them. Anyway, now that the damage is done there is nothing we can do. In fact, there is one thing we can do: We can hope that now that the rehearsal was a tremendous success the premiere will knock our Minister out of his shoes! Resistance Rocks. (MF) |
A Nice Unparticular Man
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(Somewhere, surely) It’s the brave who reside at broom headquarters and so it
will come as no surprise that these brave set out to do an interview with the
famous Thomas Hardy. broom: Mr. Hardy, you’re one of the most famous people we interviewed here at broom; how do you feel about it? TH: In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, and the roof-lamp’s oily flame played down on his listless form and face, bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, or whence he came. broom: Yes, …mmh, you didn’t give many interviews in the past and we heard the rumour that you don’t like to be interviewed. Why is that so? TH: All my shining keys will be taken from me and my cupboards opened and things I didn’t wish seen anybody will see; and my little wishes and ways will all be as nothing. broom: Oh no, that will not happen with us! We appreciate our guests we really do. And we do try to see them the way they see themselves…er…how do you see yourself? |
TH: A nice unparticular man. broom: Don’t you think you should sing your own song a little bit louder? TH: So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound was written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around. broom: But love would certainly be a cause for carolings… TH: Smile out; but still suffer: The paths of love are rougher than thoroughfares of stones. broom: If you say so…but what would be according to your opinion be a cause for songs? TH: Life’s little ironies. broom: Yes, we here at broom are able to whistle the tune for that! Talking about ourselves, how do you feel in our office? TH: As if it was Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. broom: Well, we shall take this as a compliment…You’re a writer and so do we claim to be what does writing mean to you? TH: It’s the imminent will that stirs and urges everything. broom: Which question is torturing |
you most? TH: When the present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, and the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, ‘He was a man who used to notice such things?’. broom: Well, obviously he was. It is a fact that you have long been dead…how comes you’re still around to grant us interviews? TH: I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on, projecting trait and trace through time to times anon, and leaping from place to place over oblivion. broom: That explains a lot. As we come to the end of our interview, is there anything you want to say to our readers to improve their lives? TH: Who holds that if way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst. As always we would like to thank our interviewee and of course our main source of information The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations. |
broom's Best Bad Boy Board
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We left our poor hero in the midst of a nervous breakdown during preparing
for his N.E.W.T.s, and we are sure you are dying to get to know if he really
ever passed the exams. Well, we did check the old school records, having bribed
Argus Filch to get into the cabinet where the records are kept, and we found out
astonishing things. First and foremost, Hunter Preston actually did only four N.E.W.T.s. That’s poor even by the average Hufflepuff standard (sorry, we checked the files for that, as well). Not surprisingly, he got them in Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, and History of Magic. Now as venerable as those subjects generally are – and make no mistake, it’s hard work even getting N.E.W.T.s in them – they are not much use in finding a job afterwards. It seems that the teachers themselves persuaded Hunter to give up certain subjects such as Potions and Transfiguration. We checked the record on that, and we nearly fell off our chairs for laughing. In Potions, Hunter suffered nervous fits and twitches every time he got near a cauldron. That led to dangerous overdoses of some ingredients and the casual spilling of acid on the floor, burning a hole into the stone paving. Professor Slughorn was less than pleased. He noticed that the fits occurred most often when Severus Snape was close, but could never prove that there actually was a link. We ourselves are certain there was no link but that of a deluded mind. Surely Snape would never have stooped so low as to threaten and bully a Hufflepuff when there |
were much more worthwhile objects in the person of Gryffindor students around. In Transfiguration, Preston’s wand seems to have gotten the better of him. True, he could do the spells, but he rarely hit the object intended to be hit. He himself seemed lost for an explanation, but it led to Professor McGonagall asking him to step back from doing any exam for fear he might turn the examiners into hedgehogs or armadillos accidentally. So Preston ended up doing subjects that were no use for him in joining the Ministry. This was a major drawback for him personally and for the hopes of his family and friends. Everyone, including Hunter, hoped he would be able to start a career as an Auror. It would have been a first-class asset for Voldemort to have an Auror reporting all the details of raids to him. But that was shattered by young Hunter’s failure. It is to be considered whether it was a deliberate failure or if he was tricked into it. No, we are not suspecting Snape. Quite the contrary, we think he might have been genuinely interested in helping the Dark Lord to get what was necessary. The other side was much more likely to have conspired at failing Preston, and bear in mind that Lily Evans and James Potter were quite up to fooling Hunter Preston. Let’s leave it at that, but it worked admirably. No Auror for Voldemort. What happened instead and how Preston fared will be featured in the next edition of your favourite magazine! (BC&MF) |
How Mike and Brian Lost Their Job
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We thought you, our favourite readers, would love to get to know why we, your
favourite editors, ever left the Daily Profit to found broom, your most
favourite magical magazine. Well, it is a somewhat lengthy tale, and over the
years, some things have blurred. So we came up with three different accounts
that basically dealt with the same tragic incidence. Three? Yes, three. One is
by our headprinter Geronimo who was chucked out simultaneously with us. You will
be given all stories and then you might be able to find out the truth. Or not. Version I: Mike It was on a particularly nasty autumn day when Brian and me got the task to investigate if Dumbledore was really building up his own army as the Ministry feared. In the course of the investigation we were also to disgrace Hogwarts as much as possible. Seeing that we were former Hogwarts students this was possibly not the wisest decision. Rumours were whispered all over the Daily Prophet that this job was just the stepping stone to losing our job. Naturally, neither Brian nor I believed it. Confident in our journalistic abilities we set out and found that there was a wall of silence around Hogwarts. There were rumours flying out and about, and there was the occasional slip of tongue by some teacher shopping in Hogsmeade, but never enough to write a well-founded article. So we changed tactics. We had never quite believed that Dumbledore was plotting to overthrow the Ministry. Why should he? Proofs were such as he was practically Minister for Magic, if not for the title. Fudge relied on Dumbledore’s advise without thinking twice. At least he had done until Dumbledore began to proclaim Voldemort was alive again. Now that was a story worth of pursuing – why was Dumbledore suddenly shunned and loathed? And we did what we could, and came to the foundations of a huge conspiracy to overthrow not the Ministry but – Hogwarts. We felt compelled by old loyalties to write a brilliant, accusing |
article that – had it but been published – caused a public outcry and perhaps
the demand for elections for a new Minister who was not corrupted and scared by
his own shadow. Needless to say, it was never printed. Instead, the day after we had delivered our masterpiece to the editor-in-chief, we were summoned to his office and were told that the Daily Prophet had no work for revolutionaries. We should get out at once, take all our stuff with us and never come back. Which we did. Making true our dream of having our own newspaper, we hired premises in Hogsmeade. Among the stuff we took from the Prophet was Geronimo who has been working with us since then. And by now – hey, we even can pay our rent! Version II: Brian It all happened on a brilliantly sunny summer’s day, but the weather was only fine to mock our mood. We had toiled for weeks to find out about something fishy at the Ministry to do with gold and Fudge – and fudge it, we never got the thing printed! But to the beginnings. Although everybody declared that we would lose our jobs if we followed the task, we ignored all the warnings. Perhaps we wanted to ignore them. After all, working for the Prophet was not really that much fun since you were not at all allowed to write what you thought was good. Especially in my articles the editor-in-chief always found fault. Too much fault for me, but I hoped to hit the big one one day. So this was my big chance to make the front page. Unfortunately our research led Mike and me to the exactly reverse outcome that the Prophet had anticipated. Chucks. We decided to go ahead nevertheless and wrote the article. Boy, that was a masterpiece if ever I saw one! But did the editor-in-chief recognise our genius? No. He told us to pack our bags and pocket everything we might need to start our own magazine (well, that weren’t perhaps his true words, but we interpreted them freely). We did as we were told, closed the door behind us and |
went back to Hogsmeade where we rented some premises, started broom
and lived
happily ever after. Version III: Geronimo Actually I do not remember if it even was a day or a night. As an overworked printer you tend to forget about hours. It’s easier to trudge on without knowing if it’s light or dark outside. Anyway, all of a sudden I was wrenched from the table where I had spent most of my life, and I was pocketed after being shrunk! Can you imagine anything more embarrassing? Well, I can’t, and I’m a decent printer, yes, sir. It turned out that the article I last printed was considered a call for revolution. To tell the truth, I did have some qualms about printing such obviously dangerous stuff, but then, printers at the Daily Prophet don’t have democratic rights. So there was the tiny chance that a new election and a new minister could help us poor printers to get the attention we deserve. Apart from missing my old office extremely, I was suddenly part of a renegade magazine called broom, and seemingly stupid. As were my new bosses, the ones who wrote the article. Since printers at work can’t help overhearing many things, I could have told them a thousand times that their jobs were already cracking ever since their cheek to do a different report from that of our star Rita Skeeter about the Triwizard Tournament. A child would have known that offending Rita was the fastest road to unemployment. They wouldn’t want to listen, and now we’re in a shabby apartment in Hogsmeade, that smells of dirt and where insects are swarming. That might be because there are actually trees growing in here. It is disgusting, disgracing and embarrassing. So please, fellow printers of the world, rescue me! We hope you found this piece enlightening, and should you not believe it – ask Rita Skeeter, she was the driving force behind our dismissal. Cheers, Rita! (BC&MF) |
Crossword
| 1 | 2 | IX | |||||||||||||||
| 3 | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | |||||||||||||||||
| 5 | X | II | 6 VI | ||||||||||||||
| 7 | VIII | ||||||||||||||||
| IV | |||||||||||||||||
| 8 | III | XI | |||||||||||||||
| 9 | VII | 10 | V | ||||||||||||||
| 11 | I | ||||||||||||||||
Across
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Down
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The looked for phrase:
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____, ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____? I II I III IV V VI VII VIII II VIII IX VII X VII XI V IX
Another Test
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As tests seem to be a very common part
of various magazines, we here at broom decided that it was about high time for
us to light up your lives with another one of our wonderful tests. Find out what
sort of person you are, if you are going to be lucky in love and what the
weather will be like tomorrow.
1 My favourite drink is… a …sunshine b …Robin Hood c …green 2 When I’m late I always say… a …Pride and Prejudice b …ice cream c …table 3 I like people who… a …eat b …walk c …swim |
4 If my house ever burns down, the
reason is…
a …Toulouse Lautrec b …TV advertisement c …rain 5 I need books for… a …dancing b …the niece of my neighbour c …peace 6 I do these tests because of… a …broom b …ruins c …calendars 7 This test is stupid because… a …all the answers are mixed up b …I don’t get the point c …I don’t want to know what the weather will be like Now award yourself for each question you answered one point. Award |
yourself another point for each b. If you chose
the answer c, award yourself another two points each.
7 points:
You are a person who chooses the first possibility. You are very likely to live
with your first love for the rest of your life – if you like it or not. 8-20 points:
You tend to be more careful with your choices. Your answers vary and it is not
easy for you to stick to one thing. |