broom Breaking News

Tall Tulips Try Temperatures

(The World, generally) Sweet spring sees fit to find its wary way into the white winter world. Its first elusive envoys erect their hopeful heads from the fiercely frozen earth.
Tall thriving tulips tilt their tiny green tips into the arctic air, hoping for some sunshine and warmer weather. Sweet snowdrops sneak out from under severe snow, making their green-and-white promise for potential relief from the cold climate which has had the weary world in its gruesome grip for 		far too long. Wizards and Muggles alike are happy to have tall tulips testing the temperature to try and talk about spring really coming.
Additionally to the brave plants prying out of snowy soil, the wild geese are returning from their resting places in the south. This is a sure sign for the coming of warmer weeks! So watch out for the envoys of sweet spring and let us hope for green buds and sunshine. (ALL)

Frequent Fires Famously Find Fair Fire Brigades

A famous fact was finally found: Frequent fires ferociously fail to find favourite firemen. A few fires fairly follow the familiar faculty of fine firemen. Fashionable fires fatally feed from far away funny farms. Furious firemen fearlessly fence felt fires. Faint fires finally finish their fiery flames.
Fit fires flawlessly find first-rank firs. Flabbergasted foresters flexibly flee the flocking fires. Flourishing flora and fluctuating fauna flutteringly fly or foolishly forfeit. Former firemen frankly 		forget to finally forswear to freely fight the fragile fires. Frayed fires freshly frame the frustrated fuchsias. Funny fug fully fills the fundamental fog. Furthermore, future fuses are funkily found in fuelled fabric. Fagged-out feathers feebly feed fat flames. Fallow deer and fancy fawns fanatically fan further fires. Farsighted farm land fast falls victims to favourable fires. Fed-up fellow firemen finally find this fervently frustrating and refuse to firmly fight the fiery fiend.

 

As-Salamu Alaykum – Aleichem Shalom

(The World) While broom vividly called for another peace movement in last month’s edition, people all over the world went on fighting as if nothing had happened. Therefore, we here at broom do feel the need to continue our cry for peace this month.
Isn’t it striking that people all around the world are hoping, asking and praying for peace and still nothing seems to be powerful enough to stop any of the countless wars. Some peoples are so deeply connected to their hope for peace that they even use this wish as a greeting.
In the UK we run around bestowing wishes of a good day or at least parts of the day on our fellow creatures. Other peoples are much kinder than us: “Peace be upon you” and its corresponding answer “Upon you be peace” are exchanged daily in other parts of this world.
We here at broom think that this is the perfect thing to wish anybody and we are even ready to greet the next Death Eater we met with these words. In fact, we liked it so much that we did some research about these phrases.
Actually, we stumbled across these expressions by coincidence. We were watching a detective story when someone in the movie said “Shalom Aleichem”. As people of the world we did know the meaning of the word “shalom” which neatly translates into “peace”.
However, this “aleichem” was completely unknown to us. Still, the wish to feature the word “shalom” alongside with our new motto had already grown so strong that we did take the effort to find out all about this “aleichem”.
“Shalom Aleichem” – you will not be surprised to learn this can be translated with “peace be upon you”. Should you ever be addressed in this way, the right answer is “Aleichem Shalom” which you will already have guessed means the same as “upon

you be peace”.
Now, this alone is a nice thing to be featured under the new motto. And still, we did find out some more which we do not intend to keep from you. “Shalom Aleichem” is a Hebrew greeting as it is used by the people in Israel, for example. However, they are not the only ones to greet with this wish.
“As-Salamu Alaykum” and the correct reply “Wa ‘Alaykum As-Salam” pop up as soon as you’re trying to find out something about “shalom”. There’s almost no need to translate either of these as they again mean: “peace be upon you” and “upon you be peace”.
Looking at these four written down on a piece of parchment they even look alike, though, these last two are Arabic and not Hebrew. Diving a little deeper into the history of language you will soon discover that this is not a coincidence but due to the fact that Hebrew and Arabic are related to each other. They are sort of brother and sister languages.
These wishes are spoken many times a day by all sorts of people no matter what their social status or position in life are. And we do assume that they really mean what they’re saying.
Interestingly enough, we have two people united by one wish for peace for their fellow men and at the same time we have two people divided by the waging of war on their fellow men. As war itself is a thing our little minds cannot grab, war between people who wish  for peace for their fellow men is as an MCA in our brains which causes our systems to go completely blank and crash.
But be that as it may – for we are not the ones to judge. We would like to join in in all their wishes for peace and remind them that they are the ones to create peace. We know that you can do it: “Wa ‘Alaykum As-Salam” “Aleichem Shalom”. Peace protests! (All)

broom-e-gram
February 1 This is a short month, as we keep telling ourselves. It's also the month of carnival. We decided to really let our hair down this year, what with the crises coming closer and closer - we need some celebrations before the world goes down.
February 10 Hengist Alret, our good friend and Muggle-expert, told us that to really celebrate carnival we had to dress up. When we asked as what Muggles dress up, we were told they love being witches and wizards. Odd!!!
February 12 We debated if we should go to Madam Malkin's and have some cloaks made like Muggles imagine wizards' clothes. But then, we have no idea what Muggles think we wear. We need a book of fairy tales!
February 15 One of the crises arrived at our house: Our larder is suspiciously empty for we forgot to go shopping. BIG CRISIS!!!
February 18 Having solved the crisis at hand we feel fairlycertain we can tackle even the nation's economical crisis. Well, solving our own economical crisis does qualify us well. Looking at some politicians with nothing but a long and noble		     pedigree to recommend them, we feel we are much better suited for the job.
February 19 Believe it or not but this day saw Ramon Vargas at the Vienna Opera Ball with his wife! And he wasn't only there for fun. He was part of the opening act and sang two opera songs. Unbelievable!
February 22 We dressed up as cowboys. And it was fun, too. Okay, it was also embarrassing, but there you go. Carnival is for making a fool of oneself. As are politics. Can you believe this one? Help from the state is only used for buying booze and fags. Nonsense! Kids are fed with it. This can only be said by someone who has never faced an empty larder himself.
February 26 Two days to go and broom is already done. Most probably this won't happen again this year. It's never happened before, anyway. Carnival really gave us a morale boost and so we managed to have fun, recreate and rally our spirits. Crises may come, but they won't take away our sense of humour. Nor yours. So cheer up and square your shoulders and tell the crises to go and f*** off.

 

Onomastics - What Names Reveal

(Hogsmeade) Everyone knows that Shakespeare's question "What's in a name?" is not a rhetorical one. Names reveal quite a lot, and sometimes more than their bearers can bear. Brian Cullen met Columban Pidgeon, a world-famous expert on onomastics, which is the art of deciphering names. BC: Columban, you wrote a highly acclaimed book about onomastics. Can you unravel some of the secrets of well-known names?
CP: But of course! My book, "Names as Riddles", deals with all kinds of names. I had the idea that names determine your life up to a certain point.
BC: How so? I do not feel as if I was a typical Brian.
CP: Well, let me tell you that you are. You can be obstinate and willful, and...
BC: Alright, alright. I think in your book you concentrated mostly on the names of prominent Death Eater families.
CP: Correct. I thought it a worthwhile study, seeing that there are certain traditions in name-giving which can be traced back over centuries.
BC: Isn't that only because of family tradition?
CP: Certainly, this aspect rules a lot of families. Names can be found over and

 over again. But in some families you can also follow special traditions, not just names inherited by the next generation.
BC: I'm not sure if I see your point.
CP: Let me give an example. In the Black-family there is a decided tendency to choose astronomical names.
BC: Really? I never knew that! Does this apply to distant cousins, too?
CP: No, not necessarily, although I think the latest addition to the family is called Sirius again.
BC: Yes, Sirius Brian, my godson. But he was named after the late Sirius Black.
CP: Who, in turn, was named after a great-uncle. Here we have an interesting coincidence of inherited and traditional names.
BC: Are there more astronomical names, then?
CP: Loads! Take Sirius Black's younger brother. His name was Regulus Arcturus. Regulus is a star in the constellation of Leo, and Arcturus can be found in Bootes. In the female line, we have Andromeda, which is a whole constellation, and the notorious Bellatrix, which is found in Orion.
BC: But Narcissa? Or Nymphadora? 		CP: They fail traditions, but seem to open a new line, connected more with earth and nature. While the star-names symbolize aspirations to be brilliant and immortal, the natural names mean there is more humility and reality in it.
BC: Draco is a star, too, so Narcissa...
CP:... strove to recapture past glory! And actually, Draco is a constellation.
BC: Can you guess what the next generation might be called?
CP: Well, judging on my extensive studies I should say that the Malfoy-branch will stick to the astronomical tradition, so names like Leo, Scorpio, Aries, Pavo, Mira, Denebula or older family names are quite possible. In the other branches, I doubt that such traditions will play a role.
BC: What will determine names there?
CP: I should say affection and fancy will rule there.
BC: Columban, that was a fasciating interview. Thank you very much.
CP: It really was my pleasure.
So, dear readers, make sure you really think about the names your kids are about to get - you might set them on a path you never thought of!
(BC)

Travelling Tales

(Edinburgh) The day before last in Edinburgh. Carefully chosen places are to be visited again while others will be inspected for the first time. A sigh is the constant companion of every breath that we take.
The Royal Mile is an absolute must: There we get the last souvenirs and tons of cookies for our loved ones at home. So many things we’d like to possess and yet our small budget keeps us here at broom in narrow borders.
However, this is not the only spot on our otherwise perfect holiday, for again we  managed to miss the heart of Midloathian. This is a heart-shaped design that marks the former entrance of the tollbooth.
The tollbooth was the right place for


Dunbar's Close                         photo: UF
the collection of tolls and taxes, jurisdiction and execution of convicts. Obviously, you mark this spot with a heart, who wouldn’t?
We dropped in in the museum of childhood, which interestingly enough was founded by a man who claimed that he didn’t like children. We here at broom do like children, but more than that toys and games. We could have spent hours in there – hang on, we did spend hours in there.
To take a well-needed break we sneaked off to Dunbar’s Close. This is a top secret		 super tip, for this is a fantastic, secret 17th century garden: Roses, lavender, honeysuckle and believe it or not a fig. If paradise is half as nice…(MF)

 Thistle Do Nicely!                      photo: UF

broom's Best Bad Boy Board

In the last edition you learned how young Arthur, aka Argus, was treated in order to find his magical abilities and how he ran out of luck – that he had ever been lucky – and wasn’t accepted at Hogwarts. In this edition you will learn about his and his family’s reaction to this news.
After he hadn’t been accepted at Hogwarts he was still allowed to stay at the school as everybody was scared he wouldn’t be able to leave platform 9 ¾. His parents were contacted and ordered to come and collect their son. They arrived by carriage – since cars hadn’t been  invented yet – as Arthur was not meant for any magic.
Though it didn’t matter much that he hadn’t been accepted at Hogwarts as he certainly would have been expelled within a week – together with his cousin Walden, his parents were quite angry. Well, while Walden, his parents were quite angry. Well, while Walden stayed at Hogwarts, Arthur had to have. When the first year had disappeared Cleo and Clyde were severely disappointed.

Of course, Arthur knew that. He was deeply hurt and desperate and so he chose to do what only the most desperate of people choose to do: He tried to commit suicide. As we might have already mentioned he wasn’t the brightest. In order to kill himself he threw himself in front of a plane of which he thought it was landing unfortunately or fortunately – depending on your point of view – the plane wasn’t landing but starting. Arthur lived but couldn’t work up the courage to return home to his disappointed parents. He changed his name and started work in the docklands.
This was hard work for a young boy, however, since he had left his parents’ home he had to take care of himself and earn his own money, bread and butter, bed and broom. He didn’t like the job much but at least his colleagues were treating him nicely.
Read in the next edition why he had to quit his job in the docklands and which other jobs he tried and why he wasn’t successful in any of these. Keep a box of handkerchiefs ready.

The Politics of Politics: Mission Muggle World
In one of their spectacular visits to the Muggle World, thus endangering themselves to the point of imprisonment, Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley went to a political meeting. Read their amazing account of their perilous visit!
We arrived safely at the meeting place which turned out to be a huge gymnasium. Tables and chairs for more than one hundred people were already prepared, as well as a dais for the presidents of the conference, for a conference it was to be. We, as journalists, even had the honour of getting food and drink for free. Sometimes Muggles are very, very sensible. (A note to our wizard hosts: we’d like our beer for free next time we come to you, right?)
Anyway, it was a very boring event – unless you watched the people. The first voting was so quickly over that not even all the delegates were able to react fast enough. Strangely, the voting was counted as unanimous. Well, if they say so…
Then there were people who wanted to be elected – sorry, we didn’t quite grasp for what they really wanted. Maybe they wanted a post in the government. We’re not sure, it went much too fast, and the  		speeches given by the candidates were much too boring to pay attention. We rather decided to fetch some hot sausages and rolls and some beer. That was indefinitely better than listening to  those politicians drawling on.
Besides, those want-to-be politicians spoke rather lowly and without much inflection. Hard to listen to, so our advice is: do some rhetoric courses before going on. Worst was a middle-aged woman clad in pink, with artificially blonde hair and some fake glass brilliants around her neck, suntanned by artifice and with heavy make-up. She spoke inaudibly. However, she might have said something of consequence – only nobody could hear her. Another one, a man, talked loud enough but had nothing more to say than that he was a member of the working class and as such deserved the voting – automatically. We thought that disgusting.
Then people went to and fro, dispatching pieces of paper to vote for different people, then counting them, then telling about the outcome of the elections – we’re sure you’re not in the least interested in that. Neither were we.
Finally one professional politician took over – and it struck us like a hammer: his gestures were the same as every politician uses, has ever used and will always use.  		The right hand is balled into a fist and is used to accentuate those sentences deemed crucial by the speaker. The voice rises in artificial outrage at the appropriate words, and so applause is wrenched from an almost stupefied audience. They don’t necessarily need to listen to the words – the tone suggests when to clap and cheer and when to laugh. You could tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood with the correct gestures and inflection and the audience would react just as they do when you tell them that, say, resistance rocks. Try it.
So you see, our journey to this event ended with us totally bored to the point of snoring with our heads on the table, but well-fed after all. One little note: They had to use microphones (devices to sonore your voice without magic). There was a kind of table with lots of buttons on it, and when you turned these buttons, the voices got louder or went down, just as you pleased. This thing was called ‘Roland’. Anyone any idea if Roland Banks is behind that? Maybe people who know him invented it to be able to turn his voice down any time he opens his mouth?
Glad to have survived this morning of total absence of excitement, yours,  Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley.

Sudoku

7

3

8

 

 

 

6

5

2

 

 

 

8

2

5

7

 

 

2

5

4

 

7

 

1

9

8

 

2

 

9

 

7

 

6

 

 

4

 

5

 

1

 

8

7

 

7

 

4

 

2

 

3

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

This is a tough one, Severus!

Disclaimer: All names, characters and places are property of J.K. Rowling and Warner bros., except of those not found in the "Harry Potter" books and movies which belong to Ulrike Friedrich and Kirsten Seelbach. No financial and/or commercial gain is intended.