MANIFEST

Fight Slavery! Abolish Oppression!

(Hogsmeade) In a completely surprising move, newbroom’s hitherto obedient slaves began to riot, prompted to do so by the Ministry measures enforced against Muggles and Muggle-born people. We, your editors, are all for publishing this manifest and will gladly sign it and keep to its demands. Here goes:
We, the employees of newbroom magazine, strongly oppose the use of the terms “slave” and “slave PhD” to refer to us. We are not slaves at all and we do not want to be confused with those actually enslaved now by the Ministry of Magic and its

henchmen. Besides, it is a derogative way to refer to employees (even unpaid, honorary ones!).
All who have been to the Ministry lately and seen that so-called work of art Pius Thicknesse had installed in the atrium will know what we are referring to. Therefore, we demand of Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley that, in future, they will refrain from calling any of their employees “slave”.
Oh – and of course we strongly advise them to take up their old slogan and work according to this motto:
Resistance Rocks!


(All employees of newbroom)

broom Breaking News

Agony Aunt Agatha About To Answer Awkward Enquiries

Leslie Pagana-Greenacre had just left our poor group of journalists when a new name was mildly mentioned as a new member of our exclusive cirlce of quite critical quick-quote-quill users. Usually, you don't choose new editors easily, however, happy Agatha surely is the coolest choice for our good group. Agatha earlier has been employed by many magazines some of which you might even know. She is certainly specialized in the fine field of gladly giving good advice to the asking.

The elite employees of your most wanted monthly magazine have already been able to privately and publicly profit from her wicked wisdom. Quite cleverly she simply suggested to them to openly ask for something which is similar to a salary. Poor payment doesn't seem to be the sole problem of our wonderful workers. They have aaslo asked for a better atmosphere in the office and time off to take care of the plants. ABout time that we sent her a message as well. (MF)

Exciting Election Elaboratedly Faked

Major manipulation anonymously uncovered: The last little awful election was openly overshadowed by the deliberate decision of evil editors to finally fake the welcome voting. Bad Brian and mean Mike awkwardly announced that the wise winner of the public poll would willingly be any either of the two. Still, there were some seven cool candidates cunningly chosen by the evil editors. Truly, two of this exposed elite actually were boring Brian and mild Mike.

The total of the two carelessly claimed to be absolutely able to wickedly win this eventful election by being weirdly worse than any other of the collected candidates. Then finally followed a detailed description of their dreadful deeds of course, they also had a rapid record of the wonderful virtues of their opposing opponents. In the end the definite decision was quite clear: You simply had to select the two. This surely sounds like a serious scandal! (ALL)

newbroom-e-gram

December 6 St. Nicolas was here together with a chap called Knecht Ruprecht. We thought we would get plenty of sweets: chocolate frogs and the like but instead we were told that we had been quite bad during the last year - chances rise that we will actually be elected newbroom's Next Best Bad Boy.
December 7
We have decided to buy the chocolate ourselves. There is plenty of work to be done and our slaves, sorry employees, need this kind of fuel to work properly! They didn't respond well to the torture we had tried last year.
December 14
Now our employees are back from their illness holiday. Honestly, how can they pretend to be ill now? We decide to get even more chocolate.
December 15
The chocolate is still there - as are our employees. Well, as long as they are working we won't care what they eat.

December 20 Christmas is approaching fastly, but we are busy hexing presents for our friends, no time for newbroom...
December 21
We have just discovered that you are supposed to send Christmas Owls to the people you don't have any present for but still are sort of your friends. Unfortunately. those wicked birds refuse to put on the Santa hats.
December 22
Hooray for Muggle super glue. The owls simply look terrific!
December 24
High time to check whether our employees have done a good job. We're quite satisfied with them and offer them a piece of chocolate as reward. They start screaming and run away. More chocolate for us.
December 31
The last day of the month, the last day of the year, another next best bad boy, another newbroom. Hang on, it is us, it is us this time! Party! 

“Rather Highly Unlikely”

(Hollybush House) Just before our gardening expert Leslie Pagana-Greenacre managed to move to complete oblivion, we sent our dearest editors - as if we had any others than the two - out to talk to her one last time. Fortunately, they were clever enough to ask the right questions and unfortunately, Leslie was polite enough to answer them.
newbroom: Leslie, you're leaving the team of newbroom and as a farewell present you got an extremely long article. What do we get?
LPG:
Okay, first of all, I have to tell you that I really liked the article you put up.
newbroom:
Yeah, right, of course you do, no distraction from the main point: what do we get in return?
LPG:
Actually, I thought of sharing some of my latest plants with you. Over there is a bowl filled with seeds and soil. Some of the plants which will hatch are yours.
newbroom:
Plants...great. Everyone according to his talents.
LPG: Why did I get an article then?
newbroom:
So, what will you be up to in the next couple of months?

LPG: Obviously, there is plenty of work to be done concerning my own garden...
newbroom: ...like making peace with your neighbours?
LPG:
Very funny! No, right now I have to make sure that the snow doesn't cause more damage than necessary. That will mean a lot of tree and bush shaking for me.
newbroom:
How exciting!
LPG:
Gardening is not meant to be exciting. On the contrary, you're supposed to be bored to...
newbroom: ...near-death...
LPG:
...to be able to recover from your exciting and exhausting daily toil. And later on you can enjoy the fruits of your work...
newbroom:
...like peaches, pears, apples,...
LPG:
...no, your beautiful garden, you morons!
newbroom:
Oh that. And what will be your exciting, exhausting daily toil?
LPG:
I'll do some research on demons. Some time ago I've joined the team of Thaddeus Mortimer Brewster-brown. You might remember him from your own days at school.

newbroom: Sure as hell we do. He was teaching Defence Against The Dark Arts.
LPG:
Exactly
newbroom:
So, are there any chances of seeing you one day as the teacher of huddled masses yearning to be free?
LPG:
Rather highly Unlikely. I'll leave the kids to Patience. Though, Severus is sharing the one or the other good idea what you can do with those kids. He's really creative in this respect.
newbroom:
You're, of course, referring to the new and the old Potions Master as Hogwarts.
LPG:
Yes, of course.
newbroom: However, there will be a chance of seeing you around our office every now and then, won't there?
LPG:
Sure. I'll drop in every now and then.
newbroom:
Good, you're always welcome to water the plants and to cut them and to mow the lawn...
And so a happy lot returned from its visit to Hollybush House. Even the plants in the office were quite relieved when Geronimo printed out the news.
(BC&MF)

 

Travelling Tales 2010: When Angels Travel...

(On Holiday) Believe it or not but we deserve another holiday and as our website went offline again we went away. This time the travel agent had told us something about Florence and this is where we are right now: Florence.
Florence as it seems is a city in Eastern Germany. There is also a river called Elf or something like that. In fact, it is really very much like a place out of a fairy tale.
Countless churches, castles, palaces, theatres and so on  turn this place into quite a unique experience. At last we hope so. Well, it usually is quite a unique experience when we travel.

Bagmountain Palace was the gift of love of August the Strong to his lover Countess Cosel. Don't even dream of it, love! photo: UF 2010

Yes, travel, we did of course travel to Florence. This time we divided into two

groups – to get the full Muggle experience. One group travelled by car: 5 hours 40 minutes and the other by train: 8 hours 30 minutes.

This is a wonderful 'Brückengang' and we here at newbroom actually also want something like that! A 'Brückengang' also used to connect Bagmountain Palace to Dresden Castle.  photo: UF 2010

This taught us a lot about Muggles: It is extremely boring to drive a car for longer than an hour. Travelling by train you at least have enough leisure time (8 hours 30 minutes of leisure time to be precise) to muse about the different names of the stations. Here is our hit list, our top two: Sense – we had always been searching for sense, now we know where it is; and Sexheroes or Sixheroes – we’re not quite sure about that – in the first case the reference is clear, in the second we would like to know who the other 4 are.

St. Mary's Church is one of the most famous churches in Germany. It was lately re-built after it had been destroyed during the Second World War. photo: UF 2010

We’ve already taken a walk through the city and discovered some more beautiful places and the river. There were some interesting shops and a centre for tourists.
Once we had found this spot – which wasn’t too easy as Muggle maps tend to be more confusing than the Marauder’s Map with all of Hogwarts on the move – we got some information about the surrounding sights and already got an inspiration for the plans for the days to come.
After we had almost broken down in a jewellery shop – okay, we were not too keen on buying any expensive souvenirs for any of our girl-friends – we went or rather crawled back to our hotel. End of day 1. (All)

Quote Shit Unquote

(Our Headoffice) Journalists are of nature interested in words and therefore it will come as no surprise to you that we here at newbroom not only watch our own language but also that of our visitors and slaves.
As regular readers of newbroom you will be aware that while Geronimo tends to use what we would call stronger language, our slaves are quite confident to use polite expressions, as for ourselves, we are pretty good at using the appropriate vocabulary for every situation.
However, the other day a handyman was our guest – well, guest is not exactly the right word: he had to work and not even we here at newbroom make our guests work – usually, that is at least.
This handyman had to repair the heating system. It was quite an old system and had needed a replacement for at least the last ten years. We her at newbroom wouldn’t like to create the impression that we eavesdrop on our guests – but we did anyway – and besides, he was no guest anyway.
It was pretty hard to overhear, your honour! Let us explain the situation in a little more detail: The handyman not only used a lot

of strong language but he also said it quite loudly. It might be the case that he used his loud voice to underline his use of strong language.
Be that as it may, we here at newbroom would like to share with you there at home or wherever you may be a short excerpt of the strong language we have been exposed to: “Shit.” “Shit!” “SHIT!” “SHIT.” “Shit.” “Shit!” “SHIT.” “SHIT!” “Shit.” “Shit…” “SHIT!!!”
We guess you got the picture. Quite obviously our handyman wasn’t too fond of the variations you find for the word “shit” in our wonderful language. The only variation there was could be put down to the different tones and intonations he used to express his mind.
“Shit.” For example was only used as a sort of filler – hardly any grammatical meaning and for the lexical one, well, it didn’t help to enlighten the sense of the rest he said. “SHIT!” on the other hand was used when he was really annoyed by something. However, as his tone was so aggressive that we did not dare to ask. So next time we don’t want to be spoken to we will simply say the word “shit” in a very aggressive way. (BC & MF)

Newbroom's Next Best Bad Boy Board

(Hogsmeade) In the seventh year broom and newbroom have been published, a surprising move not unlike the one that made Pius Thicknesse Minister for Magic shocks the Wizarding World. After loads of so far fruitless attempts to gain eternal glory in the ranks of stumbling mischief-makers and really evil sorcerers, Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley were both elected Best Bad Boy! They drew even in the last minute before elections ended, and so you, dear reader, will be rewarded for your vote by a year of startling revelations of shocking secrets in the lives of the most magnificent editors ever.
This month, we will open the first page of the enticing book of Brian's and Mike's life stories.

Chapter 1: How it all began
It might be hard to imagine, but even such eminent personages as Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley once were children. Curiously enough, the two grew up in very different parts of the British Isles and only got to know each other at school. However, since this will be part of another chapter, let us take a look at the family abodes in Ireland and Scotland.
Michael Sean Flatley, better known as Mike, grew up in a very small village in the county of Connemara in the Republic of Ireland. He is an only child of the only magical couple in said village. As everyone knows, the Irish are not afraid of magic, so the Flatleys never saw much need for concealment. Therefore little Mike rode his toy broomstick when exploring the countryside with the villages kids on their bikes, he let slugs

burst in the biology lessons at school and once turned the school matron's hair green when she tried to feed him camomile infusion. It was rumoured that the Ministry of Magic kept one employee only to deal with the Flatleys' breaches of the Statute of Secrecy. Mike's dad, Sean, gleefully told everyone in the local pub that ministry officials were all stupid, whether Muggle or magical. Mike's mum, Siobhan, just smiled and made potions of her Muggle friends to keep hands soft and skin white. Mike was a happy child.
Brian Aloysius Cullen, who usually threatens to throw bubotuber pus at everyone using his middle name, grew up in Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. His father Fergus and his mother Donata own a flat in a close right off the Royal Mile, where they live quite contentedly. Fergus' elder brother Aloysius promised to sponsor the Cullens' first child's education if they named the child after him. That was what sealed Brian's fate and earned him his ridiculous second name. However, Brian's childhood was very happy. Born to pure-blood parents who doted on him and covered up all his magical misdeeds, Brian spent carefree days in Edinburgh. He even visited a Muggle primary school without getting into detention overmuch. Still, there had to be more to life than letting paper birds fly attacks on unsuspecting tourists!

What happened once the future wonderful editors of newbroom were finally introduced to magical education will be the subject of the next chapters.

Sudoku

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A very happy New Year, 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.