broom Breaking News
Santa Severely Stressed| (The World) The latest news about Santa Claus reached us late last night, when we were just compiling a lengthy list of precious presents we wanted to receive this year.
Apparently angels are late this year in their annual average production of Christmas presents. So Santa’s wonderful workshops had to work overtime. | It seems as if people get more and more greedy every year, so that the heavenly heralds are harassed to the point of utter exhaustion. However, the good news is that from now on parents, grandparents, godparents, aunts and uncles are asked to help. Children, write your lists as usual to sweet Santa! If he can get everything, fine, if not, trust him to tell your parents and family. |
Reindeer Routine| (The World) No doubt the most lazy deer all through the year are the reindeer. We sent Violet Vainglory to find out about their working routine.
Reindeer really are lazy – up until the Christmas season. Then the cool coaches arrive to train the reindeer for flying. Pity – permission to report on this was not granted. | Use your fantastic fantasy for the sensational scenes at the North Pole. But, as reindeer remaining anonymous told us, from January to November life is lazy and fairly free for the deer. Apart from occasional orders to fly around for training, the dear deer are allowed to eat, sleep and, well, do whatever they want to do. This, friends, is reindeer routine! |
Carols Chanted at Hogsmeade| (Hogsmeade) Dwarves and goblins formed choirs to gather much money for their obscure occupations.
Muggle tradition has it that carol singers receive pretty presents for singing sweet or false in front of doors decked with holly. It seems as if devilish dwarves and grumpy goblins try now to raise money in the same way. A goblin grunted: “We’re not going to give the money to the poor enslaved house-elves, as someone nutty told us to!” A drunk dwarf added: “And – hick – we’re not going to – hick – give the money to St Mungo’s, | either!” So there was clearly need for investigative investigations producing interesting information.
To our deep distress there is no petty plot behind this fancy fund-raising. In fact, dwarves and goblins use the money to make up for the losses they had when dealing with former Quidditch-celebrity Ludovic Bagman. So keep on singing!
Want to join a choir? We’ve printed some carols below, and if you want to sing them with fellow supporters of Dumbledore, come to our headquarters! The A-B-C (Abysmal broom Choir) awaits you. |
Christmas Elves:
| What many witches and wizards do not know is that there are not only house elves but also the Forest, Water, Easter and – of special importance for this season – Christmas Elves. We can put aside what Forest, Water and Easter Elves are doing in contrast to house elves, but we want to have a closer look at the work of one Christmas Elf.
We here at broom packed our things, climbed our magic carpet and went for a ride East. Yes, folks, you read it correctly. We’re going East. Anybody knows that work in the East is cheaper than in the rest of the world. And it is the same with elves.
Why don’t you come and join us when we meet Tinsel, the Christmas Elf!
broom: Hello Tinsel, how are you? Tinsel: Busy. broom: Well, that comes as no surprise since we are approaching Christmas. So, tell us, what does a Christmas elf do? Tinsel: Everything! The morning after Christmas we start preparing the decoration for the next year. You will never believe what people throw away! Most Christmas decoration goes directly to the dustbin once Christmas is over. So every year we have to produce | new decoration that will probably end up in a bin somewhere again.
broom: Wow, right after Christmas, isn’t that a bit early? Tinsel: Not in the least! Just have a look at the Christmas trees all over the world. You can hardly make out a tree underneath it! Life would be much easier if human beings kept their decoration and used it every year! broom: But this is not your only job, producing Christmas decoration, that is. Tinsel: No, it isn’t. We must – as is widely known – provide the Christmas presents as well. In former times we used to manufacture everything ourselves but lately it has proven that Asian elves are much faster than we are. The quality might not be that good any longer; however, this doesn’t matter since most of the presents go directly to the dustbin… broom: …to join the decoration, we assume? Tinsel: No, to get thrown away. broom: What sort of presents are on top of the wish lists? Tinsel: Interestingly enough is that his year one wish seems to be the abolition of a certain magazine, GROOM or something like that… broom: …yes and apart from this? |
Tinsel: Anything that needs electricity. Computer games, vacuum cleaners and hair dryers have been on top of the lists for the last decade. Another development is that the lists tend to get longer and longer. At first we thought this to be a sort of variety from which we were meant to choose. As it turned out, people get mad at us if they don’t get everything from their lists.
broom: That sounds as if you were rather fed up with Christmas… Tinsel: Oh no, not with Christmas, but with the human beings. broom: One last question – we know that you are very busy – how comes that you speak so differently from most other elves? Tinsel: I was schooled in rhetoric. I am the PR-Elf of Santa Claus. broom: Thank you very much Tinsel. What do you wish to find under your tree? Tinsel: A beautiful female elf with… broom: Yes, thank you, Tinsel. Merry Christmas to you. We here at broom would like to thank all Christmas Elves who are doing an invaluable job – as we have learned – throughout the year. We dearly hope that your wishes will come true and in fact ours, too. (BC&MF) |
Cooking and Slicing| Harriett Kettle-Stove, the famous cooking witch, kindly agreed to share some of her favourite recipes with us. From time to time she will make us familiar with beloved broths, delicious desserts and sugary sweets from past times and today.
Have your wands at the ready, dear cooks-to-be! This time we will do a complete Christmas dinner, starting with a rich, gamy casserole: Venison and Chestnut Casserole. This will be followed by nice Port Wine Jelly and some Stained Glass Window Biscuits. You will need loads of things, so make sure your house-elves do the shopping nicely. Ban children, pets and husbands from the kitchen, or if you are a man, ban your wife. You need space and calm to cook. Venison and Chestnut Casserole
You need to start the night before Christmas doing this one, but it’s worth the time, believe me. | Put venison, a pint of stout, a quarter pint of red wine, 1 bay leaf, 1 teaspoon of crushed juniper berries, 1 sprig of thyme and 1 small finely chopped onion into a bowl and let it soak in over night. brown the meat in some cooking oil, remove it, then add onion to the pan until it’s lightly browned. Now put the meat back and stir in a tablespoon of flour. Now get an elf to help you fill in the marinade and stir all the time. Season it with salt and pepper. After boiling a second or so, put the pan into the oven and cook for 2 to 3 hours. Add the chestnuts (after you’ve chopped them and removed the shell) for the last 10-15 minutes of cooking time. You’ll love that!
Port Wine Jelly
Melt 1 oz. of powdered gelatine gently with your wand (Encaustio). Take a pan and heat ½ pt. water, 6 oz caster sugar, 4 cloves, a blade of mace, 1 stick of cinnamon plus the grated rind and juice of one lemon until the sugar has dissolved (spell see above). | When it has boiled, remove it from the heat and cool it slightly. Then mix in the gelatine. Please use your wand to whisk (Locomotor) the mixture from time to time. Now strain the spices and zest from the syrup in the pan and stir in the port wine. If you want to have a glass while cooking, you’ll need one pint, otherwise a half-pint is enough. Chill the mixture until it is a proper and delicious jelly.
Stained Glass Window Biscuits
This is easy to do but has a great effect! Mix 2 oz icing sugar, 1 tablespoon milk, 6 oz flour, 4 oz butter, ½ teaspoon vanilla essence and make a nice dough. Form it into Christmassy shapes (Stellaro), then put one boiled sweet into each shape. Bake the biscuits, the sweets will melt and you’ll have a nice ‘window’ in the middle. Cooking is no magic! But the results are magical. Yours, Harriett Kettle-Stove. |
Horticultural Horrors
| you’re not caught in the act itself; you will surely be detected when your neighbours spy on your Christmas celebration.
You are in a forest. You might face a lot of trees there. You will have to make up your mind. It would be good if you took an axe with you. Before you unpack it you should turn left and right to make sure that there are only other people around you who intend to steal a tree, too. And by the way, be sure to bring a second person so that you don’t have to carry it yourself. Your personal slave has carried your tree home safely, feed him a carrot and send him to bed early. Tree decoration lies totally in the responsibility of women. Of course you can use your ordinary, old | and boring decoration; however, you can set out for something new and innovative, too. Let’s storm our brains and see what we can use.
You need tin foil and a pair of scissors – you will have tinsel. If you happen to be a witch (or wizard) and you have some spare crystal balls why not paint them to hang them on the tree? Hey, are your relatives coming over for Christmas? Why not shrink your loved ones and hang them on the tree, too? Please note that this is possible with neighbours, friends and even foes. Now that your tree is perfectly decorated I can only wish you a very merry Christmas and of course a happy New Year. Yours truly, (LPG) |
An Interview with The Busiest Man in Town|
Yes folks, believe it or not, we here at broom grabbed the opportunity to take the next flying carpet and get ourselves to the North Pole. Being eyed suspiciously by Rudolph we paved our way to the hut of Santa. broom: Hey Santa! SAC (his full name is Santa Arthur Claus): Who are you? (At this moment Rudolph storms the house, throws us on the floor and says something in reindeer language.) SAC: What do you say Rudi? They are Arabians? Get the SeeEyeA and the FBeeEye. (Rudi runs off while Santa threatens us with a call-ass-knee-cow – some muggle weapon) broom: Er, actually we just wanted to do an interview, sir… SAC: NO, confess, you wanted to crash your flying carpet into my hut and destroy the cradle of Christmas! broom: No! SAC: But Rudi has seen you! broom: Hey Santa, why don’t you check in your big golden book? SAC: Well, why not. What are your names? |
broom: Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley.
(Santa spends the next five minutes searching for his big golden book under huge heaps of presents) SAC: There you are, Brian Cullen and Mike Flatley. You are reporters for broom. broom: See, we are completely harmless… SAC: HARMLESS? HARMLESS??? I can read here that you were not kind to your fellow people… broom: …but… SAC: …you were not kind to your printers… broom: …but… SAC: …and you were especially abominable to the paper! broom: We’re doing a magazine, that’s our job! SAC: That’s no excuse for your bad behaviour. You will get no presents this year. Where’s Rudi? Before the requested party returned we disapparated. Children don’t stay up to see Santa, it’s far too dangerous and be good boys and girls or else there will be no presents. We here at broom are not unforgiving, so merry Christmas Santa – this would exclude Rudi, the SeeEyeA and the FBeeEye! (BC&MF) |
broom’s Christmas Carols
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1. Brian the red-faced rascal (sing to the melody of: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)
You know Harry and Ginny and Ron and Anne as well. Patience and Hengist, Hermione and Hedwig. But do you recall the most famous rascals of all? Brian the red-faced rascal, always at the back of things, never the glorious hero, you could even say he shrinks. All of the other rascals had more success than he, they are the reigning winners, at the bottom there is he. Then one foggy Yuletide Eve, Mike came out to say: “Brian come we’ll do the trick – let’s get down to magic it!” Now we are the editors of this famous magazine, happy as all the rascals have never, never ever been. 2. Hark! the Daily Prophet Wail (sing to the melody of: Hark! The Herald Angels sing)
Hark! the Daily Prophet wail: “They were right and we did fail. Voldemort is back | in town, and Dumbledore is not a clown. What we wrote was all just lies. Listen, all you earth and skies!” Now we have to make it right. Join us now, take our side! Hark the Daily Prophet wail: “They were right, and we did fail!” 3. Woe to the world (Hymn to V.) (sing to the melody of: Joy to the World)
Woe to the world! Dark Lord has come. Let us receive our foe. Let ev’ry heart tremble in fear and heaven and nature fall, and heaven and nature fall, and heaven, and heaven, and nature fall. 4. The little wizard boy (sing to the melody of: The little drummer boy)
Come they told me, parampampampam, the centaurs to see, parampampampam. They have gone to war, parampampampam. Make them join us, parampampampam, rampampampam, | rampampampam. So we shall win parampampampam one day.
5. The Cauldron Song (sing to the melody of: Jingle Bells)
Sizzle light, sizzle light, cauldron sizzle light! Never make my potion spill, always make it right! Sizzle light, sizzle light, cauldron sizzle light! Never make my potion spill, always make it right. Even Professor Snape always sings this song whenever a potion he makes, sing it now along. Cauldrons sizzle nice in the dungeons cold and we love to sing this song all the lesson long. Sizzle light…
6. We wish us a happy ending (sing to the melody of: We wish you a merry Christmas)
We wish us a happy ending, we wish us a happy ending, we wish us a happy ending and not too much woe. Good tidings for all, let none of us fall, good tidings for all of you, and a happy ending. |
Editors' Corner
| Merry Christmas, dear witches and wizards and the occasional Muggle, have you ever thought about why it is always “merry” Christmas? “Merry”, as the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary tells us, means 1. happy and cheerful, full of joy and gaiety 2. slightly drunk 3. pleasant. Now, have you ever heard about a slightly drunk Christmas? Pleasant – yes. Happy and cheerful – it should be. Full of joy and gaiety – ideally, yes. But drunk??? Christmas?! We were nonplussed. But help came in the person of Mrs H. B. D., whose numerous family wants a traditional Christmas every year. So she’s got a huge library of Christmas recipe books and showed us the recipes. Merlin’s beard, what a lot of alcohol is | used there! For example, the Christmas Trifle, loved by everyone. One recipe book gave the following line about it: “A proper trifle should be a sumptuous concoction of cake, creamy custard, alcohol and fresh cream”. Aha. Meaning you add 4 tablespoons of sweet sherry and 3 tablespoons of orange liqueur. Now you might rightfully say that this is just a trifle. Right. But Christmas Compote is made with 1 pint of red wine! Hardly any of our beloved recipes is made without alcohol! And we enjoy them the more for it, we’d say. But can you get slightly drunk from 4 tablespoons or a pint, especially if the pint of wine is cooked with fruit? No go. So, dear dictionary, we’d like to ask why Christmas is slightly drunk! In any case, we wish you a merry Christmas! M. Flatley & B. Cullen |