broom Breaking News
Chaotic Christmas Is Coming| Friends and foes – fictional and for real – feel free to face another fabulous feast. broom's prepared tribute to be paid to the pagan celebration proves to be problematic. No one near knew that no news item were noted down. Christmas Eve came and chaos cheerfully accompanied it.
But because the preparation of a bad broom takes a lot of time we tried to do a terrific edition this time. As we are | analysing a half-finished edition, we assume to have accomplished our aim. We encourage you to enormously enjoy this edition and to ensure you there cannot be a better broom available for more money (not to mention no money). Celebrate a cheerful Christmas. |
Men on Mars Meet Man in Magenta| A supreme shock was suffered by the surprised Martian civilians when they were visited by the warm-hearted, white-bearded whale from our world. Yes, folks and crowds, Father Christmas faced the cute foreigners coming from another civilisation of the comet-hitten foreign country called Mars.
Many of Mars’s men managed to meet our man in magenta and made him make many a miracle. When they got to know the gay guy they guessed he greeted them gorgeously. However, he was only hoping to have help to have his whole heap heaved | back to his home.
After trying to take a shortcut travel Santa stranded accidentally in this strange settlement. Part of population comprehended and prepared his trip back to our poor planet on which he safely set foot on the second Saturday of September just in time to take care of toys and to train his reindeers! Christmas can come and so can our gifts. Many thanks to our Martian friends! |
broom-e-gram| November 1, 2006 – The first snow of this year – or so we were told.
November 2, 2006 – All here at broom woke up with a big headache after an extended Halloween party not knowing what to put into December broom and therefore forgot broom-e-gram. Sorry! November 3, 2006 – broom’s headache, uh sorry, headquarters is clean after an extended cleaning session. Unfortunately, we still have no idea what to put into December broom. |
November 15, 2006 – Anne’s annoying us. She’s giving a lecture about the incompetence of the people who work at her doctor’s. We wonder if she is pregnant!
November 20, 2006 – We were scared to hear about young Basti. Life shouldn’t be like that. November 27, 2006 – One of our colleagues successfully passed her final exam with the best possible results. Slave, Ph.D. You made it mate! Congrats. November 30, 2006 – It’s unbelievable, but we made it. There is a December broom. |
A Christmas Interview| (A Wonderfully Christmassy Decorated Office) We here at broom are very happy to present the three Scrooges to you. They have been kind enough to tell us about their special feelings about Christmas. Please prepare to meet broom’s own Uncle Scrooge, Aunt Scrooge and Cousin Scrooge.
broom: Welcome to our office, take a seat, eat a cookie and feel at home. US, AS & CS: Thabk you! broom: What does Christmas mean to you! US: Pah, humbug! AS: Jewellery! CS: Can I have another cookie, please? broom: Yes, of course, but doesn’t the true spirit of Christmas mean anything to you? US: Pah, humbug! The true spirit of Christmas! AS: Eggnog! CS: Can I have another cookie, please? broom: Yes, help yourself. But what about joy to the world and silent night? US: Pah, humbug! Joy to the world and silent night. You should hear what’s going |
on around our house with all the relatives quarrelling…
AS: You really couldn’t stand it without all the eggnog! CS: Can I have another cookie, please? broom: Sure. Don’t you remember that Christmas is supposed to be the feast of love?! US: Pah, humbug! Love, that’s just what shops are telling us to raise their sales. AS: Oh, a feast, five courses, turkey and Christmas pudding… CS: Can I have another cookie, please? broom: Naturally. So you don’t buy gifts either? US: Pah, humbug! Has anyone ever heard such a nonsense? Buy no presents. You could just as well say, we didn’t celebrate Christmas properly! AS: Jewellery! CS: Can I have another cookie, please? broom: But no… CS: Why can’t I have another cookie??? broom: Oh dear, certainly, you can have another cookie. But no, you are not celebrating Christmas properly. US: Pah, humbug! Have you ever heard… AS: How dare you! |
CS: Can I have another cookie, please?
broom: Surely. What about Christmas carols? US: Pah, humbug! You’ve got to make up your mind, son… CS: Me? US: No dear, this strange other fellow here. I tell you, boy, either you eat and open presents or you sing, both is not possible. AS: Jewellery! CS: Can I have another cookie, please? broom: Why don’t you take the whole plate? Isn’t that a very sad Christmas you are celebrating? US: Pah, humbug! Celebrating, who said we were celebrating? We’re just waiting till it’s over! AS: With jewellery and lots of eggnog! CS: I think, I’m gonna be sick! Dear readers, we do hope that you don’t mind that we broke up this interview at this point. Hopefully, you haven’t forgotten about the true spirit of Christmas yet and know that it is not all about presents and food! A very merry Christmas to all of you out there. (ALL) |
Cooking and Slicing| Sing along! Since broom has again ventured to offer alternative texts to well-loved carols, Harriet Kettle-Stove has agreed to provide some recipes for delicious drink and food to give to eager carol singers. Enjoy, and really consider not giving the stuff away but keep it for yourselves! Merry Christmas, dear cooks-to-be, This year my errand is to convince you that wassail and carol singing bread are not just old-fashioned traditions but can bring a lot of joy to your present-day life as well. If you do insist on getting great ideas for your Christmas family dinner, do purchase my book and you’re done for the next years. It’s a perfect gift as well, you know. Where was I? Oh yes, the absolutely famous recipes to bring joy to carol singers. You know, some of them need a little coaxing before they can start to sing. I bet that you’ll get the most beautiful carols sung to you after offering this nice Old English
Wassail Punch.You need: 4 whole, small apples with 2 cloves stuck in each, 8 oz. soft brown | sugar, 1 pt. medium sherry, 1 cinnamon stick, 4 pts. brown ale and the thinly
pared rind of 2 oranges. First heat up your oven nicely. Put your
apples-cum-cloves into an ovenproof dish and pour the sugar over them. Add the
cinnamon stick and the sherry and bake for 20 minutes – or shorter, if you’re
apples show a nice tan earlier. Once they’re nicely brown and start to soften,
transfer apples and liquid into a large saucepan and pour in the ale with the
orange rinds. Now just heat the mix until it starts to simmer – and you can
serve it. But be careful and use mugs or heatproof glasses, or you’ll get a
very unpleasant hot surprise. And if this didn’t work, why not serve them the fabulous Carol Singing Pepper
Cake? For the witches and wizards among us, you can even make the cake sing songs, but you should in any case prepare a mute version. People do have some reluctance eating something that is singing Christmas carols. However, no matter if you intend to bewitch it or not, you need: 1 ½ lbs. flour, 8 oz. butter, 8 oz. dark soft brown sugar, 1 teaspoon ground | cloves,
½ teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 ½ lbs. black treacle,
4 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and 4 tablespoons milk. Again
you will first need to heat up your oven until warm and cosy. Rub the butter
into the flour in a mixing bowl until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
You can accelerate the process by using the appropriate spells, of course. Add
sugar and spices. Now put the treacle into a pan and melt it gently, but be
careful it isn’t hot – just melted, see? Mix the fluid treacle and the beaten
eggs into the flour-spices mix. Now add the bicarbonate of soda mixed with the
milk and beat everything well. Again, this is a lot faster if done with magic.
Put the dough into a greased and lined roasting tin and bake for 1 ¾ hours.
Cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool. Cut
into slices when serving, of course. If you want the full blast of flavour,
leave it in an airtight tin for a few days before eating! I do hope you have a nice Christmas and enjoy the holidays as much as I will surely do. Wishing you only the best for 2007, I remain yours truly, H. Kettle-Stove |
Horticultural Horrors
| article, you only read half of it; instead of the whole Christmas tree, you only decorate one side of it and so on.
However, indeed why should you use a whole tree as a Christmas tree? Just think of all the needles you will have to remove magically (or manually if you happen to be a Muggle or because your wand had been confiscated because of celebrational drunkenness) after the feast is over! Why don’t you just use one tiny twig – nobody will notice the difference anyway! And if they do, tell them that it is a very rare and extremely expensive small breed Christmas tree. Presents, what about the presents? Well, why don’t you just stick to the things you will get? Another maroon | pullover with a big ‘R’ on it – your nightmare come true, hey, why not give it to someone who really needs it – like the cousin of your best friend?!
Season’s greetings are another time consuming custom around Christmas time. Everybody knows what you want so why not stick to the good old “Merry Christmas” and send the owl? There are even pre-printed cards! Christmas carolling is another tedious thing. Everybody knows the lyrics and melody. Save some time and nerves and only do half the song! You see, there are many ways to survive the distressing time of Christmas! Have yourself…well, you know the rest! (LPG) |
Filch’s
Christmas| Christmas was just about the
worst season of the year for the caretaker of a boarding school, where lots of
pupils stayed over the holidays and had nothing to do but causing havoc. At
Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was even more extreme, and it
did not end with students firing spells by the minute. The Christmas horror
began weeks before the holidays even started: decorating the castle. Argus
Filch, in short, hated Christmas and everything connected with it. This day, he was paving through the snow towards the hut of gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid. “Blasted weather, that,” Filch muttered. Luckily no students were outside so there was no danger of being hit by bewitched snowballs. Still it was cold and uncomfortable, and Filch did not have any chance to magic his way through the snow. He was a Squib. If there was anything Argus Filch wished for at Christmas, it was being able to do magic. Perhaps, just perhaps, he would find a way to learn it. And in the meantime, well, he had to see to it that the kids did not notice. Now he knocked forcefully on Hagrid’s door. ”Yeah, yeah, comin’,” boomed a cheerful voice from within. Filch grimaced painfully. He could not stand cheerfulness at the best of times, and he absolutely loathed it at Christmas. When the door swung open, Filch saw holly garlands over the fireplace and a veritable mistletoe branch dangling from the ceiling. “Oh, hello,” Hagrid greeted his visitor. Uncharacteristically, Fang the dog hung back, reluctant to greet the newcomer. “I’ve come to fetch the beasts. Reckon you got them,” Filch grunted. “Course I have, here they are,” Hagrid replied and hoisted up a cage. Yes, there they were, unmistakeably. Live fairies. They were a pain in the proverbial of course, but it was the expressed wish of the headmaster to have live fairies in the huge Christmas trees in the Great Hall. Argus Filch personally would have preferred to decorate the trees with live students hanging suspended by their ears, but since the good old days of torture were gone, it was to be fairies. Filch took the cage and grunted. Hagrid nodded. “Yeah, snow’s gonna be high in the morning.” Filch snorted. Snow was a problem to him only in its melted form. His petitions to confine students to indoors when the weather was bad had met only deaf ears. Perhaps it really was too much to ask for, seeing that even teachers, most notably Professor Sprout and Madam Hooch, did not care about how much dirt they brought into the castle. Obviously, Hagrid was waiting for an answer. “The trees are there, I reckon,” Filch settled on saying. “Sure, I brought ‘em yesterday – y’can hardly miss ‘em,” Hagrid replied surprised. “Yes, yes, and now I have to be off,” Filch said impatiently, throwing the fairies a nasty glance. Hagrid nodded, said: “See yer”, and closed the door. Filch turned around and marched back to the castle. The fairies giggled, squirmed and struggled in the cage. “I hope Professor Flitwick stuns the silly crowd at once,” Filch muttered testily. Just before he reached the castle door, he heard a soft sound | from behind a bush. Filch froze in his tracks. What on earth was this? It had
sounded harmless, more frightened than frightening actually. But you never knew
these days, what with You-Know-Who killing people at random. Especially people
he loathed and despised – such as Squibs. Such as Argus Filch himself. And there
was no relief in sight, whatever Dumbledore might have done or was about to do. Filch looked around, then said: “Who’s there?” Nobody answered. Then the sound came again, like a soft baby’s moan. “Hello?” Filch asked, then put the fairy-cage down and went on his knees in the snow. He lifted the white-frosted leaves of a holly bush and saw what had made the noise. There, freezing and shivering, sat the saddest little creature Filch had ever seen. True, it was far from lovely with its shabby fur and red eyes, but it was tiny, helpless and already half dead with cold and, Filch suspected, hunger. “Now where do you come from?” Filch wasn’t aware that his voice was low and coaxing, but the kitten surely was. It eyed the rugged-looking caretaker cautiously. “If you come with me, my sweet, I’ll give you a warm place and some food,” Filch heard himself say and felt surprised. Usually he would have left the creature to its own undoubtedly dreary fate. Perhaps one of the students’ cats had left the little being there. Or the rascal had come up from Hogsmeade. However the kitten had gotten there, it needed warmth and food. Filch determinedly scooped up the cat-to-be and cupped it in one hand. With the other he hoisted up the cage of fairies, which he deposited quite unceremoniously in the small broom cupboard just off the Entrance Hall. The fairies could wait. The Christmas kitten could not. Filch carried the shivering ball of fur into his office and put it very carefully down onto the table. The kitten meowed most pitifully. “Yes, yes, you’ll see how fast you get warm. Here, roll up here,” Filch cooed while he smoothed a cloth around his foundling and put the whole package on the floor close to the fireplace. There, the kitten looked even more vulnerable than outside. Filch’s heart warmed to his little guest. “Now, little one,” he said softly, “why don’t you stay with me?” The kitten meowed hopefully. “Then we need to find a name for you, don’t you think?” The cat meowed again. Then, encouraged by Filch’s soft voice and the warmth of the office, it began to explore its new habitation. Filch chuckled. “You are nosy, aren’t you?” The kitten only gave him an almost insolent look, then went on to sniff and stare happily around. “You’re really as nosy as that Mrs Norris-character Irma told me about. Wonder where she read about her,” Filch mused. Then his face brightened up. “Yes, my sweet. That’s your name. Mrs Norris. What do you say?” As an answer, the kitten now christened Mrs Norris jumped onto its new guardian’s lap and purred in absolute catty happiness. Filch smiled and began to caress his little unexpected gift. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps this was finally it. This was his own, Argus Filch’s, Christmas. Merry Christmas! |
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broom’s Christmas Carols
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1. broom Song (sung to the melody of: Christmas Song)
Reading broom at an open fire/with spectacles on your nose/so you can read the news that you require/of your beloved friends and foes./Everybody knows the crossword and the sudoku/help to keep your brain alive./Sincerely yours, no matter what we do,/where we go to or we strive./We delight in bringing news to you./We’re working from 9 to 5/and from 5 to 9, too./Once a month and on several occasions/you receive one of broom’s special editions./So we’re offering this simple news/to kids from 1 to 92:/There just is no need to get the blues/broom’s coming home to you!
3. Funny broom aka Brian’s Song (sung to the melody of: White Christmas)
I’m dreamin’ of a funny broom/with each edition that I write,/to see people laughing/and see dogs barking,/but the schedule is so tight./I’m dreamin’ of a funny broom/with BBNs that make |
you smile,/reports that make you laugh a while/and interviews in hilarious style./I’m dreamin’ of a funny broom/with each edition that I write,/to see people laughing/and see dogs barking,/but the schedule is so tight./I’m dreamin’ of a funny broom/with BBNs that make you smile,/reports that make you laugh a while/and interviews in hilarious style.
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Christmas)
Death Eater mess is waiting to start./They are already gay/because of what we say./Like Dementors they live of our fears/and here could be your commercial./It is time to say good bye/or to show resistance:/Stop the Ministry’s lie!/That is the only chance for us, you see/or no one of us will any longer be./Death Eater mess is waiting to start./They are already gay/because of what we say./Like Dementors they live of our fears/and here could be your commercial./Death Eater mess is waiting to start./They are already gay/because of what we say./Like Dementors they live of our fears/and here could be your commercial./It is time to say good bye/or to show resistance:/Stop the Ministry’s lie!/That is the only chance for us, you see/or no one of us will any longer be./Death Eater mess is waiting to start./They are already gay/because of what we say./Like Dementors they live of our fears/and here could be your commercial.
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Editors' Corner
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Ho, ho, ho and a merry new year! Dear readers and everyone else, We, the whole staff of broom, hope you will have blessed holidays and a fabulous new year. Whatever 2007 will bring, try to fulfil your dreams and live up to your own standards, no matter what other people tell you. Once upon a time some Muggle company invented this chuckling, Dumbledore-like character always saying “ho, ho, ho”. Maybe he brings your presents, or maybe he figures in the tales you cherish in Christmas time. No matter your age, keep Santa Claus and the Christmas spirit alive in you. Why not make every day a little bit like Christmas? Give joy to others, we mean, make them laugh or just bear someone in distress company. Be there when you’re needed. And of course never | forget that resistance rocks, even at Christmas. We will try to live up to our own ideas. broom will be your companion for 2007 as well, and perhaps, just perhaps, we might even be able to uncover some secrets not meant to be uncovered right now. We shall see a new Best Bad Boy, and many other new things. You will surely accompany our dear friends the Magpies to their strange destiny in Oxford. And if we’re real lucky, some celebrity takes notice of broom. We shall see, but we didn’t ask Sybil Trelawney this time. All we do know is that we sincerely wish you all the best for your personal year 2007 and a lot of love and laughter at Christmas 2006! Always yours, Brian Cullen & Mike Flatley. |