People with umbrellas are like giant mushrooms

It's raining in Taipei...

Maybe only time for a quick entry today. I'm almost on my way to see Harry Potter. I'm not actually expecting too much. I have it from a reliable source that those who have read the book will be dissapointed. I have to see it though.

I have to correct an error in yesterday's entry. I said that the scan we had yesterday was 35 weeks. Typo on my part. In fact it's 25 weeks. I wouldn't have noticed if Abby hadn't pointed it out. It's due to pop out around the begining of April. Actually I should start calling it "he" since I am now sure what it is.

I must get my wife a Christmas present. Don't let me forget.

The new leader of the Tory party is David Cameron. I guess he was my close second choice. Let's see how he performs at PMs questions today, or is it tomorrow?

Everywhere I look today I am seeing headlines like "Bin Laden is alive and fighting". This is misleading. This is merely a statement from Ayman al-Zawahri, and he would say that wouldn't he. I still say Bin Laden is dead and has been for years. Why hasn't he been making videos himself if he wants people to know he is alive? I can't understand why this is newsworthy.

OK, I've been summoned. I'm going to watch HP. Report when I return.

Four hour break here...

OK, lets start by saying, I really liked the film. It's by far the best directed of any of the HP films so far I think. And I understand why they had to abridge the book to fit it all in. I can't however understand why they had to change things for the film. It wasn't Neville that gave Harry the Gillyweed, it was Dobby. Why did they change it? They also sacrificed a lot of the goings on at the quidditch world cup, but they extended the dragon fighting scene. I'd have cut back the dragons and maintained the quidditch world cup.

They also completely missed out the fact that Harry and Winky were both implicated in the dark mark incident and it changed as a consequence. And right at the end Dumbledore suggested they call Azkaban to inform them of the missing prisoner. Why did they do that? Azkaban wouldn't be missing a prisoner because Bartie Crouch Jnr was beleived to be dead. One final complaint; we see a fleeting image of Bartie Crouch Snr lying dead in the grounds of the castle, but no explanation is given. The next thing we know, Harry is talking to Dumbledore about something totally unrelated. You have to explain why he's lying dead under the tree. I'll give it a 7 out of 10. I was going to give it 8, but writing this made me realise how annoyed I was about the changes.