JK Rowling

Hollywood-worthy gems in the UK – from medieval forts to Harry Potter beaches

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

AS the UK continues to sizzle in the sun, it’s the perfect time to take a well-earned staycation – but where to start?

Award-winning British movie location expert Tom Howard has shared what he believes are some of the country’s most exciting ‘hidden treasures’.

Tom has years of expertise in the world of film and TV, on movies and shows like The Night Manager and A Monster Calls, where his 9-5 involves locating the most breath-taking and beautiful parts of the British Isles.Exclusively for Premier Inn, Tom has opened up his professional notebooks to create a list of ten less well-known locations that he believes are perfect for a 2018 summer staycation.He said: “The primary duty of a location manager is to discover places to film which are interesting, unique and not often in the public eye – from a castle on a hill in the middle of Scotland to a heritage railway in eastern Lancashire.”These really wonderful destinations may not be the first place that travellers think of but, trust me, they are well worth a visit.” [ . . . ]

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Harry Potter Tourism Is Ruining Edinburgh

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

The city is full of horrible gimmicks about a celebrity wizard.

What happens when we die?” is one of the existential questions that humans have puzzled over since we first grew aware of our own mortality. Few of us can ever have contemplated that our name might be seized from our gravestone by a bestselling author, assigned to a fictional evil wizard and our final place of rest transformed into a vacuous bucket list novelty for fans of a popular fantasy franchise

That is, however, the fate which has befallen Thomas Riddell, who died in Edinburgh in 1806. His grave, nestled within the city’s Greyfriars Kirkyard, has become a pilgrimage for hundreds of visitors every day, who trek to the site to see an inscription that possibly inspired the naming of a character in a book.

Riddell’s name, you see, is a bit like that of Tom Riddle, otherwise known as the wicked wizard Lord Voldemort, the primary antagonist of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. On another tombstone nearby, someone has scrawled “Sirius Black, 1953 – 1996”, a reference to another series character [ . . . ]

Source: Harry Potter Tourism Is Ruining Edinburgh