List Close and OpenTimes - 2 Cents

[davewitley]

Petra:

> According to JKR:
>  
> Thursday 1 February 2007
>  
> Publication Date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
>  
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be published on Saturday 
> 21st July 2007 at 00:01 BST in the UK and at 00:01 in the USA. It 
> will also be released at 00:01 BST on Saturday 21st July in other 
> English speaking countries around the world.
>  
> Petra:
> I read the above to mean that the USA will get the book release at 
> 6 different midnights, one for each of the 6 time zones (Eastern, 
> Central, Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, Hawaii).  All "English speaking 
> countries around the world" including the UK (of course) will get 
the 
> book released at 00:01 BST.  Australian Eastern should therefore 
> be getting the book at 9am their time.
>  
> 00:01 Saturday in the UK converts to 16:01 Friday my (Pacific) 
time.  
> The rest of the "English speaking countries around the world" will 
> therefore get their books 8 hours before I can.  It's not the whole 
> Pacific time zone, I think British Columbia will get the book 8 
hours
> before I do too.  Same with Australian Eastern though it's many 
time 
> zones away.
>  
> See?  I hope that made sense.

It does indeed make sense, but as is so often the case, a surface 
reading of canon is misleading.

>From the Canadian publishers of Harry Potter ( 
http://www.raincoast.com/harrypotter/ ):

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Saturday, July 21, 2007, 12:01 local time"

So I think that JKR sees Canada (and for all I know, the Caribbean 
and the Falklands) as being included in the term 'USA'.  I know, 
don't shoot me, I merely interpret the data.

My understanding, therefore, is that copies of Harry Potter and the 
Deathly Hallows will apparate into bookshops throughout the Eastern 
Hemisphere at 00:01 BST, and then take twelve hours to cross the 
whole Western Hemisphere from the Cape Verde Islands and Scoresbysund 
to American Samoa and the Aleutians (so not just the USA), being 
neatly brought to bookstores by broomstick at 00:01 local time.

Intriguingly, this should mean that the inhabitants of eastern 
Kiribati will get their copies at 2:01pm Saturday local time (what 
*is* with that extra minute, anyway?), while for the inhabitants of 
Hawai'i due north, it will be 2:01pm Friday and they still have ten 
hours to wait.

Isn't magic wonderful?

David