Sirius's beard, September 1 is always Sunday, CMC's filk

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 97979

Carol wondered in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/97574 :

<< why Sirius didn't have at least a foot-long beard after twelve
years in Azkaban >>

This has long been wondered. Years ago, I invented a theory that, not
long before everything went pear-shaped, Sirius awoke in bed with a
pretty witch who complained that his beard stubble was scratchy, so he
promptly cast a permanent beard removal charm on his chin and hadn't
gotten around to removing it. 

Steve bboy_mn joined a thread in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/97614 :

<< If the train ride is Sept 1, and the day after is always Monday,
then logically, we have seen Sept 1 fall on a Sunday for every book.

I'm not so sure we could consider this a flint, it's probably more
like 'artistic license'. JKR starts the school year on a Monday so she
can lay out the pattern of classes for the entire week which provides
us with a framework and reference points, then later in the book, she
can simply refer to classes and we know where in the course of a
typical week we are. >>

Suppose the wizarding world's calendar was adjusted by magic, so that
the year is an even number of weeks long, so any date is on the same
day every year ... it could be done by making each day a tiny bit
longer than a Muggle day to consume the minutes us Muggles use to have
1.25 more days a year than they do ... it could be 13 months of 28
days each or 12 months with 30, 30, 31, in eacch quarter ... could
either of those explain the dates on which Lupin transforms?

And that could be combined with that other thread asking whether some
preparatory magic is done on the kids while they ride the Hogwarts
Express to school, because the train is carrying them from Muggle 1
Sept to wizarding 1 Sept.

No, I don't believe a word of it either.

CMC filked in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforG
rownups/message/97683 :

<< What is the capitol of Estonia? (...) Riga. >>

IIRC the capital of Estonia is Talinn, and Riga is the capital of
Latvia, and Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, because all the
Lithuanian names I ever heard end in -us, making me think it's a form
of Latin.