Wizards at Large -short note on the odd.

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 116282


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at y...> wrote:

bboyminn:
> 
> Just a short note: I was corresponding with someone recently on this
> very subject, and they pointed out to me that they had recently 
ridden
> the London subway during rush hour wearing an elaborate period
> costume, and not a single person so much as blinked an eye. I 
suspect
> all over London and Britian, it is quite common to see people in
> period costumes. 

Geoff:
But not necessarily on the London Underground. The Underground - 
especially the Circle Line - is usually jampacked with tourists; as a 
Brit, I feel strangely alien on the odd occasions I use it as they 
range from Japanese visitors hung around with the latest photo 
equipment and perhaps folk from African countries dressed in flowing 
robes to large Aussies with huge backpacks trying to read a fully 
opened Ordnance Survey map standing in the doorway entrance(!)....

You expect to find people in different uniforms and clothing around 
London - Beefeaters at the Tower of London, Guards at Buckingham 
Palace and Horse Guards Parade for example - and you will find some 
folk in local costumes etc. around the UK but these latter would be 
in tourist areas; people in Welsh national costume spring to mind. 
The only unusual clothing we get in my area, which depends a lot on 
tourism, would be the  appearance of the Town Crier from one of the 
local towns on a special occasion such as the village Carnival.

I think in regard to your contact's experience that you will find the 
occasional person travelling to and from work dressed like that - 
not "quite common" but familiar enough not to evoke comment.

So it is possible that "a tiny man in a violet top hat..." or a "wild-
looking woman dressed all in green..." or a "bald man in a very long 
purple coat..." (PS "The Vanishing Glass" p.27 UK edition) might 
catch people's attention.

Although, mark you, "the weirdest thing about all these people was 
the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer 
look" (ibid. p.27).

Hmmm.

Geoff
Pay a virtual visit to Exmoor and the 
preserved West Somerset Railway at:
http://www.aspectsofexmoor.com