Intro - Profile

[plumeski]

Before I respond to the little questionnaire, I'd like to thank Neil 
(and anyone else resposnsible) for considering me worthy of joining 
this august group. I certainly don't consider myself an HPFGU old-
timer and chronologically speaking, I certainly am not (having first 
posted in January 2002). Nevertheless, in the context of a recent 
conversation on (I think) the OT list , I do remember the first 
stirrings of MAGIC DISHWASHER and think I understand its intricacies 
(although I findamentally disagree with them). :-)


THE OLD CROWD – INTRO

***Name:
Richard Sliwa

***Nicknames/IDs:
(on Yahoo) Plumeski or GulPlum; otherwise plumski

***Age:
41 (and two weeks) :-)

***Family:
Two elderly parents (with whom I live, technically to look after 
them), six siblings (five sisters, one brother). 

***Home
Birmingham, England

***Birthday, Place of Birth:
9th June, Birmingham

***Education/Job/Role in Life etc:
I can't be bothered to type this up. All kinds of personal details 
(including the above) and a potted bio are on my web site: 
http://plum.cream.org 

***Other things we might want to know about you:
My site is in desperate need of updating (the bio was last amended 
four years ago!). I moved back to live with my elderly parents (in 
the house in which I was born!) just over two years ago and am 
registered as their "carer". I therefore don't currently have 
a "proper" job, although I do all kinds of bits and pieces which I 
can do from home, which include a bit of web design, a bit of tech 
support for a web hosting company owned by friends, some tanslation 
work, and all kinds of other things for my parent's technically 
illiterate friends (these folk are not only generally in their 70s or 
80s, but have a very poor command of English, being immigrants from 
Poland). 

For various reasons, I have never applied for a driving licence and 
have never had a single driving lesson (or spent a single moment in 
command of a car in any other circumstances). Most people find this 
strange. :-) I am therefore completely reliant on my pushbike or 
public transport, which as any other UK folk know, can be a right 
drag!

***First contact with Harry Potter:
First movie. I saw it at a preview screening (see below) and came out 
of the cinema wondering why the narrative didn't address the question 
of why Snape might hate Harry (yet at the same time be prepared to 
save his life). I acquired the book on my way home in the hope that 
it might answer that question. I bought CoS the next day (pretty much 
by accident). I wasn't all that impressed with either book, TBH. 
Having made my first tentative steps in online HP fandom and 
discoverning that the general consensus appeared to be that PoA was 
the best, I bought that (and GoF) the day after that. The rest is 
history. :-)  


***Favourite Potter things 
Other than the books and DVDs of the movies, I have an HP bookend 
(pseudo-ceramic one of Harry reading, which holds my HP books in 
place, which I received as a present) and have an HP wall calendar 
just above my current eyeline (which I bought on the cheap). I am not 
a fan of branding or labels (that's an understatement!) and despise 
virtually any kind of merchandising. I am particularly vitriolic 
about merchandising aimed at (small) kids, which hasn't stopped me 
buying HP toys and clothes for my two nephews (currently 7 and 4) for 
their last two birthdays and Christmas! :-)


***Extent of Potter obsession:
I have a distinctly compulsive personality. If I get interested in 
something, I take it to the hilt and lose interest in pretty much 
anything else. The unceasing Potter bandwagon over the last 18 months 
or so has continued to feed that compulsion and thus, at least for 
the next few weeks (while OotP is being dissected in all directions) 
I expect to continue to think about little else. I will therefore 
probably take a break from the end of July until after Christmas, 
when the PoA movie bandwagon will start rolling again.


***Other interests/activities:
Apart from the various interests listed on my web site (and the two 
sub-sites there devoted to specific topics) I am a fanatical movie-
goer. Thanks to the UGC cinema chain's subsription system, I am able 
to maitain that interest on a budget (£10 per month for unlimited 
movies; by comparison, cinemas around here charge approx. £3 for one 
daytime ticket). As a result, I have seen almost every movie released 
in the UK in the last couple of years. Becuase there's only one 
(awful!) "art" cinema here in Birmingham, the posh UGC (13 screens) 
alo shows a lot of "art" or foreign movies (at least one or two a 
week). This has also permitted me to have seen CoS over 30 times in 
the cinema (I have watched the DVD through from beginning to end 
*once*!).

Neil mentioned that he's not a fan of child actors. My attitude is 
slightly more complex: I REALLY, REALLY hate kiddie movies which rely 
on kids being cute and doing cute things (and bursting into tears on 
cue). I absolutely ADORE intelligent "coming of age" movies (though 
not the "let's lose our virginity" type), and my personal top ten of 
all time includes "Stand By Me" and "Hope and Glory". The latter 
happens to have been directed by my favourite movie director, John 
Boorman (who directed "Tailor of Panama", famous in Potter movie 
circles for its own reasons). I maintain that Boorman should have 
been given a shot at adapting and directing the HP movies (he has 
exactly the right sensibilities for this kind material - he 
specialises in "quest" stories, he's *great* with kids and he has 
a "wicked" sense of humour, oh and he's British and boarding-school 
educated to boot).


***Current/recent reading:
I usually have about three or four books on the go at any time; one 
or two are likely to be pulp fiction (usually sci fi, of the "what 
if..." kind), one is likely to be "worthy" and one will be non-
fiction (biographies or "philosophy").

My bedside table currently has on it a book called "Little Brother" 
(an interesting take on 2002 computers, written in 1982 i.e. before 
the advent of the home PC) by an author whose identity I can't be 
bothered to check, Ayn Rand's "Return of the Primitive: The Anti-
Industrial Revolution"; I have decided that I will have read all of 
the BBC's "Top 100 Books" before they return to the subject in 
October (I have thus far read 65 of them at one time or another). I 
just finished "The Grapes of Wrath" (I'm not very well read when it 
comes to American literature) and will be picking up "The Alchemist" 
by Paul Coelho from the library next week, as soon as the first wave 
of discussions about OotP is done.

***Current/recent listening:
I'm a big movie soundtrack fan, and am currently in Danny Elfman mode 
(he should have scored the HP movies, not Williams!). I have MP3'd 
some of my Elfman collection and have it on random play whenever the 
TV's not on.

***Current/recent viewing:
My current TV viewing has several "must watch" items: 24, Law & Order 
(UK TV is presently 4 years behind US producion!), CSI, The West Wing 
and Big Brother 4 (I see Neil's watching too!). :-)  I am also a news 
junkie (though I don't currently have digital/satellite/cable TV, so 
am limited in my options). I go to the cinema at least 3 times a 
week, and won't even start listing what I've seen recently. :-)