a few nitpicks on Eagle Owls / vampire interview / hag / Bertha and Peter

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" <catlady at w...> 
wrote:
> 
> Bear in mind that I believe that human Peter was an ordinary slubby
> looking bloke, not the Dickensianly grotesque ugliness shown in PoA
> movie. Thus it seems totally obvious and pathetic that poor Bertha, a
> homely desperate middle-aged spinster (as a homely not-quite
> -desperate middle-aged not spinster, I relate!), would have been more
> than happy to walk out with any age-appropriate unmarried wizard; she
> may have SUGGESTED the private stroll (in vague hope of seducing him)
> in the course of a conversation that began by her exclaiming: "Peter
> Pettigrew! I thought you were blown to bits by that evil traitor! They
> sent your Order of Merlin to your mother!" Then Peter could have
> responded by spinning a tale of having awakened injured and amnesiac
> in some unknown place and having only recently regained his memory and
> thus being on the way back to Britain to resume his identity...


You incorrigible romantic, you!

I'll go along with your contention that Timothy Spall's representation of Peter
owed more to a theatrical caricature from "Wind in the Willows" than
anything else and can be regarded as suspect --  but Bertha as predator
seems a mite fanciful. (Reminds me of an incident in Spike Milligans
'Puckoon' where a determined female gets her target drunk, drags him
to the altar and a ventriloquist from County Cork says "I  do" from the
third pew.)

>From what we know of Bertha all Peter would have to do was whisper 
"It's a secret - come outside, I can't tell you here," and she'd be out like
a ferret up a drainpipe.

What I do believe is that the meeting was no accident. 
Peter and Voldy knew she'd be there, they'd been told so - probably by
ole Baggy. What I haven't figured out is how he communicated with
Voldy - not owls I think, and it could be important when considering the 
DEs as a group if there's some clandestine means of communication we
don't yet know about.

Kneasy