So this is good, yes? No! It's not good.
I had decided that if it was all troublesome and only a couple of people showed up, I was going to write a letter to the OU, explaining the tale of woes with regard to face-to-face tutorials and then ask if they could be transmuted to on-line tutorials, via the tutor group conferences. But now I can't do that, so I'll have to do the remaining two tutorials when the time comes. Oh, well...
At least I got to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. When the tutorial ended, I sat in the car having another cup of tea while I decided what to do. The choice was:
- Drive straight home and mark more creative writing assignments
- Drive to Llandudno Junction and see if there was a showing of the new Harry Potter film.
Harry Potter won.
Despite it already having been on for several weeks and there still being lots of showings, the cinema was pretty full. Lots of small kids, naturally, being a Saturday afternoon.
I have to say I enjoyed it, mostly. Visually it's splendid, but I felt the middle dragged and the rest of the audience seemed to think so too, judging by the number of kids who wandered off to the toilets at that point. The film managed to get up to a brisk trot for the ending and I didn't have any major quibbles, apart from wanting to know what happened to the dementor at the beginning, the one that threatens Harry and Dudley?
But the best bit of all was Buckbeak the hippogriff. Whoever created that creature deserves an award. The body language for both horse and eagle was dead right. And he flew right as well. Superb!