Noah Burbage

I think that nothing over the size of a small dog or cat should be albino. Small albino things, especially small furry creatures, are generally pretty cute. Albino rabbit? Cute. Albino ferrets? Cute. Small albino monkeys? Cute. Albino axolotls? Cute and smiley. So small plus albino in most cases equals cute. I've never seen an albino spider so I can't judge whether the cute outweighs the ARGH! factor but that's beside the point.

However large plus albino equals not cute. Definitely not cute. In fact, it's the definition of creepy. Especially when it's a bloodhound. I ran into one yesterday in the hallways near Ludicrous Patents. It was large and bloodhoundish and white and pink with red eyes and it stared. I'm serious. It just stood there, panting and staring. I moved to one side. It stared. I moved backwards. It stared. I moved forwards. It stared. I did a quick jig. It stared. I was tempted to do a full song and dance number but I think I'd already gotten the point of what it was going to do. Stare.

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[Warded to Ophelia]

So, I have a question. I'm probably not going to like the answer but, what the hell, Fridays seem to be a good day for whacking my ego with a hammer and it gives me an excuse to order pizza and visit the off-licence tonight.

Did you set me up with Dorcas just to prod her over to whoever the hell it is she's run off to? Because, you know, if you wanted me to play pretend to get whatever end result you were aiming for, you really should have told me. I would have played along. I just would have known not to think that it might actually go somewhere.

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I had a hankering for a bit of Caribbean food tonight but my favourite hole in the wall place is most emphatically off-limits tonight. Shame. I'll have to go Indian again, I think.

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[Warded to Family & Friends minus Dorcas Meadowes]

Uh, so I kind of got distracted by all the zombie apocalypse stuff that happened and forgot to tell you all this (those of you that didn't already know, that is!) but I went out on a date and it was good! So. That's good, eh?

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[Warded to Dorcas]

So, I don't know if Aurors get called in to Inferi stuff but if you were involved, I hope you're okay?

Also, I really enjoyed our date. I had a lot of fun. I was wondering if you'd like to do that again? Maybe with an added movie?

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My thoughts and sympathies go out to the families of those who were killed and I hope those who were injured get better as quickly as possible.



I'll never be able to watch Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead the same way again.

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Jessica's been on a South Pacific kick lately. There's some great songs in that musical but it has a pretty biting message in it as well. We were singing 'You've Got to be Carefully Taught' today but people we're getting a little bitter and angry and as we're supposed to be building teams and being sensitive and all that, we did an abrupt left turn and jumped into 'Three little maids from school are we' from The Mikado. And believe me, hilarity definitely ensues when the men in here are all singing, "Three little maids from school are we, Pert as a school-girl well can be, Filled to the brim with girlish glee, Three little maids from school!"

So, for the benefit of all fathers and mothers in the audience, that Automatic Daughter Detector the Ludicrous Patents Office was investigating? We've given it a patent. Turns out it's designed to detect the movement of teenage daughters in and out of the house. Who knows if it'll ever see the light of day (I'd say a good 70% of the stuff that comes through here never goes anywhere) but the man has his patent and can move ahead with his design.

My latest project is something the patent requester is calling a 'Whirlimathingamibajig'. I have no idea what it is or what it does, just that the designs make it look like a mongrel crossbreed of a bicycle, a hang glider, a dinosaur and a jam-filled doughnut. I still haven't worked out what it actually does. Still, that's half the fun of this job.

Now this is the sort of sensitivity training I can get behind. I brought a selection of dishes from my local Indian place. Amazing food. Great people running the place. Ravi has all his grandmother's recipes. He adjusts some of them for non-Indian tastebuds but not many. Nothing like authentic Indian food. At least I hope it's authentic. He could be having a lend of me after all. Guess I won't know unless I go to India.



Just watch out for the vindaloo. I forgot to tell him to make it for people who aren't me. I kind of like it really hot, as in spicy hot, as in lots of chilli. If you're not used to spicy food, it might just blow the top of your head off. Or have you running to the loo for the next couple of days with a major case of the burning runs in which case I hope you're a secret Death Eater because a few days of suffering with a ring of fire is the least you deserve for hurting my sister. So, watch out for that one. Unless you like really spicy food, in which case, enjoy.

[Warded to Hope]

Hope, are you alright? Were you working? Clamouring parents, siblings and me desperately want to know.

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Just for the record? I'll take the Order's comedy hour over that any day. But frankly, both of you need a really good PR person to advise you on what is and isn't appropriate for the radio.

You know, it might be a bit easier to take the Order seriously and consider them potentially worthy, if very illegal, protectors of the wizarding world if they didn't sound like a pack of kids playing secret agents. I mean, Cuddles? Turkey? We're supposed to trust our protection to people calling themselves Cuddles and Turkey? Yeah... okay... no. As much as I can appreciate their message, I think I'll continue to rely on people using the titles Auror and Hitwizard/witch for my protection, thank you very much. They sound far more reliable, trustworthy and professional than old Cuddles and Turkey there.

This week in our Ministry-mandated sensitivity training we've had to read a book about a Muggleborn's experiences in Slytherin. I honestly wasn't too interested in reading it since I was fairly sure I already knew what it was going to say. See, I'm pretty much a Muggleborn and I was in Slytherin. If you're like me or a true Muggleborn, you have two options. One, you can do what the author of the book did and lie through your teeth or two, you can tell the truth and find out what small-minded, bigoted, prejudiced arseholes many of your supposed 'Housemates' are. Guess which one I did? (That's not to say all Slytherins are raging bigots. There are some sane, sensible and intelligent people in that House - just for your information, those people are not the same people as the raging bigots. The two are mutually exclusive.)

I don't often talk about my time at school because outside of the classes, I didn't like it much. I spent a large portion of my First Year begging my parents to let me come home. I even went to see the Headmaster twice to see if I could be resorted into a better, more friendly and welcoming House. I contemplated running away and joining a circus pretty much every day for the first four months I was there.

The only thing that made being in that House bearable (other than the few sane, sensible, non-bigoted, intelligent people in there) was that the worst of them all thought I was too stupid to be the one playing all those pranks on them. (Because I'm of lesser breeding and have dirty blood so therefore I'm stupid - yes, they said that not only in my hearing but to my face. Charming people, aren't they?)

So, I'd like to admit it here and now - I was the one who short-sheeted your beds, put itching powder between your sheets, laced your toothpaste with chilli oil, put sneezing powder in your clothes and snuck into your dorm in the night and dipped your hand in a bucket of warm water to make you wet the bed. Every time you sneered at me, I played a Muggle prank on you. It was great. I'm not sorry about it at all. You deserved each and every prank.

I feel so much better now that I've gotten that off my chest.

Well. That is a sight and sound I never want to see again. I've always heard that when something terrible happens that everything seems to move in slow motion and I have to say that there is some truth to that. When the Knight Bus began heading towards that bakery, it was as if everything slowed down and I could see everything in excruciatingly clear detail and yet could do nothing to change what was about to happen. I was utterly helpless. It's not a very nice feeling. I've seen car accidents before. I live in London. How could I not? But nothing like this. It was terrible.

[Warded to family & friends]

I'm fine. Really. Just a bit shocked and rattled. I wasn't hurt at all, not like some of those poor people on the bus and outside the bakery. Of course, so many people saw it and how do you explain a large purple triple-decker bus suddenly careening out of control on the street?

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The only problem I've found with living in Whitechapel is the occasions when you meet a girl and you're getting along just fine and then you tell her you live in Whitechapel and she suddenly starts looking at you like you're the descendent of Jack the Ripper. All of a sudden she's looking at her watch, finishing her drink and finding polite but somewhat lame excuses to get away from you. It's very depressing.

On the off chance you were wondering, yes, that happened to me on Saturday night. Again.

Honestly, Whitechapel isn't that bad these days. It's a lovely area of London to live in. And no, I'm not a descendent of Jack the Ripper. Though admittedly no one really knows who Jacky-boy was though there are about fifteen different theories. So, you never know, maybe I am a descendent of Jack the Ripper. Maybe that's why I like living in Whitechapel. Though I'll admit I'm besmirching the good and fine names of my siblings by even thinking that!

Mondays always seem to inspire these sorts of random rambling thoughts. Maybe it's because it's a slow morning for us until the weekend inventors start coming in with their patent applications.

I suppose it was bad timing that everyone in the office was engaged in a rousing rendition of the Major-General’s Song from Pirates of Penzance, complete with dance steps and dramatic movements, when the Minister of Magic walked in on an impromptu visit yesterday. We just couldn’t help ourselves! We’d just received a patent for an Automatic Daughter Detector and it reminded Jessica of the Major-General’s daughter troubles in the musical. Her delight at the whole thing just simply required the Major-General’s Song to be sung by everyone because making Jessica clap her hands together with glee is always a good thing. It was all completely logical and not at all unprofessional. At least not for us.

And no, I’m not sure what an Automatic Daughter Detector is supposed to do either. We’re still picking apart that one to see whether it’s worthy of a patent or not.

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