Harry Potter has ruined Britain

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":4.85,"text":"Walking by Greyfriars Bobby last month I surveyed a cityscape little changed since the 17th century. I had forgotten how profoundly gorgeous Edinburgh is: its vista sweeping from the lofty castle down the Royal Mile to the palace at Holyrood. Even more magical are its myriad lanes and stairways that move you through the different levels of the city, transporting you through history."}],[{"start":30.15,"text":"I stopped at Greyfriars Bobby, a commemoration of the faithful little terrier who sat on his master’s grave for 14 years (after all, I was with my own faithful hound). The statue guards the entrance to Greyfriars Kirkyard on Candlemaker Row wherein one can admire great Scottish gothic mausoleums and consider the lore of the 19th-century murderers and graverobbers, Messrs Burke and Hare."}],[{"start":54.599999999999994,"text":"Said to be one of the most haunted graveyards in the UK — though I am challenged to find empirical evidence to support that fact — it was an ill-frequented bit of green space adjacent to the university when I was a student in the 1990s. Today, it is gorged with tourists, stumbling around in packs. Few are students of the Covenanters Memorial, however, or the grave of James Hutton, “the founder of modern geology”. They are searching for the names Sirius Black, William McGonagall and Thomas Riddle, better known as Lord Voldemort, the characters who inspired JK Rowling’s wizard universe in the Harry Potter books."}],[{"start":91.25,"text":"Up the road on George IV Bridge, The Elephant House café, in which Rowling penned the drafts for her bestseller, has been reborn as a Pottourism centre for pilgrims of the novels in search of hot chocolates and sticky buns. The café burnt down in 2021 but has since reopened, still with Rowling’s writing table, so that visitors can be whisked “to the world of Harry Potter, with cosy nooks [and] whimsical decor”. I was a student at the same time Rowling was scribbling down her prose: it feels wild to think that I might have been slurping a giant cappuccino next to the woman then conceiving her billion-dollar world."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":128.95,"text":"I’ve never read a Harry Potter novel, nor engaged with any of the films. I’ve never understood why a grown-ass adult would get excited about a bunch of dudes riding broomsticks and casting magic spells. My daughter, like me, didn’t really do fantasy fiction as a child. Neither have I followed with much interest the zeal with which the author has stoked the more recent culture wars. Rowling has since become problematic; Pottermania lives on. The only thing I hold her responsible for is the co-option of every historic place of interest into her banal brand of wizardry."}],[{"start":164.2,"text":"In Oxford, Pottermania is still apparent everywhere. Ancient colleges are presented alongside cardboard signs depicting corners and quadrants in which visitors might restage an interaction between Harry and his Hogwartian cohort. At New College last weekend, I paid £12 to visit the chapel in which you can see “Lazarus”, the sculpture by the British artist Sir Jacob Epstein, and stained-glass windows by Sir Joshua Reynolds. But the college is really coining it for the chance to check out the medieval cloisters, a stand-in for Hogwarts corridors, and shoot selfies before the holm oak seen in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":202.6,"text":"The same theme continues throughout Britain. In York, The Shambles has been recast as Diagon Alley, where Harry buys his first wand, even though this medieval street was never cited as an inspiration, and the filmmakers built their Alley on the set at Warner Bros Studios. London’s King’s Cross station has permanently cancelled its annual announcement about the departure of the fictional Hogwarts Express on September 1, yet the station still sees swarms of visitors hoping to will the steam train into their lives. "}],[{"start":233.25,"text":"I am not immune to film-location tourism: I’ve eaten salt beef sandwiches at New York’s Katz Deli (When Harry Met Sally), and it thrills me to know that scenes from the Rupert Everett film Another Country were shot in the chapel of St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, London’s oldest parish church (also, incidentally, used in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shakespeare in Love). "}],[{"start":258.45,"text":"But Pottourism is a behemoth that erodes all other fictions in its wake. It’s noisy and annoying. I do not want to share my communion with the architecture of Oxford’s Bodleian Library with a bunch of dimwits clutching plastic snitches and wearing burgundy and yellow stripy scarves."}],[{"start":277.2,"text":"Nearly 30 years after the first book was published, you might wonder if the tourist market might actually be slowing down. But one fears new fascination is to be unleashed by the upcoming fantasy adaptation that will launch this Christmas on HBO. The series will span a decade, and each season will be faithful to the books. One wonders if there can remain a corner of ancient Britain that will evade the call of Gryffindor?"}],[{"start":302.95,"text":"I don’t mind seeing children marching around in capes and clasping spell books, but it’s intellectually debasing to see grown-ups swooning over august cultural institutions to catch a glimpse of where “Mad-Eye Moody transformed Draco Malfoy into a ferret”. And, yes, I do appreciate that, according to various metrics, the Pottourism industry is worth billions to the UK."}],[{"start":326.25,"text":"But can’t all these Potheads just bugger off to Watford and enjoy their wizard on a designated Warner Bros studio tour? Or, is it possible to force these attractions to go Potter-free one day a week? So that I can enjoy a gothic cemetery in perfect calm and solitude, just like a proper Voldemort."}],[{"start":349.8,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1781935975_1171.mp3"}