Join John and Nick as they explore the strange and quirky island of Sark, take a look at the latest J. K. Rowling twitter storms and stand in admiration of her heroic stand against judicial free-speech suppression in Scotland. Sark, Snark and Censorship. You can subscribe to all episodes of the podcast here: Apple iTunes here. Pocket Casts here. Spotify here. Audible here. Amazon Music here. Stitcher here. Pandora here. Google Podcasts here. The Barclay Brothers Faux Gothic Castle on Brecqhou -Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons *** For more please v ..read more

Way back in December 2021 I posted about the enduring mystery of the roses that were sent to Marilyn Manson nearly a year before.  My conjecture then was: 1. Assistance in developing or correcting the occult/demonic/satanic aspects of Troubled Blood. He doesn’t appear in the acknowledgments, but perhaps this is understandable given Rowling’s experience of the American evangelical backlash to Potter. 2. Thanks for supporting Johnny Depp, or in response to Manson’s thanks to Rowling for standing with him. 3. Something to do with The Ink Black Heart. None were particularly compell ..read more

Book adaptations are popular commodities in the streaming world, and some are better and more faithful than others. Disney+ just recently released the first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, a satisfying and well-done series with a great cast that is true enough to the text to satisfy readers while also paced and edited appropriately to keep up screen momentum. Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time, by contrast, is a sleek and sexy series that Robert Jordan, may he rest in peace, would not recognize as having much in common with his behemoth book series. It is no surprise, then, that Netflix a ..read more

J. K. Rowling has revealed the title to Strike 8 whilst sharing her appreciation for her visit to Sark: Thank you, Sark ? You and your people are wonderful, and I'm leaving with a very appropriate souvenir, given the title of #Strike8: #TheHallmarkedMan (bracelet from https://t.co/D91e1URBo0) pic.twitter.com/3eEAS1xfNR — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 15, 2024 This was followed later by a change in header, very quickly identified by Pools of The Strike and Ellacott Files as an early 20th century hallmarked silver Neff. A decorative sailing ship used as a container in grand dining rooms fro ..read more

It would be easy to assume that the man who made this video is a religious crank, but, if he is expert on the rites and symbolism of Freemasonry and he sees clear connections with the events and characters of the Harry Potter novels, this takes on real importance for Rowling Studies (I refer you to Nick Jeffery’s post about Rowling’s current twitter page header and the possible link to her father’s past: Freemasonry and J. K. Rowling: Strike 8). Sadly, I do not understand Russian. I have written friends who are fluent speakers and asked them to share the high points of the video. Please feel ..read more

Much has been made of this video as an example of a great teacher showing his students how to think critically. The instructor was celebrated in the conservative blogosphere and among the twitterati as “what pupils in schools need most;” he even landed an interview with Piers Morgan. Only those who believe that classrooms, to include seemingly open discussions like the one in the video above, are places where ‘real learning’ happens or can happen fail to see what is painfully obvious to a homeschooling parent or to readers of John Holt and John Taylor Gatto. The student whose viewpo ..read more

As the last days of what seemed like an interminable January faded, speculation about the next instalment of Robert Galbreath’s Strike-Ellacott series was given a welcome boost as J. K. Rowing posted a new header on her X homepage. Strike sleuths were quick to identify the Art Deco façade of Freemason’s Hall in London, which is the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England, the governing body for Freemasonry in England. Dr Beatrice Groves has written about the connection between the square and compass masonic symbol and the Deathly Hallows symbol, but the image here is the coat of arms ..read more

It is Christmas Eve on the traditional Church calendar — and I wish you all the blessings of the Feast of the Nativity! The video above is of a concert given by the Orthodox Christians in the far north of California, the Scott Valley. The singers include students and teachers at the St Photios Orthodox Theological Seminary (SPOTS) as well as nuns from the St Elizabeth Convent and the St Gregory Palamas Monastery. Enjoy! Nick Jeffery and I recorded the third Rowling Studies podcast this morning (to read about the theory we were discussing, click here). It was so much fun that it seemed to me t ..read more

Enjoy ..read more

Enjoy ..read more