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by David Haber, Wizard News Wizard

J.K. Rowling has added a new feature to her official site, www.jkrowling.com. She's calling it the Rubbish Bin, and it will be a place that she will use to dispell all the weird and nasty things that the press print about her and Harry Potter.

In her own words from the site, "It is inevitable that amongst all the who-knows-how-many Harry Potter/J K Rowling stories that appear in the press there will be some that are less than accurate. This is a great place to tell you the truth about some of the more-fiction-than-fact articles."

The new Rubbish Bin feature can be accessed by clicking on the gum wrapper to the left of the empty coffee cup. It is divided to six sections, which are described on J.K.'s website as:

STARTING TO SMELL: True in essentials, but exaggerated or distorted

EXCESSIVE ADDITIVES: Grain of truth obscured by thick crust of inaccuracies

RECYCLED: Untruth that turns up with monotonous regularity

MOULDY: Old untruth that resurfaces unexpectedly

PURE GARBAGE: No idea how this made the papers (occasionally funny, though)

TOXIC: Hurtful, does damage

Currently in the Rubbish Bin, J.K. has put to bed two rumors concerning her family, the first about her husband giving up her practice, and the other that Gilderoy Lockhart was based on her first husband, as we reported here on Wizard News last month..

Also, she brings up what she describes as a "Mouldy" rumor, that an old British game was a primitive forerunner of Quidditch:

"When the first Harry Potter book was published several stories appeared claiming that Quidditch was based on a variety of obscure, and not so obscure, games, some of which, like Hailes, were only ever played in particular British schools. Quidditch has even been described as ‘soccer-like’ on several occasions, which is nonsensical to anybody familiar with the rules of both games. (I am sure this misunderstanding sprang originally from the fact that Ron says to Harry in ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ ‘it’s like football in the Muggle world’, but Ron is referring only to the sport’s immense popularity, not to the game itself.)

"I did not base Quidditch on any game that exists, or existed, in reality. Finding the ‘real’ counterpart of things that appear in the Harry Potter books has become a popular newspaper space-filler. The funny thing is that occasionally people miss what I have thought are glaringly obvious references to things and people in the real world. Ah well."

Published September 16, 2004

This article is Copyright © 2004, David Haber, and may not be reproduced on other web sites or in print, in whole or in part, without expressed permission

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