I'm alright - it's the others!

This is one of my dad's favourite sayings, always uttered in response to that peculiarly phatic and English question "how are you today?" "I'm alright - it's the others!"

This saying can have many different meanings, but I always gloss it as: "I'm OK - but I'm not sure about everyone else!!!" This begs the question of how we can be so arrogant to believe that we are doing fine and having SUCH A HOOT when everyone else is not. For all we know, we might think everything is fine and dandy, think we are in the PINK OF HEALTH, but instead we are slowly being eaten up by the worms of cancer, or blinded by the smoke and mirrors of madness.

So for this reason, I treat my dad's phrase with the respect it deserves, and use it only at arm's length, and sparingly at that. So, thinking of this phrase leads me to discuss the cultural phenomenon known as Harry Potter.

The latest and last of the Harry Potter novels has been finally released to worldwide clamour and acclaim. All over the world, kids and parents are lining up outside bookshops, dressed as witches and monsters and other fantastic creatures, so that they can buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before everyone else. Cute little AVID READERS from Kuching to Catford will be staying up all night to finish the book before going back to school on Monday. Malicious bloggers will post up the ending of the book and reveal who gets killed before all those little kids get to find out.

And this has happened every couple of years or so ever since the first Potter book was published sixty five million years ago.

But don't get me wrong, gentle readers. I am not against Harry Potter. I love the books, and have read every one of them, although I did think the Half-Blood Prince was a little half-hearted, but there you are. And I am DEFINITELY not against large numbers of young people and their parents snapping up and devouring well-written children's literature and making a certain Scottish lady a millionaire.

But what does not quite CRUMBLE MY COOKIE is the way that books like Harry Potter are marketed and priced and turned into carefully stage-managed media products. Words like HYPE and FEEDING FRENZY, despite being hopeless clichés, really do seem to accurately describe what goes on whenever JK brings out a new Potter.

And, because I'm alright and not the others, I am having none of it.

Let me tell you why. Firstly, I don't see why I should pay through the nose for a novel, unless of course it is a first edition personally signed by the author, or it is written on gold-embossed paper or has the word TOLKIEN on it.

Here in Kuching, most bookshops on average sell Potter books for at least twice as much as other novels. For instance, when the Half Blood Prince came out a couple of years ago, the book was sold for around RM 99. And the latest book I understand is going for around RM 120.

And these rip-off prices seem to stay FOREVER, and only seem to drop off glacially slowly. In fact, the other day I noticed that one shop was selling the Half-Blood Prince for RM 36. That was two years after it was released!

So it pays to be patient, especially with Potter. Don't buy the book when it comes out! You'll be ripped off!! Wait for the price to go down, even if it takes two years!!!

Another thing about the Potter books is that they are almost invariably released in hard cover editions. Now call me weird, off my box or a couple of stalks short of a complete bushel, but I don't see why anyone should buy novels in hard cover. Hard cover is for dictionaries, reference books, and other books that you don't read in bed or on the plane or on the toilet. Novels should be paperback - light, flexible, easy to put in a travel bag and above all, CHEAPER.

So why waste your money, and suffer all that arm and shoulder pain by forking out billions for a big, heavy brick which you read once then put on the shelf to gather dust. That is, if the shelf doesn't collapse under the weight of all those Harry Potter Hard-cover editions!

It really gets on my nerves when books that are supposed to bring fun and pleasure to people's lives are sold in such ridiculously expensive and awkward formats. But you can beat them if you are prepared to wait until the prices go down, and they bring out the paperback edition!

Like the Green Mile by Stephen King. That book was originally released as six short novelettes, over the space of a couple of years. But I wasn't stupid, Oh no. I waited till they bought out the complete edition, in one cheap volume.

That taught 'em to try to rip me off!! YES!!! I beat the system!!! I'm alright, it's the others!! Neh neh neh neh neh!!! HahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHahHah !!!!!

God I need my pills. Where are my pills?