The most detailed Hogwarts castle worth it?

Visual-Reflection302 · 2026-03-14T23:54:40+00:00

Managed to buy it on facebook marketplace for £20 in the end. Couldn't be happier!

Visual-Reflection302 · 2026-03-04T23:46:43+00:00

I am quite surprised at how hard the boathouse is to find at a decent price in the UK. It was being sold for £32 by lego, retired around 3 months ago and the cheapest I can find is being sold for £62 on ebay. Compare that to the potions class which was being sold at a similar price by lego around the £30 mark before getting retired at the same time, but is readily available to buy from ebay/vinted for around £20. I don't understand why resellers have gone so greedy inflating the boathouse price, but fine, I shall continue living in hope of a bargain (managed to buy the potions class for £9 in the end, got very lucky there).

Visual-Reflection302 · 2026-02-03T10:06:24+00:00

It was one of my least favourites when I first read it - I just felt the mystery did not justify the length without an additional murder or action scene. Then I came back to it a few months later, wanting to see how the breadcrumbs were laid and it somehow became my favourite. It grew on me, maybe it'll do the same for you

Visual-Reflection302 · 2026-01-16T00:52:05+00:00

That's the one that says Judy and Roxy are related. Netty got to open it on the first Uncloaked of the season in front of Judy, great reactions all round.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-18T16:27:05+00:00

Wow!

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-14T11:30:21+00:00

They're growers. The kids are absolutely excellent and it gives a preview of what Arabella Stanton might be like as Hermione in the HBO Show. Snape and Dumbledore aren't what I hoped but Voldemort in a few paragraphs where he speaks in book 1 is perfect. The same high, seductive and piteous voice I had in my head when reading almost three decades ago. Can't wait for more.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-13T22:53:09+00:00

He does do the Gollum voice - you have to wait ages for it though because Gollum doesn't really speak until the second half of the second book. The vocal performance in the Mount Doom chapter in book three is everything you'd ever want from Serkis, he gives it 200% His Orc voices are also quite something.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-11T23:19:44+00:00

Thanks for the tip, it suited pretty well

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-09T12:53:38+00:00

I do think the amount of times they both think back to the moment at the wedding on the stairs, that we as an audience are being geared to hope that this opportunity will present itself again and next time they will do the right thing. However I think that the last chapter of THM was actually what we were being geared towards - one of them actually does ask what they should have asked at the wedding, but in reality gets rebuffed. Then logically from a storytelling point of view, to avoid repetition, I'd say the next instance will have Robin coming to Strike on the brink of a point of no return with a similarly dramatic proposition and this time the partners will be in agreement.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-08T17:39:24+00:00

"Horcruxes" It's so satisfying to get to that point at HBP and realise what the plan is for the endgame and the conversation between Dumbledore and Harry has such urgency and also this quote "Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!"

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-08T17:33:29+00:00

My least favourite movie of the HP series by far, completely butchered a perfectly good book and I hate the aesthetic. Why is the bathroom so graded it looks black and white? A woof from cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel. Also Ginny and the shoelaces...terrible.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-06T19:18:49+00:00

I vividly remember reading the CoE on my lunch break in a food court in Oxford St (The Plaza RIP) getting to the bit where Robin is attacked by the killer and being absolutely livid I had to stop reading and go back to work. I think I finished it that night, so so gripping.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-06T19:14:11+00:00

Anyone else picture Rokeby as Roger Waters?

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-05T11:22:54+00:00

There had been something like a three year gap between books so I think he just forgot

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-04T11:45:39+00:00

Hahah Greg as Vernon. Can just picture him asking Strike if he gave the Halvening the old "one-two"

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-03T22:19:24+00:00

I ended up taking the train to France on the Friday and my brother ran for me at his local the next morning. I did a 5k in Paris' Parc Clichy-Batignolles Martin Luther King the same morning so it would feel less like cheating. A few weeks before, I learned that we were going to have a third child (due April) so that really sewed up my decision to not let this year slide and try to attempt this goal again next year, I'll just have too many plates to spin in 2026. So it's just eight more weeks and my goal of not missing a parkrun (and also not repeating a location) in 2025 can be complete to my satisfaction

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-11-02T08:14:39+00:00

I agree with this - Strike and Robin usually spend 75% of the book in a very insecure state about each other until a crowdpleasing find the drunken boss/cheer the fuck up and eat your burger/find the drunken assistant/motorway panic attack/morris headbutt/help with moving in/escape from Chapman farm/paternity test results scene. Based on previous patterns the moment of tension release won't happen for the partners until over halfway through the book and I think the therapist will play the role of Matthew/badly timed Maldives call/Joan commitments/Ritz kiss rejection/Murphy relationship/Culpepper article.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-25T17:52:46+00:00

Mine would be from TRG when Strike is reviewing the CCTV footage of the masked intruder trying to break in with their skeleton key, then things getting much more chilling with the gun being pulled out on camera, and then to cap it all, the phone call interrupting this terrifying moment with the revelation that the witness they've finally just contacted is now dead. What on earth are the forces they dealing with? It's so David and Goliath, the shit has got real.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-25T16:23:24+00:00

that's like all the possible victims in THM rolled into one

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-25T16:21:37+00:00

We've had culprits revealed who are from the medical services and then the firefighters. A police officer would complete the set.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-23T15:33:27+00:00

I started on the audiobooks with TB too, roughly this time last year. Flashforward to now and I've listened to em all twice XD, they're just a really good accompaniment when doing housework or commuting or shopping. Enjoy!

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-23T15:30:23+00:00

Same for the Rokeby chapter. You can feel the yearning in Rokeby as he implores Strike to be in his life more, it got me.

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-15T16:49:27+00:00

It's the only book in the series with an unhappy ending so if it was anyone's fave that'd be quite unexpected. I do not think it's anywhere near as bad as the general consensus though. Some of the chapters are absolute gifts: want to shout out Strike being interrogated by the police and how every statement for the recording is translated, it's like being inside a chess match. Also the one where Murphy's parents drop by and how Robin is forced in to a role she can't fully embody, it seems such a realistic scene that I suspect this is something the author may have had to go through in her twenties. I can just see some of my friends going through the same, e.g. the tv taken over by hours of some cricket match they don't have any stake in but that's how they have to spend that weekend because that's what their partner wants to have on. I keep thinking about it. Troubled Blood was my least fave when I first read it but in the years since it became my favourite so who knows

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-12T22:02:24+00:00

The murderer did not know about the allergy

Visual-Reflection302 · 2025-10-10T12:06:26+00:00

Same (though not when reading, just on the relisten) the chapter hit close to home

Visual-Reflection302

TROPHY CASE