Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I AM tearing myself away from Harry Potter to write about last night's midnight release of the Deathly Hallows and of course show some photographs.

I met up with Kaz and Decs at Waterstones cafe having passed Eason's on O'Connell Street on my way in where we went the last time and the crowd there was already mammoth.

Kaz and Decs were both inside Waterstones already only I wasn't allowed in because the Gardai had already been around complaining about the numbers inside.

Kaz did something I have never seen her do before, in fact I have never seen anyone do before, she pulled out her press pass and said 'this is my photographer' - course I had already been outside taking pics so it worked alright. I was actually bent over the front window taking pics as she came out. As we walked in she said: 'thank god you had your camera out I was banking on that'.

I don't feel in the slightest bit guilty about that and Decs pulled an even better one, he said he was from the Dublin Blog and also gained entry. LOL, I find it very funny that actually worked.

Fair play to the two of them.

The other reasons why I don't feel guilty about gaining entry above others is because they had a chair reserved at a table for me already, we were not in a queue for a book and we are going to publish pics and blogposts about it. So judging by the recent surge in Harry Potter visitors according to my stats, they can only gain if they went to any effort for the night that was in it.

Unlike Easons on O'Connell Street, the Dawson Street bookshops, Easons, Waterstones and Hodges and Figges were not having, at that stage anyway, any significant q problems.

Anyway once inside the Waterstones cafe we enjoyed lovely themed coffee and cupcakes as well as the balcony level photographic vantage point and at 11.10pm Kaz headed out to meet her boyfriend while Decs and I took some more snaps.

Battling my way through kids wanting their pics taken, who then posed and demanded to know which paper I was from, I took to saying Dublin Blog, so I may get some pics posted up there promptly so they can see themselves, I eventually left.

Once I left Waterstones I realised the others were just about to get into Hodges and Figges so I ran over and joined them just as they were getting inside.

We were being directed into the snaking long q that was winding around from the front desk into the back. Then Decs spotted some kids behind us booting away to the back of the shop and he asked the shop assistant was that for the back paydesk and she went 'ehm well yeah' so off we went were we joined a q which was very, very short.

Excellent, and one plus point for the effort Hodges and Figges otherwise didn't make for the opening, they certainly were not concerned with entertaining the people who were waiting for the event and certainly not in comparison with Easons or Waterstones.

But the craic in the q was great and I believe I exposed my penchant for freebies. I was saying that if after no real effort was made by them, apart from opening for midnight, if they didn't even go to the lengths of giving freebies I would go nuts.

But they did, a witches and wizards book, I don't know how much that will appeal to the Young Wan but hey. At 12.30am we were out of the shop and absolutely shocked to see the crazy massive queues outside both Waterstones and H&G. Walking down to the bottom of Dawson Street Easons we saw there was no q at all.

At that stage I got my taxi home with my little bag of Harry Potter. So here's some pics.