Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Hype

Yeah, so we thought we would nip in at midnight on Friday and maybe join the queue of around 50 folk waiting to get the new Harry Potter book at the launch.

Sharlene is a big fan of the books so we pre-booked and imagined we would stroll up at 11.45pm and wait for the doors at Waterstones in Princes Street to open at the witching hour.

As we drove in, past James Thin's book shop – opposite the Festival Theatre on South Bridge, we noticed a large queue of people. 'Ah, I think we might be in a bit of trouble here', I thought.

When driving past an even bigger line of Potter-iets, outside the Waterstones on the East End of Princes Street, the stark reality was beginning to sink in, we were in for a long night.

I shut my eyes as I drove the rest of Princes Street, past the main Waterstones at the West End, along Shandwick Place, and right, to park in Stafford Street opposite Charlie Millers. I opened my eyes and turned to Sharlene, sitting in the passengers seat. 'Was it bad?' I asked her. The blood had drained from her face, her eyes dark, sunken. I could see that her very soul had been bludgeoned.

We walked along past Habitat, lots of kids were all around, excitedly shouting 'Snape is innocent' and 'I'm going to kick Malfoy in his Philosopher's Stones if I see him!'.

Nervously, we reached Princes Street and nearly shat ourselves. The queue of people, young and old, geeks and freaks, snaked from Waterstones front door, past HMV, past GAP, past the two mobile phone shops next to each other, past the games shop that used to be Sports Connection, up the street that leads on to Charlotte's Square, in to Rose Street, 200 yards along Rose Street, did a 180 and came all the way back towards us.

It must have been about 2,000 people long. So, we joined the back of it, duh.

We started queuing at 11.50pm and the folk just kept on joining behind us. At midnight we heard distant cheers as the doors opened and the first punters rushed in to pick up their books. Cool, not long now.

Time flew by as we were entertained by magicians, got free coffee from some Doris dressed up like a witch but still managed to have about 15 Starbucks logos on her outfit, laughed as taxi after taxi after taxi after taxi of drunks drove past shouting 'Harry dies in the end!' and we even had a brilliant old fella who made things from balloons. Calvin got a cool Road Runner made for him.

I was a little hungry so I nipped over to McDonalds and picked up some provisions for the three of us. I even managed to bump in to Darren Jackson who had a burger in each hand and was totally steaming. He was all over the place.

Anyway, as I say, time flew by and it didn't feel like a moment more than three hours and forty-five minutes before we managed to reach the store. Yip, at 3.30am we finally got to the front of the queue and in to the shop to buy the book.

I hope Harry does die.