• Rowling at Work on Strike9 while BBC Ink Black Heart Adaptation Released

    ByJohn
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    Rowling has started “working on the plan of Strike #9” according to her tweet tonight, which, one can only hope, means she has at last finished writing Hallmarked Man.

    She is watching the Bronte Studios adaptation of Ink Black Heart which was released today on the BBC. The Rowling Library tweeted that “All episodes of Strike’s Ink Black Heart are already available on BBC iPlayer website.” Follow that link for a binge viewing!

    Nick Jeffery, our man in Wales and the WEst Country, will be reporting here on the Ink Black Heart episodes as they appear. Stay tuned!

  • J. K. Rowling Quick Change Header

    ByNick Jeffery
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    Five days after updating her Twitter header to Wild Court alley, J. K. Rowling has changed her header again. The last time she changed headers this quickly was in January 2023, when she realised she had posted two headers for Cromer Pier. This photograph doesn’t look like it is The Hallmarked Man related, and looks like a personal photograph from Rowling’s Greenland getaway. Why the quick change? Why Greenland? I have three theories:

    1. J. K. Rowling obsessively haunts these pages and noticed that I had updated All J. K. Rowling’s Twitter Headers. In a spirit of mischief she decided to make the title wrong yet again. In the words of my under 16 Rugby coach when asked my chances of making the first team – possible but doubtful.
    2. Rowling has finished (after a long struggle with the final chapters) The Hallmarked Man! To celebrate she posted a sunset picture to mark the closure of her work on the book. Traditionally this celebration takes the form of a stack of manuscript pages, but this time she is having trouble with her printer. This was my preferred theory until:
    3. The owner of the photograph ianVisits noticed and, quite politely, wondered why she didn’t contact before using the image. I do hope she does contact. Copyright and image usage, especially on social media can be a minefield, and a signed book can do wonders to smooth ruffled feathers.

    Do you have a better theory? Let me know in the comments.

  • Strike on Screen – The Ink Black Heart

    ByNick Jeffery
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    The sixth instalment of Robert Galbraith Cormoran Strike (C. B. Strike in the US) television series will be with us in time for Christmas. Episodes 1 and 2 of The Ink Black Heart will be released on 16th/17th December 2024 and episodes 3 and 4 will follow on 23rd/24th December 2024 on BBC One in the UK. No dates yet for international release, but I will be posting reviews here on Hogwarts Professor as they are released in the UK.

    One reason for the for the success of the show is the wonderful chemistry between the leads: Holliday Grainger and Tom Burke. Radio Times magazine released an article today with some lovely comments detailing his commitment to continuing with the series.

    Burke told Radio Times: “She (Rowling) comes on set sometimes and will occasionally spill something like ‘There’ll be another scene in this place that’s quite important’, which is always intriguing.

    “It’s a really precious job for me, it’s woven itself into my life in a very particular way.”

    “Holliday and I have talked about it a lot, and we feel like the currency of it has so much to do with the slow burn arc of it, not the individual stories, and that’s why it feels so worthwhile playing it through to the end.”

    Yesterday the BBC released the first official trailer for the new series. Let me know what you think in the comments.

  • Hallmarked Headers

    ByNick Jeffery
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    Way back in March 2022, after recording an episode to The Strike and Ellacott Files podcast with Beatrice Groves, we discussed the possibility of creating a database of all the Twitter headers that J. K. Rowling has used to signal what has been on her mind. The fruit of that idea was the (newly update) All J. K. Rowling’s Twitter Headers. Reviewing the full list in all its glory prompts the fact that this year has been a vintage year for header clues, likely all hints for The Hallmarked Man. Any guesses as the what they mean? Let me know in the comments!

    1st February 2024 The façade of Freemason’s Hall in London. The headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England, discussed here.

    16th February 2024 Identified by @LudicrousMonica as La Coupee, a narrow isthmus that connects Greater and Little Sark.

    16th March 2024 A detail from a silver Nef, identified by @PoolsVB.

    7th April 2024  The Crieff Hydro Hotel, identified by @Badly_Wired.

    31st May 2024 an iron bridge called The Iron Bridge in Ironbridge.

    16th June 2024 The red lift at The Savoy in London, identified by @IrisThinksMeh. Discussed by Beatrice Groves here.

    27th June 2024 Identified as Gods Own Junkyard by @CasualNaming.

    10th August 2024 an excerpt from “The Golden Journey to Samarkand” by James Elroy Flecker, identified by the Strike and Ellacott Files podcast. Discussed by Beatrice Groves here.

    27th September 2024 Not a red herring, but a blue goldfish! A blue oranda, the meaning of whose name is parsed by John Granger here.

    11th October 2024 A second swan image after the 18th August 2017 one.

    1st December 2024 Wild Court alley in London WC2. John Granger discusses here.

  • Rowling’s Hallmarked Man and the Release Date

    ByNick Jeffery
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    Way back in March 15th J. K. Rowling released the title of Strike 8 as The Hallmarked Man, an event that usually occurs shortly after the manuscript of the book is announced as finished. We first heard of her working hard on the book the previous May 7th, before The Running Grave was released. Most people who were tracking progress were fairly confident of an Autumn 2024 release. Those hopes have been dashed, and it now looks more and more likely we will have to wait for Autumn 2025. See below for Rowling’s tweets keeping the fandom updated on progress. One reason for the delay might be the revelation that she has six books in various stages of development, with the next non-Strike book likely to be a futuristic story that she has been planning for more than a decade!

    Do you have more books in the pipeline?

    I’ve got six books in my head. I’ve got the one I’m currently writing. There’ll be two more Strikes, and then there are three more books that I really want to get to. [She taps her head] I always gesture to the back of my head. I’m sure an MRI scan would prove it’s got nothing to do with the back of my brain, but I always find myself doing this when I’m talking about where it comes from. God knows. But I do have other stories in my head that I really need to get out.

    The Times, May 5th 2024