(no subject)

[heidi]

This probably isn't the best day to start up a discussion, so I am going to cross-post this on FictionAlley; if you can't comment here, you can post there if you want to.

So, now, a few thoughts on

There's been some discussion on LJs and on FA recently - as well as a long, long time ago - about what makes an anachronism.

Merriam-Webster defines it as an error in chronology; especially : a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other, or a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place.

People have called JKR's mention of Dudley having a playstation an anachronism; it might be, but then, it might not, as they were introduced on a limited scale in the Spring of 1994 in Japan, and were technically available, although at very exorbitant prices. A year later, they were easily available in the UK, though, so she's not really off by too much.

It would be, under that definition, an anachronism for Lily Evans to listen to Britney Spears sing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" - but Britney did not write that song, and the wizarding world is not exactly like our own. If you want to incorporate that song into a story, then why not toss in an offhand explanation that it had been written as a folk song by some random wizard back in 1968 to protest capitalist hegemony? If you're creative, you can explain anything that's outside of place and time - or just incorporate it creatively, like they did in Ella Enchanted (no, Freddie Mercury did not exist in Ella's world, but his song certainly did!). It depends, of course, on the mood of your story - but if you treat something anachronistic like it's natural and an organic element of your universe, like Mutton, Lettuce & Tomato sandwich that Miracle Max seeks in The Princess Bride, it's going to work, at least for those who are willing to get caught up in magic.

I like realistic and well researched fics as much as anyone, though, and when I'm looking to make something realistic, I personally look to see whether it is possible that someone had, did or saw something. Hermione might've been listening to CDs when her letter from Hogwarts arrived; she might've been watching laser discs, although it's not likely as they weren't especially popular except among cinema geeks (I dated one in 1993, which is how I know this timeframe). She was not watching a DVD, and she certainly wasn't watching Titanic. Or Star Wars. But it *is* possible for Harry, two or three years after finishing Hogwarts, to watch Star Wars on a DVD, even though they haven't been released yet; people have illegally burned the films onto DVDs, so it is *technically* possible to watch them now. Bad, illegal, and possible.

When I saw the pics of Hermione in her pink hoodie and rainbow belt, I thought that it showed her lack on interest in current fashions - my gosh, I remember when those *were* fashionable.

In 1981.

So it's, again, not anachronistic, because pink hoodies did exist in 1994, but it might not send the exact message you want to make. Or you may just be Alfonso Cuaron, and setting your story, because of some insane decision by Chris Columbus, in 2003 instead of 1994. And then we'll all just say "whatever*.

Now, what do you think? What makes something anachronistic to you? Is it implausibility in the Muggle world? Is it impossibility in the Muggle world, combined with an absence of an explanation as to how it is possible in the Wizarding world?

What is it? And what do you do about it?

Comments

[casira.livejournal.com]

Not really much of a contribution to the thread at large, but:

Or you may just be Alfonso Cuaron, and setting your story, because of some insane decision by Chris Columbus, in 2003 instead of 1994. And then we'll all just say "whatever*.

Did you notice that one of the two double-deckers passing the Knight Bus has an ad for a Web site on the side? (I tried to read it and failed, but I'm checking again next time I go to the IMAX.) It's funny that that's what pinged for me as an anachronism right off... no one was advertising Web sites like that in the year PoA ought to be taking place. :)

[casira.livejournal.com]

...and what I meant there was that I could see it but couldn't read the whole address... yay for clarity.

[likebunnies.livejournal.com]

I think the one thing that really bothers me in fiction that you mentioned is using music that is way out of the time frame of the story. Lily would be listening to what was popular in that era when her Hogwarts letter arrived, not something by the Backstreet Boys. If the author does that, there should be an explanation. But then I'm the kind of person who looks up the exact phases of the moon for certain fics just so they're right.

As for the clothing in the movie, I somehow ended up with a free subscription to 'YM' magazine and often when I'm looking at the styles, I think 'Wow. I wore something just like that in 1982.' So I guess if Hermione is supposed to be in 2003, her fashions are for 2003 but we're just seeing them again because some of us are that old and everything old is new again.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

It would be, under that definition, an anachronism for Lily Evans to listen to Britney Spears sing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" - but Britney did not write that song, and the wizarding world is not exactly like our own.

Oh, thank you for pointing this out! It's something it seems like hardly anybody considers. I've used quotes from books before that weren't published in 1994 or whatever...because clearly, the author was actually a wizard, and the book simply took a while to go through all the right channels to hit Muggle shelves. ;) The same goes for music, really.

A lot of anachronism (speaking in RPGs here more than fic, but some of both) I just let slide by, if it doesn't interfere with anything.

The one I can think of that should not have been "fixed" isn't even HP, it's in the remastered early seasons of Red Dwarf, where Lister and Cat are listening to an audiobook on tape that's been scrambled up. When they remastered it, they made it into a CD, but kept the line the same...didn't make any sense, after that!

[ladylisse.livejournal.com]

Anachronisms don't bother me if they're a) explained or b) just not important. Even if it was utterly impossibly for Dudley to have had a Playstation, the fact that he had one isn't important to the story; it's an offhand mention, never brought up again, and while it's used to illustrate something about Dudley's character, you could substitute Nintendo or Sega just as easily with the exact same effect.

Obviously "OMG HERMOINE LUVS AVRIL!!11" doesn't fit into those categories, but you get what I mean.

Honestly, while I like well-researched fics too, I don't want the story sacrificed for their sake. I think people get so caught up in the details that sometimes stories can come out as stilted. I would much rather have a good fic with an occasional Playstation.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

u cut tag no worky

[no-remorse.livejournal.com]

It would be, under that definition, an anachronism for Lily Evans to listen to Britney Spears sing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" - but Britney did not write that song, and the wizarding world is not exactly like our own. If you want to incorporate that song into a story, then why not toss in an offhand explanation that it had been written as a folk song by some random wizard back in 1968 to protest capitalist hegemony?

This is actually one of my fanfic pet peeves - not so much with songs, but the "famous muggles who were actually wizards" cliche. Everytime I read a fic where Elvis, Isaac Newton, Shakespeare, Hawking, Joan of Arc, Byron, Jane Austen, the Beatles etc etc etc are actually wizard or witches I want to scream. It's like Lucius Malfoy is writing these fics, because muggles come up with something that is good, they must be wizards.

Even if you disregard the sublimial message here, it's not particularly clever to begin with.

I like the way Terry Pratchett deals with "anachronisms" and "obviously-out-of-place" stuff in his Discworld novels. He doesn't use the word "rock 'n' roll" he invents "music with rocks within" and you get clubbed by a troll in a music store when you try to play "Pathway to Paradise". The one-armed bandit is the main attraction of one particular pub until he gets arrested. Now that is clever and it's actually quite close to what Rowling is doing in canon. The Quidditch fanculture, for example, is one giant satirised take on football/soccer's popularity.

[maelwaedd.livejournal.com]

How about every composer the writer has ever heard of was secretly a Wizard fics?

I mean, generally this list is very short, and is just Mozart, Beethoven and maybe Tchaikovsky if the writer is particularly talented at spelling, but still...

Sir Isaac Newton WAS a wizard. He was a ceremonial magician, just like NICOLAS FLAMEL

[cleverthylacine]

Actually, a lot of historical scientists prior to the Enlightenment were ceremonial magicians; Flamel is a perfect example. Nicolas Flamel was a REAL person.

So, it always strikes me as fucked-up when people say, 'oh, historical people who thought they were wizards were all just deluded' because that would um, be Flamel, and by extension John Dee, Giordano Bruno, Sir Isaac Newton, etc. If Flamel is a Potterverse wizard then it follows that the rest of them were, too.

Now, rockstars, Hawking, etc, those I'll grant you.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't really see the point at all to worrying about the films being anachronistic. I only want them to be internally consistent and not to misrepresent the characters in the books, such as when Hermione very inappropriately said Ron's line in the Shrieking Shack or when she stupidly tried to approach Lupin just after he'd transformed into a WEREWOLF (despite having been lecturing the DADA class about werewolves not knowing themselves after they transform).

Streamline the plot as much as necessary (I didn't mind about 99% of the stuff that was left out of PoA), dress the kids however and insert new school clubs (the Toad Choir) until the cows come home, but DON'T create plot holes, internal inconsistencies or insert unnecessary "explanations" (the Quidditch trophies in the first film) that directly contradict one of the central themes of the books (that blood isn't as important as personal choices).

In the world of the films, we never had the Deathday Party, so we never had any "marker" placing the films in a certain timeframe. That only exists in the books. Personally, I rather like that the films sort of "float" in a timeless state that makes it hard to bring any solid accusations of anachronism.

But when we're writing fanfics, we're usually doing it from book canon, and in that world the Deathday Party DID happen, so we know better. There is a way, however, to still get away with this as long as it doesn't come off seeming like you just wanted to get your favorite song into the fic or refused to do research: AUs. When I did an AU I managed to give sixteen year olds in the UK the right to drive (seventeen is the driving age) and allowed a character to read a John LeCarre novel that was written AFTER the time change. (People who were born after the time change didn't exist in the AU.) I got away with both by making the first change a dire result of the freakish dystopia that had been created and the other was explained in my author's note as a slightly different version of the book we know in our time, as LeCarre had been planning it before the time change. ;)

Perhaps it seems harsh to hold fics to a higher standard than films that are being created with multi-million dollar budgets, but the films have another purpose that the fics do not: they NEED to be timeless. I really wish that JKR hadn't ever put ANY sort of time markers in her stories. I'd have been far happier being able to imagine Harry going to school at any point in time. And considering how very bad she is with numbers, this might have been wiser for someone with her particular brand of innumeracy. We're all sort of stuck with it now, but I don't see any reason to saddle the filmmakers with this. They had the chance to eliminate time markers from the films and did just that, whether that was intentional or not. The freedom that gives allows us to have HP films that transcend time. That is definitely a Good Thing, as Marth would say. :D

[fadedjae.livejournal.com]

But Snape's potions allow Lupin to keep his identity when he transforms, right? So perhaps Hermione realized the Lupin had taking potions from Snape and approached him believing that he had taken the one that corresponded to that week's transformation.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

There is no evidence given in the film that this is the case. In the Shrieking Shack Hermione only revealed that she knew Lupin was a werewolf from the time that Snape set them the essay on werewolves. What-ifs don't hold up; the film is as it is, with no explanation for her idiotic behavior. It's still not as bad as the plot hole in CoS that requires Ginny to know psychically that Harry has Riddle's diary, but it's highly annoying (to me, anyway).

[senji.livejournal.com]

I think it fits in entirely with Hermione's personality, actually.

She knows things intellectually, but not emotionally; and she's acting with her emotions there...

[fadedjae.livejournal.com]

Good point. I try to alleviate the annoyance by filling in the ocean sized plot-holes with information from the book but you're right about how the movie leaves that tidbit out.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Well, all of those things and more. If it's blatant enough that I know it's incorrect, well, it's going to bother me. Little details bother me. The fact that Hermione's hoodie was obviously from the 2003 clothing line bothered me. The fact that Harry has clothing that fits perfectly -- let alone NICE clothing -- bothered me. A lot. Ron's hems weren't frayed, he had no patches, his clothes fit just as well as Harry did. This all bothered me.

So, maybe it's that I'm anal-retentive, but that throws me out of the story. Those little things are character markers. Hand-me-downs are never brand new. Hand-me-downs often don't fit quite right. Etc.

I enjoy how Rowling herself does it. The playstation was a little thing, mentioned once and never again. It doesn't matter. I like how writers like Pratchett "reinvent" the anachronisms. This sort of thing makes me a conspirator in the act rather than making me an knowledgeable outsider. It pulls me in, rather than pushing me out as I think "Well, that's not right, it doesn't work like that in ANY sense of time or logic!"

[cleverthylacine]

How is Hermione's hoodie '2003'? We wore hoodies like that when I was a kid in the 1970s. All colours that sweatshirts came in. Yellow, white, grey, blue, pink, navy, black...I've never understood the fuss about Teh H00die.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I had a green one that never recovered from being capsized into windermere in in 1978

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

Not even the hoodie, all of her clothing was stuff that'd you'd find easily now, rather than stuff I remember wearing when I was thirteen back in 1993. Actually, all of the clothing was pretty anachronistic.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Anachronisms are one of my pet peeves about the Potter fanon. Many writers (especially very young writers) forget that this story is set in a very specific time. So anytime I see Hermione listening to an iPod or having her own cell phone during summer before sixth year, or Dudley playing an X-box, I cringe and stop reading. So I guess implausibility in the Muggle world would count for me. Maybe to help writers, FA should have a list of inventions/technology that wasn't available while Harry was at Hogwarts ;)

[freya]

Hermione's clothes are fasionable.
We're having an eighties throwback, more's the pity.

[queen-medb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we are now but not in 1993/1994 when PoA is set. I'm two years younger than the trio is in the books, so that's my "era", so to speak, and I noticed right away as soon as the photos were released that the clothing was a little off. It's not really that bad, there's nothing that any of the characters are wearing that stands out as a distinct trend from a distinct time period (except for maybe Hermione's belt), but it does seem like stuff that kids their age would we wearing right now, not ten years ago.

And whaddya mean more's the pity? Viva le 80s! <-- is a proud child of the 80s. Sad, I know.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

But the thing about the "set right now" issue is, since PS/SS came out, the films *have* been set right now, or at least, set such that PS/SS is set in 2001/2002 (which, I know, makes no sense, as it was released in 2001, and thus 2002 hadn't happened yet, but whatever). So that was a Chris Columbus decision, and while Cuaron might've been able to play with it, I'm not sure it even occured to anyone.

How I know this, btw, is because when I first went to the WB museum back in January of 2003, they had a prop of the Daily Prophet with the Grintotts breakin, and it was dated in 2001 (September, IIRC).

[queen-medb.livejournal.com]

Huh, really? I never knew that. Thanks for telling me. I always just assumed they would be set at the same time as the books.

Still, (I keep reiterating this) I don't think Hermione would be very concerned with how she looks or wearing fashionable clothes. So no matter the time period of her outfits in the film, I think it's a little out of character.

[freya]

As far as I can remember, the fashion at the time when the book is set was brand name. They could hardly do that. (I was only eight, so not dead interested.)
But yeah, it's pretty universal.
:D

[queen-medb.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... some of it was name brand, yes, but that was mostly if you were one of the rich, spoiled, "popular" girls who were more concerned with their hair and makeup than anything else. See leeannslytherin's reply below for a more general description of what was worn by teens then.

Meh, it's all kind of silly anyway because I don't think Hermione would be the type to care whether she was wearing fashionable clothes anyway.

[queen-medb.livejournal.com]

Hah! Someone who understands both the blessings and curses of growing up in our particular time period. Heheh. Oh, the memories...

It would be brilliant if they put Pansy or Lavender or someone like that in a Cher-esque outfit in GoF. Shoutout!

[freya]

I have to say though, I was thirteen in 1999, and I dressed like that.
The thirteen year olds today dress like that. It's just a phase that people enter when they are around thirteen/fourteen and drift out of. Generally by the time they are sixteen/seventeen the last vestiges have drifted away.

[kiwiria.livejournal.com]

If the issues are essential to the storyline, anachorisms annoy me. If it's just something mentioned in passing (like Dudley's playstation) I don't even spare it a second thought (I'd actually never thought about it being an anachroism until you mentioned it here)

If a thing is impossible in the muggle world, it should be explained why it is possible in the wizarding world. If the explanation is plausible, everything goes.

[dragon-charmer.livejournal.com]

To me it is things that don't fit in the time frame - particularly music and books. It isn't that difficult to find out what was available, and you can always use older items if you aren't sure of the exact timing.

Clothing isn't so much of a problem as what goes around comes around. One of my nieces (who is 14) turned up looking like someone out of the 60s recently, and much of what the kids wear now, I remember when I was younger.

Personally I don't remember pink hoodies, but that didn't stick out to me that much, and on the whole I think the costuming in the film was okay.

And, of course, there is the problem of what might have been available in America, but not available in the UK. Often things arrived on your side of the pond months or even years before we get them here ... if they ever arrived at all.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

And then there are things that you get in the UK that we don't, like Robbie Williams. But that's what a search on Amazon.co.uk for "now [insert year] is for - you get a perfect and accurate songlist, and it's uk-centric!

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

In general, I agree with the people who find anachronisms a drawback in the enjoyment of someone's writing. When I see Lily listening to Britney Spears, for example, even fleetingly, I know the author isn't paying attention and/or can't be bothered. It does throw you out of the story, as someone said.

The music-and-books ones are easily traceable and there's not much excuse for them.

I'm inclined to be just as put off, but more mentally lenient, with writers who use anachronistic language. It would be almost impossible, for example, for a teenaged writer to know exactly when people started saying "Dude" or "Totally" the way that people say them now, or say something like "You are SO going to get in trouble for that"! Or worse, chatroom slang: "WTF" is common, and I've seen fanfic characters say it without batting an eye.

Anachronistic slang is a dead giveaway to anyone over 20, but unless the young writer is very clever, it's going to be there.

For all of it: writers should be made aware, and urged to either be humourous with it, as the Pratchett fans have suggested, or else encouraged to use invented musical passages (it could always be something a uniquely invented Wizarding artist sings-- I'm sure the Weird Sisters weren't the only band in Wizard Top 40.)

And with language, standard English will save lots of people from sounding stupid, and there are loads of ways for people to use standard English without sounding dorky. JKR manages, almost.

Though I did find myself wondering, in the cave in Book 4, when they meet Sirius and take him the chicken legs: Harry is telling him about Snape and Karkarov's arm: Sirius says, "I've no idea what that's about," -- I'm almost sure that expression is newer than 1994/1995, and it's certainly newer than 1981, which was the last time Sirius would have been out in the world.

Oh, nitpick, nitpick....

[queen-medb.livejournal.com]

I find that, like others have mentioned, the minor things that aren't overly important don't really bother me (the Playstation, for example). Though the music does throw me off when it's anachronistic, I think that's just because I can be a little obssesive about music. =) The Playstation "anachronism" might have even been deliberate, though, to show how very spoiled Dudley is. Like Vernon paid extra to get it from Japan because it wouldn't be available in the UK for another year and Duddy just had to have the newest and best toys. I dunno, just an idea.

More to the point, I think, is the fact that Hermione wouldn't be wearing fashionable clothing of any time period. In fact, I'm not sure that Hermione would even know what's fashionable. She doesn't care about that stuff, that's Parvati and Lavender's sort of thing. Hermione rarely gives a second thought to how she looks or being trendy. Since I was very similar to her when I was school and attended school about the same time she did in the books, I can say that Hermione would probably be wearing jeans and jumpers practically as a uniform, with not a single thought to whether it was fashionable or she looked good in it. That's what throws me out of fics the most (and what bothered me about the film pics), more than the clothing being a little anachronistic, but putting the kids in clothes that are wrong for their characters. (Or Hermione caring what her hair looks like from the back, for example...)

The other thing a lot of American authors might not realise is that what's popular in America at any given time isn't necessarily as popular in the UK. Again, I notice that more than I notice an anachronism, usually.

Interesting topic of discussion! I got here via daily_snitch by the way.

[freya]

Well, it is a boarding school in which the fashions of all eras seem to be considered the norm. There's Professor McGonagall's victorian style robe, Professor Dumbledore's 1600s style one, and the fifties look of Lupins Cardigan and trousers. Fred and George, two extremely popular boys, when wearing muggle attire, wear golfing jumpers and jeans which are too big for them. The wizarding world, we are told, is not good at dressing muggle. Fashion would not be important to anyone. I think it would be generally settled for that people didn't look ridiculous.

However, it can be said that there's a difference between fashionable and stylish. Style is timeless, although it may carry imprints of a time, due to the limit of availability of clothing. I think it would be reasonable to assume that Hermione would have a certain sense of style. She is conscious of her appearance, (worrying about people seeing her as a cat, her teeth, styling her hair for the ball,) it's not foremost on her mind, but she's conscious of it. It would be reasonable to assume that though she probably wouldn't follow fashion or spend all her time shopping, she would probably classic items which would look good at her.
Also, look at her at the ball. She can't be entirely lacking taste.

[queen-medb.livejournal.com]

Oh, no no, that's not what I meant at all. I think that on most days Hermione's main concern is slipping in an extra hour in the library before class rather than standing in front of her mirror but that she "cleans up nice" when she wants to make the effort. I just think that she doesn't see much point to making that effort most of the time. Like all adolescents, she wants her peers to like her and have a good impression of her but I think Hermione also knows that there are more important things to be concentrating on most of the time. And, for the most part, she prefers to concentrate on those things.

[freya]

Yeah, but looking good is not something that takes a lot of time. It takes less effort to look fashionable than to not. If you need a new top, the obvious place for you to go to buy it is the shops on the highstreet. They tend to sell whatever's fashionable at the time. I think you really are confusing primping and preening with picking clothes.

This is nothing to do with makeup and hair products, just clothes. Putting on a regular pair of bootcut jeans takes no more time than putting on a tapered pair with an elasticated waist band. Putting on a pink hoodie takes no more time than putting on a baggy jumper which your granny knitted you last christmas. The only difference is that in the end you look better.

It would probably be easier for Hermione to buy fashionable clothes. They'll be in highstreet shops, in the shopping centres, even in marketstalls. Unless she's shopping in charity shops, she's going to find it hard not to be within a few months of what's fashionable. And because she's not stupid, she's going to know when she's tried something on and it looks silly. Whether she concentrates on it or not, she'll need new clothes eventually.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Um, Hermione couldn't have been watching a DVD of Star Wars, but she certainly could have been watching a VHS. Star Wars came out in 1977, and for all we know the Grangers went to see it on a date. The second set of Star Wars films hadn't come out in 1991, but the first three were certainly available.

One thing that always bugs me is when people forget that the Marauders, Lily, and Snape were all born in or around 1959-1960. James, Sirius, and Snape may not have had much contact with the Muggle world (and Peter is an unknown quantity), but Remus is a halfblood and Lily is Muggleborn, and they certainly would have known about things like Carnaby Street, the punk movement, disco, and Margaret Thatcher.

I also get upset when people base Snape's appearance on Alan Rickman, even though Rickman is about 25 years older than the character - Snape is no more than 31 or 32 in the first book, and there is no way on God's green earth he'd look as old as Rickman, even given the vagaries of life as a Death Eater. And where precisely in the books does it say that Snape wears a frock coat or has buttons all over his clothing? He's in robes like everyone else, never precisely described, but I've yet to read a fic where he *isn't* wearing the movie costume. For all we know he's in a tunic of some sort (which is certainly what the OWLS scene in OotP implies about the student uniforms), not a coat and trousers.

*sigh* Sorry about that...just a couple of pet peeves coming to the fore....

[cleverthylacine]

Actually, a lot of writers use movie costume references because frankly, it doesn't make sense for people to be wearing robes and skivvies in the British weather, or for fashion not to advance, albeitly in different ways, beyond the simple t-tunic and gathered robe. Rowling has approved the movie costumes, so we use them.

But hell yeah, Rickman is way too old, and that garment is a cassock, not a frock coat.

re: anachronisms

[mimoletnoe.livejournal.com]

I have seen a fic somewhere that features a still-school-girl Hermione urging Harry to watch a complete set of LotR on DVD at her place during the summer holidays. This was what made me blink for some time and, eventually, accompanied by other errors, close the browser window.
I would like, ideally, to have those anachronisms explained. It can be a time-hole, re-inventing of things, famous muggles suddenly turning out to be wizards - whatever explanation would do, actually.
When the work is otherwise "flawless" or has strong points that pull the whole thing up or has a capturing plot, I guess the reader is more or less ready to close their eyes on certain anachronisms. I, for one, was not offended with playstation or the fact that in the first movie they have shown cars that could not exist in 1991; to tell the truth, Ron and Harry talking through the closed window and Neville fainting during the Herbology lesson in CoS movie bothered me much more than "anachronistic" errors.
However, when we speak about fandom, we must speak about its extreme competitiveness, too. Of course, "competitive advantage" of one author does not mean that the reader will only stick to this particular WIP, but fanfic writers should realize that there are 24 hours in one day and there are just so many fics out of thousands that one can read (or just consider) in this time. I don't really think that anachronisms only turn one's attention away from the piece of work, guess it's the general carelessness of a writer that does the trick. One more reason to find a good beta. ;-)