My song Dobby Is A Free Elf was written when our youngest foster son, shortly after meeting us for the first time, asked me to write a song about the Harry Potter books.

Those books are great stories, even if some people get awful snobby about them. J.K. Rowling did good, and brought to life some epic themes. I like the song I wrote too, albeit that parts of it were quite a vocal challenge in recording.

But it’s fine talking about big concepts such as, “Good” and “Evil”, “Right” and “Wrong”, “Justice” and “Injustice", “Freedom” and “Slavery” in our art and in our conversations.

It’s fine talking about them. But it does us no good whatsoever when everybody is at loggerheads about what those words even mean. And that’s the world we are increasingly living in right now it seems.

It feels, to an extent, like we have all been captured by dark algorithmic spells, cast from the wands of invisible cyber Voldemorts. Spells that cast doubt upon the very nature of truth, and that cause brothers and sisters to become divided if not completely alienated from each other. Spells that make age old certainties a thing of the past, and cause us to become blase about present dangers and to focus on trivia.

If Dobby and we are to find our freedom in THIS world, then one simple starting point might be to acknowledge the real value of spending less time in that cyber world - and more time speaking to real people in real time.

It just might help to stop that damn Voldemort from getting such easy access to our thought lives. Additionally, it’s always harder to fight with someone you’re talking to in person.

Sorry, I haven’t got many better suggestions right now. In case you were asking ;-)

ps. Ironically, almost tragically, there are many people, like me, making these suggestions on the very Internet platforms that we’re seeing a problem with. No, I dunno either. It’s a double edged sword, because to an extent the internet is becoming the “real” world.

pps. apologies if this comes across as a dark outlook. I’m not personally overcome by anxiety. I’m happy in myself. But I am obviously concerned about the world out there and the future life for children and grandchildren who are inheriting the dilemma’s my generation has caused.