It's been a good week for ... Harry Potter fans
Author JK Rowling is not content with selling more than 450 million Harry Potter books around the world. She has now announced plans to publish her first novel for adults, which will be "very different" from her previous publications. The book will be published worldwide, but no date or title has yet been released.
This is good news for parents who skulk around reading their kids' Potter books, disguising them behind The Guardian on the train into work.
"The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry's success has brought me," said Rowling.
But perhaps she would be ill-advised to stray too far from the realms of wizardry. After all, just like Harry himself, his fans have grown up and are now real-life, money-spending adults ready to fall under a new fictional spell.
Now, that is magic.
It's been a bad week for ... wannabe farmers
The New Covent Garden Soup Company is in hot water over a competition that no-one has won. The offer was promoted on soup cartons and pudding packets by the firm and its sister brand Farmhouse Fare, with a top prize of a £500,000 farm up for grabs
Shoppers were encouraged to log on to a website and enter a unique code from the packaging to find out if they could win the farm. But the winning numbers have not been entered, leaving the prize unclaimed.
Customers vented their frustration on the company's Facebook page after the soup firm announced "no-one was lucky enough to win themselves a farm this time round".
Marketing director Nigel Parrott said: "We had 267,000 entries ... Had all packs been entered, someone would definitely have won."
I'm sure there are many disgruntled soup-eaters out there. But I'm finding it hard to muster much sympathy, since the concept of the contest seems flawed. You like soup that's a bit homemade-ish, ergo you can qualify to be a farmer. What next? A tricky brain-teaser – top prize, a job as a brain surgeon? Or how about a spot-the-ball competition to win a career as a professional goalkeeper?
Answers on a postcard, please.
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