Popular Elsewhere
15:27 UK time, Friday, 8 July 2011
A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.
The on-going News of the World hacking saga dominates the attention of Guardian and Telegraph readers but is not the only story readers are clicking on.
Harry Potter fans needn't cry into their pillows tonight. Just because JK Rowling has said she won't be writing any more books in the series, doesn't mean no more will be written. Time's most popular article says . These stories are based on the already established characters and written by fans for the love of it.ÌýIn terms ofÌývolume written, fan fiction already wins hands downÌýagainst JK Rowling. While fan fiction has got a reputation for being pornographic, Potter fans are far more diverse than just imagining the characters getting overly friendly with each other. There's even a whole sub genre called Alternity which imagines the stories around if, instead of trying to kill baby Harry, Voldemort adopted him, raised him as Harry Marvolo and conquered the entire British Isles.
Time adds that Harry Potter's fandom should consider themselves lucky - while other authors don't like their characters being used, Rowling has given her blessing.
The promise of a story on is sure to get Daily Mail fans clicking on an article. And itdoesn't come much better thanÌýa fine being issued whilst stuck in a traffic jam. Christopher Barham says in the article that he was so angered that he was prepared to go to prison rather than pay. He needn't worry as Havering council have now cancelled the charge.
When naval gazing is done by a microbiologist, instead of existential angst, it comes up with 1,400 different strains of bacteria. The Independent's popular article says a study added 662 unrecognised strains to their database. Science writer Carl Zimmer took part in the study only to find he may need to get out the cotton buds. "Several species I've got, such as Marimonas, have only been found in the ocean before. I am particularly baffled that I carry a species called Georgenia. Before me, scientists had only found it living in the soil. In Japan."
Times columnist Caitlin Moran says she has finally been baffled. Her weekly column Celebrity Watch normally deciphers the celebrity culture but the latest issue of Heat seems to have really tested her. This week's edition of the magazine had an exclusive with Lauren Pope and Kirk Norcross, from the reality TV series The Only Way is Essex, on their . She says it has created another stage of intimacy for celebrity couples. "Before you commit to an exclusive engagement photoshoot, but after you've done the exclusive 'Yes! We're in love!' photoshoot, you can now, thanks to an enterprising manager somewhere, wedge in the exclusive 'We had matching rhinoplasty!' photoshoot, cash-in-hand. Sweet." Moran adds that the couple never got far enough to sell anymore photos as they announced their split before the edition came out.
As if he is a regular reader of Caitlin Moran's column and also feels the malaise, Robert Skidelsky asks on Al Jazeera's popular article '?" But, Al Jazeera being a site yet to comment on his 'n' her nose jobs, it turns out he is talking about what to do when everyone has enough stuff. "Does it just go on producing more of the same, stimulating jaded appetites with new gadgets, thrills, and excitements?" he asks.
After writing the book Beyond Communism at the collapse of the Soviet Union, he now wonders whether the fundamental flaw with capitalism is that once people have enough wealth there's nowhere else to go but to carry on building their wealth.
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