The Sunday Mail has an update of rugby-player Martin Bayfield whose been Robbie Coltrane’s double of Hagrid since the first movie. Funny they say it’s an exclusive since we reported it in January 2001.

According to today’s Daily Star & Daily Express papers, Hagrid actor Robbie Coltrane has settled in nicely with the 12-stone neopolitan mastiff named Luigi, playing the role of Fang. Daily Star Luigi, a 12-stone Neapolitan mastiff, has finally taken the lead role alongside Coltrane after playing back-up in Harry Potter, The Prisoner of Azkaban.Trainer Julie …read more!

You may recall some months ago that Indian publishing houses Sahitya Tirtha and Nandita Publishers were in a dispute with WB and J.K. Rowling over Harry Potter Kolkataye – a book which author Uttam Ghosh sets the boy wizard in Kolkata and introduces a native boy named Jhontu. The Times of India has an update …read more!

In today’s Guardian, Natasha Walter takes a look at the issue of aging and the Harry Potter series. She points oit, and rightly so, that Harry is about to turn 15 and at the end of the series, he’ll be 18. He has to grow up sometime. Many children’s writers skip over the issue altogether, …read more!

You may notice a FEW changes with The Leaky Cauldron. We’ve moved on from Blogger and YAACS, the commenting system which we incredibly overwhelmed. We’re now using a system called MovableType. So it’s new to us, (and setup generously by YAACS creator Hossein Sharifi), bear with us as we figure out how to use it.

The Seattle Times makes mention of both Harry Potter for Grownups and Nimbus 2003, the first “Harry Potter” symposium for adults, which “will be a hybrid of an academic conference with literary presentations and a Star Trek-like convention where participants play a version of Quidditch,” in its article about adult fans of what are normally …read more!

It seems that the Indian city of Pune is feeling the frenzy of the boy wizard as pre-orders continue to rise.

As filming on PoA continues, another day of rain hampers production in Glencoe. However some interesting mentions of a certain executioner visiting Hagrid’s Hut.

In today’s Washington Post, Hank Steuver essays about The Matrix, and also brings in mention of some of the other recent blockbuster films which delve into philosophy, metathinking, meme creation and “the superior feeling that nobody gets the [story] but you.” The Harry Potter children — a rabid generation of meta-consumers, far too smart for …read more!

Law Professor Peter Yu has an article at Law.com about some of the recent – and older – court disputes surrounding infringment of the Harry Potter series; Yu gives legal analysis of the arguments on both sides in the Tanya Grotter situations, as well as the Chengdu, China-published fakes and the vintage-2000 Claire Field matter, …read more!