The Babu’s been bunking in order to read the new Harry Potter, which in his opinion should be marketed like a brand of coffee: it’s stronger and darker than the previous four novels, and like the Babu’s favourite coffee, unfortunately, requires some straining on the part of the reader if you intend to get through all 800-odd pages. Rowling’s still playing around with names–a new character is called Umbridge, which is what everyone else takes to her–but the writing is more workmanlike, more tired and more cliched in Potter 5 than ever before. None of which prevented the Babu from enjoying his weekend Potternalia. There are already over 900-odd entries on Google News for Harry Potter, so all I’m going to post are these review links…Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in The Guardian, again and again…in * The New York Times…the “first kids’ review” from The Sunday Herald (what, they embargoed everyone under a certain height from doing reviews?)…and the Kansas Star explains with due solemnity how they manage to get reviews out so fast.