Harry Potter chair conjures up £278k

A chair JK Rowling sat on while penning her first two Harry Potter books has sold for £278,000. The 1930s oak chair was one of four chairs donated to the then unknown writer for her council flat in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1995.

She wrote Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets while sat on it. It was bought by an anonymous private buyer for $394,000 at the Heritage Auctions sale in New York. The seller, Gerald Gray, from Worsley, Greater Manchester, bought the chair in 2009 after his daughter, a Harry Potter fan, saw it on eBay.

Before she donated it to the Chair-ish a Child auction in 2002, she painted on it: “You may not find me pretty, but don’t judge on what you see. I wrote Harry Potter while sitting on this chair.”

The chair is accompanied by a signed letter “by Owl Post” describing its history.

Porsche cleared of blame in Paul walker crash

The US District Judge Philip Gutierrez rejected a lawsuit that sought to blame Porsche for the crash that killed Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker, filed by the driver’s widow, Kristine Rodas.

Walker, 40, was riding in a Porsche Carrera GT driven by his friend Roger Rodas when the car span out of control in California in November 2013.

He ruled there was nothing to support her claims the sports car lacked key safety features and its suspension had failed.

The actor was on a break from filming the seventh episode of the Fast & Furious franchise when the vehicle struck trees and burst into flames in Santa Clarita.

Investigators said the Porsche was going up to 94mph (150kph) when it crashed. The carmaker has denied wrongdoing in the design, manufacture or marketing of the Carrera GT.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 16th, 2015