Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

J.K. Rowling-Piers Morgan Twitter spat prompts one bookstore to take action

By

harry potter niantic announced
Image used with permission by copyright holder
What on earth would motivate a bookshop owner in London to tweet — yes, tweet — the entire text of J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book to Piers Morgan?

First up, it’s fair to say that Rowling and Morgan have never been backward in coming forward when it comes to airing their respective opinions on Twitter.

Recommended Videos

The pair clashed on the social media service over the weekend after an incident on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher in which Morgan was told — in rather colorful language — where to go by a fellow guest, Australian comic Jim Jefferies. The former CNN anchor had been discussing President Donald Trump’s travel ban at the time.

Evidently not a fan of Morgan, Rowling took to Twitter to share her pleasure at witnessing the rebuke, which she described as being “as satisfying as I’d always imagined.”

Morgan wasted little time in hitting back, informing his followers that he’s never read any of Rowling’s Potter books.

With followers of both Rowling and Morgan getting involved, the spat caught the attention of a bookshop owner in London. Taking the side of the author, Simon Key decided to set about tweeting Morgan the entire text of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He’s so far posted around 300 of a planned 32,567 tweets.

Here’s the opener:

And the next one:

OK, you’ll have to follow the bookshop to see the rest. Or buy the book.

Key told Sky News he’s tweeting the text “because Piers clearly spends all day on Twitter staring at his timeline.”

The bookshop owner added, “He clearly needs a bit of a break from all the abuse, so as he mentioned that he hasn’t read any J.K. Rowling, rather then having to tear himself away from Twitter to read it, I’d tweet him.”

“Obviously I’m sending it in bite-size chunks, which hopefully he’ll be able to cope with, rather than giving him the daunting process of reading a whole book.”

Of course, Morgan was keen to have the last word, though to truly do so he’ll have to wait for all 32,567 tweets to land on his timeline first. Unless he blocks the bookshop, that is.

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened
An Instagram profile on an iPhone.

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Read more
Here’s how to delete your YouTube account on any device
How to delete your YouTube account

Wanting to get out of the YouTube business? If you want to delete your YouTube account, all you need to do is go to your YouTube Studio page, go to the Advanced Settings, and follow the section that will guide you to permanently delete your account. If you need help with these steps, or want to do so on a platform that isn't your computer, you can follow the steps below.

Note that the following steps will delete your YouTube channel, not your associated Google account.

Read more
How to download Instagram photos for free
Instagram app running on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Instagram is amazing, and many of us use it as a record of our lives — uploading the best bits of our trips, adventures, and notable moments. But sometimes you can lose the original files of those moments, leaving the Instagram copy as the only available one . While you may be happy to leave it up there, it's a lot more convenient to have another version of it downloaded onto your phone or computer. While downloading directly from Instagram can be tricky, there are ways around it. Here are a few easy ways to download Instagram photos.

Read more