Guru

Guru can just about bear Harry Potter-mania among pre-teens. He can vaguely accept kids falling for JK Rowling and publisher Bloomsbury's marketing hype about the new book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

After all, kids aren't reading enough these days, what with the competing demands of the Playstation 3, Xbox, Nintendo Wii, alcopops, childhood obesity and underage sex.

And frankly, anti-role model Victoria Beckham's recent assertion that she's never read a book should make every parent in the land encourage their offspring to pick up a paperback (hardbacks are a book-industry-devised rip-off) of any sort.

It's probably too much to ask for more than that, though by the age of 13, a young Guru was already ploughing his way through classic fiction from Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. And, of course, by 15 he was reading classic HR books from Hertzberg, Maslow et al.

No, what depresses Guru about the whole Hogwarts malarky is the sad spectacle of fully-grown adults proudly clutching their own copy of the latest Harry Potter (there is even an adult version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with a "less childish" front cover - above right).

Guru first became aware of this phenomenon while watching last weekend's TV coverage of the first Test Match between England and India and The Open Championship. There they were in the crowds, these adult Muggles, ignoring the sporting endeavours they had paid to watch and reading all about a pubescent wizard and his ginger friend.

Okay, cricket and golf might not be the most absorbing spectacles, but pur-lease. And it hasn't stopped there. Guru has spotted dozens of adult Harry Potter fans on the trains, tubes and buses, using their commute to snatch another few pages of Quidditch action and other such nonsense. These people seem to exhibit no shame that they are reading a book written for people a third their age.

Come on, grown-ups of Britain. There are bookshops and libraries full of great literature. And at the risk of being branded a bibliographical snob, Guru urges: put down the Potter and pick up a Poe - before this country's collective mental age shrinks to its average shoe size.