Wanting

My instincts for acquisition, which broadly speaking rarely feature with undue prominence in life's comedy, well not in recent years anyway, came fiercely to life this week on my being exposed to two instances of seeing a kindle - the e-reader thingee from amazon - in action. I got really close up to one belonging to my Yankee colleague Greg, and seriously considered purloining the little beauty until I figured I couldn't download anything on it.

Which leads to the big question: why won't those good people at my favourite on-line retailer (actually the only one I've ever bought anything from, I think, other than airline and concert tickets) allow us to use the darn things here on this fine little island? It's not as if this is cowboy territory when it comes to issues of copyright, well not in recent years at least. Maybe they think we're part of China?

Well-meaning folks, by the way, have informed me of all sorts of ways of getting around the ban (if that's what it is) involving arranging addresses for credit cards in the US & UK and buying gift vouchers from amazon itself, but I haven't got the energy. I just want one of those pretty devices, and I want it now.

(Actually I don't want it now really as I've got loads of real books still to read, but I'm feeling infantile, I'm feeling like a real consumer, for once.)