This article is interesting - the possible corruption of a worthy cause to feed a minority's appetite for self-righteous satisfaction.

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Ah well. It's not surprising - I received this e-mail from Amazon:

"Dear Customer

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk.

We are writing to inform you that the price of the following item was
incorrect at the time of placing your order, and we hope that we can
clear up any misunderstanding:

"HP iPAQ H1910 Pocket PC"

Despite our best efforts, with the millions of items available on our
Web site, pricing errors can occasionally occur.

In accordance with our Conditions of Web Site Use and our Pricing and
Availability Policy, please know that we will be cancelling all affected
orders. If you still wish to purchase this item, please place a new order
online which will be charged at the correct price.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008W5UT/

Please note that you have not been charged for this item.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this
error, and rest assured that we will continue to make every effort to
maintain the accuracy of all prices on our site.

We hope you will find this an acceptable solution and look forward to
serving you again in the future.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.co.uk"

Its certainly nothing to get indignant about. Getting something for (almost) nothing is fundamentally opposed to the whole basis on which a developed society works - the receipt and giving of consideration is the bedrock of effective agreements, basic values and social interaction depend on a mutual respect for other people and Amazon run their business on the sound principle of charging end users for goods at a margin over what they pay for the goods so they can cover their overheads and make a small profit to feed their children, clothe themselves and buy themselves fast cars. And after all Amazon only first made a profit very recently.

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The luck of it. You may have read that today Amazon made what could prove to be a very costly mistake depending on how many people picked up on it. Tim was kind enough to e-mail through the link this morning, and I obediently bought some kind of mini-PC (about which I know nothing and which until this morning I had had no inclination to own at all). But I don't think enough - I should have bought 5 or 10 and flogged them all on ebay. The supressed materialist in me will bubble to the surafce and won't let me part with my sole pocket p.c. I'll have to keep it.

That is, of course, unless Amazon decide they are going fight tooth and nail to dishonour the hundreds of contracts that must have been made this morning. If they do you can guarantee I'll be beavering away to find that elusive legal case where this has happened before.

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Briefly I must defend my decision to record the number of days since I last had a cigarette. Once it gets to 40 days, a date that will, incidentally, co-incide with the end of Lent, the abstinence will continue, but the counter will come down. Its a good indication to me of success in quitting - there is something satisfying about racking up the days.

I previously gave up for 2 years, and then started again for six months - It's important to put the little six month anomaly behind me especially as new legal provisions mean that cigarette packets are being gradually swamped by increasingly aggressive health warnings.

Here is a list of the new wordings of the warnings:
1. Smokers die younger.
2. Smoking clogs the arteries and causes heart attacks and strokes.
3. Smoking causes fatal lung cancer.
4. Smoking when pregnant harms your baby.
5. Protect children: don't make them breathe your smoke.
6. Your doctor or your pharmacist can help you stop smoking.
7. Smoking is highly addictive, don't start.
8. Stopping smoking reduces the risk of fatal heart and lung diseases.
9. Smoking can cause a slow and painful death.
10. Get help to stop smoking: ring 0800 169 0 169.
11. Smoking may reduce the blood flow and causes impotence.
12. Smoking causes ageing of the skin.
13. Smoking can damage the sperm and decreases fertility.
14. Smoke contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.

Number 9, I think, is particularly unpleasant to stare at in a pub, when sucking away on a tab.

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