Why? I’ll tell you why, it’s because Amazon decided to bring out an eBook reader that was different from all of the other 60 plus eBook readers on the market throughout the known world at present.

Every reader on the market can read an ebook downloaded from the internet that uses the .epub extension (or format) EXCEPT the Amazon Kindle. The .epub format was developed as standard, but Amazon in their wisdom have decided not to use the worldwide standard that is tried, tested and proven to be reliable. They have created the .azw extension (does that stand for .amazonwaterstone?) meaning that the Kindle will only read eBooks bought from them and Waterstones Books, who recently jumped onto the bandwagon!

I bought my Sony eReader from Waterstones about two years ago and when I went to the local shop last week to buy accessories for it I was informed that they had changed to Kindle.

My Bloggy friend, Dave Dutton, has written several books in the Kindle format (the fool!) which means that I cannot download them into my reader unless I buy a Kindle; which I have no intention of doing . . .ever!

I wrote to Amazon complaining that I can no longer buy eBooks from them and that I would have to go elsewhere now, which is bloody annoying to say the least. This was their answer:

.

Hello,

Further to your email, I understand that you would like to purchase Ebooks from us and want to read it on Sony PRS500.

Unfortunately, Kindle Store content is not currently viewable on any other electronic reading devices.

In this situation you will not be able to read or access the content on your Sony PRS500, However you can read the Kindle store content on Kindle Applications.

I have forwarded your message to our concerned department for their consideration and as a feedback.

Content you purchase from the Kindle Store (such as books, newspapers, magazines and blogs) can be read on most Kindle devices, or devices running a Kindle application, registered to your Amazon.co.uk account. Information about devices that can read Kindle content can be found in our Help pages here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindlesupport

If you have any further questions, please contact us by replying to this email we will be glad to help you.

I am sorry not to have better news but appreciates your understanding in this matter.

We weren’t able to meet your expectations this time around. I hope that you will allow us another opportunity to serve you in the future.

Did I solve your problem?

Not really mate.

So there you have straight from the horses mouth! If you have bought a Kindle, or thinking of buying one, then the range of eBooks available to you will be limited to buying from Amazon or Waterstones. If you have one of the other 60+ readers then you can get books from hundreds of sites, but not Amazon or Waterstones. The choice is yours.

The latest project was to make another tiffany lampshade for myself. I have made tiffany lamps in the past, but for other people as commissions or to sell in my craft unit, now long gone.

I based my design on a picture of one of the original lamps, which you see here:

The lamp stand is an original Tiffany Studios one. An old lady brought in into my craft unit one day and told me that it was one of her mothers wedding gifts in nineteen hundred and frozen stiff. The shade, she said, had been broken during an air-raid in 1941 when they lived in London and had been thrown out long ago, and ever since then the stand had been kept in outhouses, under the stairs, bottom of the wardrobe, etc.

She had visited my shop quite a few times previously and always admired the lamps I had for sale, but she said that she couldn’t afford such luxuries now. She also told me that she was soon being moved to sheltered accommodation and was busy clearing out all the unwanted items, and did I want to buy the lamp base? I didn’t examine closely at the time and I gave her £10 for it. I never saw her again.

Years later I removed the green felt someone had put on the base to protect their furniture, intending to replace it with rubber feet, when I saw the Tiffany Studio mark. I thought it must be a fake, but then thinking how old it was it just had to be genuine. It’s bronze and very heavy, and the rubber insulation on the flex was perished so I had to replace that before I dared to use it. Nowadays lamp bases are usually made of “white metal” and plated to look like bronze or whatever.

Now the lamp is finished it will have pride of place on the grand piano in the music room, or I might even put on in the library. It would also look good in the Orangery.

End of post. Now switch the computer off, go outside and do something useful.

I have a fairly large collection of poetry books that I’ve collected over the years ranging from the well known poets, like Wordsworth, to little known poets such as Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Henry Lawson.

It’s a poem by Henry Lawson that I want to draw your attention to.

Henry Lawson, 17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922, was an Australian writer and poet.

The poem, or ode, was written about Queen Victoria, but it could equally apply to the present Queen. Since she came to the throne she has gone down in my estimation; considerably!

Here are the first two verses. I can’t print it all here, it is far to long. If you want to read all of it click on “more”.

The English Queen

A Birthday Ode, by Henry Lawson, written in 1892.

There’s an ordinary woman whom the English call “the Queen”:
They keep her in a palace and they worship her, I ween;
She’s served as one to whom is owed a nation’s gratitude;
(May angels keep the sainted sire of her angelic brood!)
The people must be blind, I think, or else they’re very green,
To keep that dull old woman whom the English call “the Queen”,
Whom the English call “the Queen”,
Whom the English call “the Queen”, —
That ordinary woman whom the English call “the Queen”.

The Queen has reigned for fifty years, for fifty years and five
And scarcely done a kindly turn to anyone alive;
It can be said, and it is said, and it is said in scorn,
That the poor are starved the same as on the day when she was born.
Yet she is praised and worshipped more than God has ever been —
That ordinary woman who. the English call “the Queen”,
Whom the English call “the Queen”,
Whom the English call “the Queen”, —
That cold and selfish woman whom the English call “the Queen”. [more. . .]

. . . now that Aprils Junes here, And whoever wakes in England, Sees, some mornings, that   . . . it’s bloody raining again!

My apologies to Robert Browning (1812-1889) for nicking his lines. Sorry Robert.

I woke up before the birds yesterday morning, and leaping out of bed with a smile on my face knowing that I was going on a coach trip to Stonehenge I drew the curtains and looked out expecting to see the sun rising over the mountains.

No such luck. I should have suspected that something was amiss when I heard the rain drumming on the window and the wind whistling around the eaves in the early hours.

Well, the day was a complete washout. Literally! I got wet getting to the coach station and then spent the entire trip there staring out of a steamed up window watching the rain-soaked fields and towns flashing by. To make matters worse I was sat next to Mr Fatty Sweaty Armpits who kept sniffing all the way there.

He did apologise for the constant sniffing, saying that he had “a bit” of a cold. I politely replied “That’s OK mate, I know how it is, I had a curry last night and I keep farting!” (not really, I had fish and chips).

When we arrived at Stonehenge, the rain was a lot worse. The guide insisted that we all went to the stones where he gave us the usual spiel about the stones being quite old and was some sort of a giant sundial that told you the months as well as the time from the position of the sun; I thought “What bloody sun?”. It’s a pity the stones couldn’t forecast the weather either.

After about 30 minutes of this I took a few photos and legged it to the cafe where I sat and read my eBook all afternoon until the others returned and it was time to return to the coach. I made sure that I didn’t sit next to Mr Sweaty Armpits on the way back.

All in all, it was a very interesting and fun-packed outing, I don’t think.