Voy Por Ustedes

There's a good chance I'm becoming a shopaholic. Back in the day, before the internets, I used to masturbate whenever I was bored, but these days with my arthritis and osteoporosis I seem to fire up the Ebays and buy a bunch of crap instead.

Earlier for example I bought a Mr Messy t-shirt. Where on Gah's clean Earth am I going to wear that? It was £8. I think I probably saved myself about £400 though as I was initially intending to buy a TV. Phew. Close call.

I often wonder what the Ministry of Domestic Affairs makes of my online shopping. They don't think anyone knows they exist, but nothing gets past me. Somewhere in Lincolnshire there's a Governmental Department in a bunker one hundred feet below ground full of computer nerds analysing our shopping habits and trying to figure out what kind of people we are and whether we're likely to throw eggs at Gordon Brown if he came our way.

I've been aware of these people for some time - one of them's called Peter - so I like to balance out my purchases so they can't profile me. Some time ago for example I thought I'd read Mein Kampf. Not because I'd become a promising Neo-Nazi, but just because I felt it was an important historical document one ought to read.

I didn't want to go to a book shop to buy it though, what with the sensitive nature of it's subject matter. I had visions of walking in there and having to ask an old lady behind the counter if they stocked it only to discover she was a holocaust survivor called Myra Fleishemberg with a barcode tattoo and a hand-bag full of pepper sprays.

So, I though I'd buy it from the Amazons, but because I knew Peter would probably be monitoring my purchases I thought I'd also buy something diametrically opposed to it so as to make it clear this was an educational not ideological purchase.

Naturally I chose to buy the "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx. I reasoned that Hitler's hatred of the Reds made this is a good choice. But of course in reality what I'd actually done was just given Peter cause to believe I was either a Fascist anti-Semite nazi or a Communist. I had visions of them roping down from a helicopter within the hour to seize me and bring me in for questioning.

But now, I did actually want to read both of these books, so I also bought another book written by the Dalai Lama and a couple of children's books - one of which I think was the Magic Porridge Pot. I spent about £80 in the end. Make of that what you will Peter, I said to myself as I clicked 'make my purchase.'

So anyway, despite what I thought was sound online shopping prudence that would satisfy the profilers in that dingy bunker, I was arrested before my books even arrived and spent some time in a prison in Nigeria charged with being a communist, fascist, paedophile, nappy wearer.

I told my parents I had won a Business Award and was going to work in New York. They still don't know the truth...but is there even such a thing as the truth any more?