Kindle - Part 4

I try to keep a sane approach to cleanliness versus neatness. Clean is quite important, neat not so much. The outside of the car closely resembles a potato farm, the inside is fine. I sit in there, so that needs to be clean. I only look at the outside.

The bed is rarely made (why bother? I’m only going to be back in there in a few hours) but the sheets are clean. Same principal. “In” versus “look at”. But I break that rule and become a bit compulsive when it comes to the cleanliness of my display screens.

The TV is clean. The laptop is pristine. The PC screen has been officially disowned as it has a spot on it that I can’t get off. Don’t touch my screen, man. Don’t touch my screen with your grotty, greasy little paws.

So, imagine how ripe for disappointment I am, owning an eBook? By my own admission I am tough on books and once I sneeze, spill wine on, or in some way ruin the glorious expanse of the eBook display screen… well it’s not like I can turn the page and forget about it. It’s always going to be there, taunting me.

So, there’s the first problem with the hardware. You don’t get to move on when you’ve splodged it and I am inevitably going to splodge it. You spend a lot of time with books doing leisure things. Leisure things equals splodging.

Second problem – you can’t confidently take your book into the bath. This I consider a real blindspot in design and they better seriously be working on waterproof Kindle for the 3rd or forth generation. How hard can it be?

And finally, a big one. You can’t lend your book to your partner when you’ve finished. I just finished something that I wanted Emergency Contact to read, and realised I couldn’t lend it to her. How am I going to read my next book, if she’s got my eBook? I know what you’re thinking – get another eBook, but there’s a slippery slope. Next she'll want gifts for birthdays and Christmas and stuff.