"BookRabbit takes on mighty Amazon"

Thus the chilling headline in my Daily Telegraph.

Is my alma mater in trouble? Is it all hands on deck, as so many times before when the good ship Bezosia hit stormy seas and the old salts rallied to the mainsail?

Seems that soapie Chuck Denton is setting up a little website with the catchless moniker of ... what was it again? Oh yes ... "BookRabbit".

Can't see it myself and hark to this...

"As well as selling books, BookRabbit.com will incorporate a social networking element [my itals], offering readers the chance to interact and recommend titles to each other."

It sounds absobloominglutely ghastly. Can you imagine the pseudy chat that'll go on. I mean, a whole site of people like *me? Too ghastly for words.

Quoth Chuckie,

"By book-lovers for book-lovers ... Amazon is not about books any more ... It's about creating a global brand through which they can sell anything, from toys to TVs."

Well, at least he got that bit right and gives credit where it's due. But the bit about books NOT ... young Denters is un peu derriè les temps, non?

Odds bodkins - it started stopping being about books back when Marjean cosied up to me with a splitter back in the autumn of 1998, since when it's been Fromgreps Anonymous and shameless World Domination.

But the social networking element solution sounds absolutely moi and I look forward to deserting Facebook at the split of an infinitive.