Big Brother is watching me

B Bob is a book-seller at my local book-shop.

Like most modern book-shops, there's a cafe on the premises.

Which is very handy, as it enables you to borrow a stack of magazines from the sales area, which you can then idly peruse over a steaming brew.

At least, that used to be the case.

However, the grand old days of idle perusal are gone forever.

B Bob has started bursting into the cafe and shaking-down the mag mob.

"D'you buy that? You gonna buy that?"

Of course nobody but nobody has any intention of purchasing the reading material.

That would involve something as grubby and commonplace as an exchange of money for goods.

Nope.

We'd much rather skim the magazines; spill our coffee on the covers; fill in the crossword puzzles; scrunch up the pages; and tear out the free giveaways.

Then let some other dumb shmuck pay for the mags.

B BOB doesn't agree with this plan, so he grabs the goodies, then gallops off.

Leaving us all looking rather shame-faced, as if we're, like, y'know, doing something wrong.

And the big question is: are we?

B BOB always manages to make everybody feel bad about nabbing the mags.

Yet he never reveals whether we're actually allowed to borrow them from the shop, or not.

It continues to be one of those grey areas of the law.

Like whether you should cycle a bike on the pavement.

Or murder an elderly uncle once you discover he has a particularly mouth-watering will.

(By the way, I'd just like to make it clear that my wealthy Uncle Waldo died of natural causes. Once the poison reached his central nervous system, it was very natural for him to pop his clogs.)

I suppose reading magazines that you haven't purchased is a form of discreet theft.

Just like that Johnny Cash song, where a bloke steals a car from the factory where he works... one piece at a time.

One day he sneaks off with a spark plug. The next day he nabs a bolt. Then a steering wheel. And a door...

After a few months he has a flashy new vehicle parked in his driveway.

I do the same thing with the fiction department in the book shop, when I smuggle their books into the cafe to read.

So far, B BOB hasn't harassed me out of this villainous activity.

Yet I suppose I am stealing those books - one paragraph at a time.

Every couple of weeks I have a brand-spanking new novel safely stored inside the dingy warehouse of my head.

(Along with the top secret location where the rival claimants for Uncle Waldo's will lie buried in shallow graves.)

Sometimes nicking books can be confusing.

All that filched fiction turns into a mushed-up milk-shake in the mind.

Could Harry Potter really have fallen in love with Rhett Butler under a blazing Atlanta sun?

And did Philip Marlowe actually collar Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger, after they tried to pick the pocket of his grubby grey trenchcoat?

I'm no longer sure.

Maybe I should just purchase those books, after all.

Yeah, right. As if!