Shopping online is like wandering the streets of Cairo

One of the greatest benefits of the internet has been, in my opinion, online shopping. It is cheaper and more convenient than the real-world alternative, and most importantly it means I don't have to sully myself by rubbing shoulders with the monstrous proletariat. The one drawback is that to buy anything one generally has to become a 'registered user', so committing you to a future of being informed of the latest bargains.

For those of you who have never been to Cairo, to walk in the streets is to subject oneself to a constant barrage of desperate solicitations. The moment you are marked out as a foreigner (and this takes just a matter of seconds), you can expect a dismal litany of retail opportunities.

'Taxi? Trip to Pyramids, new tombs, very good, special price. Chess sets? For your sister, for your girlfriend, for your wife?'
'What, all three of them?"
'Ha ha, very good, very funny joke. Now we friends, come, take tea. Carpets, perfume, very good, very cheap. Special price, friend price....'

So it goes on, in every Souq on the Nile Valley, endlessly and repeatedly. Every time you venture into the streets, you will be surrounded by a pack of these people, swarming around you like flies around a turd. It is possible, and even normal, to pass a rank of twenty identical taxis and have to individually reject each and every one. In Aswan, I once asked number twenty in why, having seen me refuse nineteen of his competitors, he thought I would impulsively decide that he was the taxi I had been waiting for all my life? In retrospect his reply was predictable. 'Aha, where from? Welcome. Friends, take tea? Camel ride? Tombs? Woman? You like woman?' In the good old days, foreigners were able to assure of a themselves peaceful stroll through the streets by employing a hefty local with a big stick and a vicious streak. Nowadays, the local authorities seem to take a dim view of club-wielding tourists. Believe me, I tried.

Amazon.com are just like that. I am constantly getting emails telling me what I might like, what I should buy, and how I've been selected as a 'special' customer, like a Cairene pimp pretending to be my friend. They even send me mail if I haven't bought anything for a while. 'Habibi, why you no buy something, you no love me, my heart it breaks. Here, Dynamic Meteorology by Holton? Latest edition, for you special price'. At least in Egypt you can slink into a bar and take a breather from this cacophony of peddlers. From Amazon.com, there is no escape.

I've just received another email. 'Pedlosky, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics? Special price, friend price. Latest McNab? Chess set? Taxi? You want girl? I get you girl, clean girl, she my sister. You prefer boy?'