First of all, an apology to Japan-based potential readers of The Underpants Tree: I’m sorry. I apologise.

Second, I have to call Amazon Japan a bunch of lying bastards. You’re a bunch of lying bastards, Amazon Japan!

I apologise to everyone because Amazon Japan has set the retail price of The Underpants Tree way too high — ¥1,587.

Bonkers, I know.

This does not reflect the price I recommended or the price of the same book in North America or Europe. I have complained to Amazon US about this but they say that Amazon japan can set any price they want and don’t seem interested in discussing the matter.

Bastards!

Anyway, I’m still working on finding someone who can lower the price.

Amazon.jp — purveyors of porky pies

And here’s why Amazon Japan deserve to be called lying bastards. Not only have they chosen a silly price, they are pretending they’ve discounted the book. One thousand five hundred and eighty-seven yen discounted from ¥1,627, they say.

Bollocks, I say.

They’ve plucked both prices from their bottom, simple as. This is an imaginary, arbitrary discount based on an imaginary discount price.

That’s capitalism for you.

And as a discount of ¥40 would be hardly worth the disingenuous pixels it’s written in even if it were real.

The same book is $11 in the US and £7 in Britain. The Japan price makes no sense at all.

So I apologise for that.

Of course, Amazon are exploitative, evil, tax-avoiding bastards, and it would be nice not to deal with them at all, but that’s not an option for me at the moment, and this is the subject of an entirely different post I’ve been intending to write for a long time. More on that later.

Japan readers: I am going to get a stock of the book in and offer it at a more humane price direct from my jacket pocket. This will take a few weeks to arrange. Watch this space as they say, and let me know if you would like a copy.