I was determined to master my Reader by Christmas as I have all but ignored it since last Christmas. I dutifully downloaded Under the Dome by Stephen King and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel last Boxing Day but I didn’t get to Stephen until last month. (We will never speak of the Ruination of Stephen King by Samantha Kelly. Never)

I have always suspected the main problem for me was the size of the screen of my pocket edition; as is so often the case in life, 5″ is simply not enough. Even by selecting the smallest text I was suffering from RSI every few seconds clicking to the next page. I found this made it hard to ‘get into the book’ as the ‘book’ was now a detached series of short lines of text. But I persevered and instead of looking at the Reader as an upstart Pretender,  I began to appreciate it for what it is – a machine, and the minute I pretended the Reader was a Terminator, the whole experience became much more enjoyable.

From an early age, necessity dictated I learned to read at the dining table.  My father (and his relentless table manner rules) was banished to the couch with a tray and my mother and I practiced elbows off the table; books on. I am an expert at balancing books under plate edges, using condiments as weights to hold open the largest of covers, and I once constructed a lean-to for a book using dessert cutlery, a small dish of mustard and a napkin ring. While all of this has stood me in good stead for absolutely nothing, the Reader has made my table reading construction ability obsolete. The Reader needs no supporting cast of hardware and allows you to have both hands free for cutlery wielding and wine drinking.

Buoyed by my hands free reading success at the dinner table I decided to branch out. My pocket Terminator propped against a coffee mug means I can now read while drying my hair, something I have never dared to dream of.  All I need to do now is remember to charge the bloody thing.

P.S  Since writing this post I have been having problems with my Termireader. Everytime I plug him into Skynet to recharge, Skynet refuses to recognise him. There is a reset button but apparently I need to unmake a paper clip to shove one end into Termireader to reset.  Termireader is now lying on a shelf gathering dust…