Well, I had responses to two of my Waterstone’s questions within the 48 hours allocated. The third question – “If I buy a book and come away from it feeling disappointed and a little grubby, can I have my money back?”, is presumably not worthy of an answer even though I reckon that with the right lawyer I could have a case, Mr Brown! 

So, further to my query as to which books are better than the Bible, I got this. “It's very difficult to say whether one book is better than another, because people's preferences are so subjective, but if you enjoyed the Dan Brown title that you read - have you read his other books?” and a number of recommendations for books about the Holy Grail and all that other mumbo jumbo. 

The question that I most wanted answered – concerning the holy grail of misguided book collectors – a copy of a Harry Potter book signed by heavyweight author Ian McEwan – got this response. “Unfortunately we are not offering any signed books through the website at the present time, but do keep an eye on our Events page, where you will be able to find out which authors will be signing copies of their books in Waterstone's branches.” An answer which quite frankly hums of a computer generated response. 

If it was indeed by a human, I would suggest that he/she puts down their Brian Aldiss compendium, grabs McEwan by the notepad and gets him to sign my Potter book.