called me yesterday afternoon to inform me that his computer is on its last legs, and that his external hard drive also seems to be knackered. There wasn't a lot I could do, to be honest, but it made me think that getting hold of a couple of grand's worth of computer equipment wouldn't be particularly easy for a young family. I started to think charitably.

On my shelf is a board game, which handed to me before he moved out of my flat, as some kind of parting gift, or possibly because he just couldn't be arsed to lug it to Leicestershire. It's called Ghettopoly, and as I'm in fervent eBay mode at the moment, I idly had a look on line to see whether it happened to be a rarity, and whether I could flog it and send him some cash, as I've certainly never opened the bloody thing and it has only been useful for gathering large amounts of dead skin cells. Mainly my dead skin cells. Unbelievably, it did seem to be rare, mainly because it's banned in toy stores across America for containing images and language that appear to be bordering on racism. Marvellous, I thought, I'll bung it up on eBay. To disassociate myself from the contents, I actually put in the listing “Not really my cup of tea.”

Nevertheless, an hour later I receive an email from eBay saying that I'd breached their “Hateful or Discriminatory” policy. They don't intend to prosecute me for race hate crimes, fortunately, but they do advise that I'd better not do it again, buster. I feel slightly uneasy about owning this game, now. It feels like I've got a BNP membership card in my drawer, or something. Maybe I'll steal out at the dead of night, and sling it in a skip. I certainly won't have a go at getting rid of it outside Brixton tube. Perhaps, , you want it back, in which case I'll send it up under plain cover asap.