I chose a book from Amazon UK the other day and when I went to check out you can imagine my surprise on finding that there were already three books in my basket. Three very good novels by Naguib Mafouz that I would unhesitatingly recommend but which I had not selected. According to the system they had been added on April 9th 2009.

Now unusually I know exactly where I was then and can swear unimaginably dreadful oaths that I did not use a computer that day rendering one of their explanations void. I contacted them you see and got a bland email in return suggesting two possibilities.

One that I had been on the site and failed to close down allowing someone to sneak in and order the books, or two that a family member or friend was aware of my password and had used it. Neither of these explanations is at all credible and in any case surely if someone were that keen to get those books they'd have completed the transaction.

It also seems a far-fetched idea that someone would try to steal a few books in this way. If they did break into an account it would be much more likely that they were after a big ticket item or were trying to get hold of a credit card number with which to steal better things, like cash.

Now nothing was in fact purchased and Amazon point out that credit card numbers are not actually held on the site so I can see that accessing my account for that purpose wouldn't get you very far.

My more prosaic answer, which I offered to Amazon but which they ignored, was an IT processing malfunction. I've seen a few even more bizarre in my time.

But what about the paranormal? I was after all on The Amazon on the 9th of April.