The idea of Waterstones offering the Amazon Kindle in its shops always seemed a bit like a turkey farmer voting for the abolition of Christmas.
The book seller appears to have had a change of heart, however, and is removing the e-book reader after “pitiful” sales.
Bricks and mortar book shops have struggled to compete against the might of Amazon, but back in 2012 Waterstones evidently took the view that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, when it teamed up with the controversial online retail giant to stock the Kindle.
Part of the problem could be that, unlike mobile phones and computing tablet devices, there is not much of an upgrade path for e-book readers.
Waterstones reported that sales of physical books rose 5% year-on-year in 2014, while market research firm Nielsen said sales of hard-copy books were up 4.6% year-on-year in the first 36 weeks of this year, so maybe Waterstones has just seen the writing on the wall.
Moving on from Amazon to a firm with controversial employment practices – not much of a move, I'll grant you – and a certain German supermarket chain that has a Lidl rethink about its pay policy in Northern Ireland.
Last month when it committed to pay its UK workers the so-called living wage it excluded Northern Ireland from the scheme, due to the way the German business was organised.
Lidl has now reversed that decision and, like their brethren south of the border, where Lidl was the first supermarket chain to sign up to the living wage campaign, Lidl workers in Northern Ireland will now receive at least £8.20 an hour.
Elsewhere in the retail world, Dunelm (LON:DNLM) has spoken without any sense of irony of the need for its revamped web site to “bed down”.
The company revealed in its first quarter trading update it has bought Fogarty, the filled cushions and pillows company that can trace its history back to 1826.
The acquisition does not seem to have ruffled any feathers …
Fogarty was founded in Boston, in Lincolnshire, as opposed to Massachusetts.
On the subject of confusing place names, Atlantic Coal (LON:ATC), based in Durham, has put out an update concerning its mine in Stockton – that's Stockton in Pennsylvania.
The announcement certainly stoked the share price, and small wonder, as the company reported a 26% increase in turnover in the first nine months of the year from the same period in 2014.
Another miner going well after an operational update is Sierra Rutile (LON:SRX). As an aside, its headquarters are in Sierra Leone, which explains the company name.
Happily, things are looking up in the country after the Ebola virus outbreak, and Sierra Rutile added to the cheer by revealing it had produced its second-strongest ever quarter with output of 33,960 tonnes rutile.
This means production will be in the middle or upper end of guidance for the year, which currently stands at 120-130,000 tonnes.