Aye, at least he got a response. And a sincere apology at that. Now there's a shoe in the door, William needs to press Stacey a little further, a small amount of banter and cajoling, and it's freebies galore.

I had a paypal email just before theirs.

I was surprised. I expected the usual, 'very sorry...circumstances beyond control...every effort...blah' at most.

This is quite clever. It doesn't actually say much more than a stock response, but it comes over as contrite and diffuses the situation without any real concession.

On the other hand, although they sell a lot of headphones, they are, apparently, a very small company and I suspect that Stacey T may be all or most of customer support, and probably does some selling and advertising as well. They certainly aren't on top of their website which still features a whole range of items which they no longer sell, even though some are marked 'out of stock' or 'retired'. I get a very non-corporate, slightly amateur feel about them - so maybe it was genuine.

Didn't realise that Scandinavians are into this 'Happy Holidays' malarkey.

This doesn't help, but their stock seems to be all over the place here (at least in Manor, which is the Swiss equivalent of Debenhams etc.)

I was looking at them to replace the girls' knackered headphones, but Fiona found a cheaper equivalent online.

I've actually bought a pair from the local HMV store - not the requested style but apparently acceptable.