Years of continued abuse probably has the UK Mac community feeling sort of like the vegetarian at the office luncheon-- shafted on a regular basis. After Apple's repeated cancellation of London-based Expo appearances, the elimination of UK-localised versions of the Mac OS, and the closing of several UK Apple jobs (particularly in the sales and marketing areas) in favor of a more "European" focus, one would think that the Mac-using Brits would have had enough. And indeed, they bloody well had-- to the extent that protesters originally planned to interrupt Uncle Steve's keynote at the last Paris love-fest, though Apple's offer to meet with the protesters after the show instead prevented such a scene.

So what's next on the anti-Brit agenda for Apple? Well, how about massive price differentials and the return of the "grey market"? According to MacUser, the Euro is falling compared to the British Pound Sterling, resulting in a price gap between costs of Apple gear to UK dealers and the costs of the same gear to dealers in other European nations. Reportedly the average disparity is "around eight per cent," but sometimes higher; a 17-inch Studio Display, for example, goes for about £275 in Denmark-- but it's £349 in the UK. In order to scrape out a reasonable living, this has led some dealers to consider buying their merchandise from other countries and reselling them in the UK for a bigger profit margin.

UK dealers are using the threat of this so-called "grey importing" strategy to try to force Apple UK to lower its prices. Granted, fluctuations in international currencies aren't exactly Apple's fault (aside from Steve running the Illuminati, who controls all the money in the world, but that's hardly germane to the current discussion), but still, Mac dealers in the UK can't be too thrilled right about now. Chalk it up to just one more bummer in the overall Mac-Brit landscape. Man, if the law of karma holds, someday the UK is going to be showered with free Cubes or something just to balance the scales...