"That's about £65,000, or two billion US dollars at today's exchange rate."

Wow. $30,000 to the pound. That's a pretty good exchange rate. Suddenly that fancy top-of-the-range Apple Mac seems more affordable...

I think you got your math wrong 1.5M Yen is only 12,736.31 Bucks not 2 Billion not even 2 Million.

Seriously. Did you just make up those numbers? They're way off.

1.5 million yen is closer to 12,000 USD. Not two billion. Hell, 1.5 million USD isn't even close to two billion yen, so it couldn't be that you reversed the numbers.

...your free proofreading service!

I know that hyperbole is getting more and more difficult to spot, with so many previous examples now being statements of fact, but even so....

I can only hope that the previous comments were from people to whom english is a second language (possibly American?)

I guess it's true that a lot of people out there don't get sarcasim.

I think you'll find that was a burgundy coloured comment, mon ami américain.

It's about time you had another look at those <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/13/the_return_of_the_irony_tag/">humour tags</a> Andrew: a number of your readers seem as impervious to hyperbole as they are to sarcasm, irony and other such (ahem) advanced manifestations of the written word.

Although, that said, you'd have to give that one a new tag all of its own as there was no category I could see that specifically covered "exaggeration for humourous effect" and you wouldn't want people misled into laughing at the wrong type of joke, would you?

Hi, If Microsoft distributes its products in Japan, surely it is aking for its products to be infringed, or causing infringements to occur.mmmm.

TA