I rang the Nokia flagship store in London earlier and spoke to a guy who said that they would be getting the n900 in on Thurs, but by Fri at the very latest.
Managed to get myself all excited and rushed down there to sign up as waiting until the 3rd is driving me up the wall.
Got in there and the guy doing contracts (Jon) is a MPD employee :-(
I did have an interesting conversation with him though - unless you have ordered a sim free handset from Nokia directly, then NO-ONE will have a n900 before MPD in the UK.
He was absolutely adamant about that, and was sure that MPD would be getting the n900 at exactly the same time that the London flagship store would be.
They are hoping for delivery this week (Thurs/Fri) but it isn't certain at the moment - its just hoping based on what Nokia are saying, but they have already delayed it once and he said it's possible that they might again.
One interesting thing he said was that if the Nokia store get them in and MPD haven't, then I could go see him and I might be able to switch my order and they would try and price match it. But he did again state that the moment the NFS had them, MPD would as well, apparently Nokia have a legal obligation to ensure that MPD are the first...
He also reckoned that the 3rd was a conservative estimate - take that as you will?!?

I want my bloody phone - Im 38 and behaving like a 6yr old on xmas eve