Spamwatch

Spam - it used to be slimy pink meat, but is now used to mean the torrent of unwanted emails flying around the globe, most of the time on the subject of, ironically, a gentleman's slimy pink meat.

The above summarises the 178 emails that were inserted into my box over the weekend, of which an amusing 69% were sex-related spam.

There's a particular sub-language associated with spam, examples of which include:

• empathetic description of intimate problems ("Lack control over your squirting?". "Why don't you prevent premature creaming?", "You always dreamt to rock hard erections")
• preying on your innermost fears…("Don't let your partner leave you", "Have you some doubt?", "Many of us know the bitter feeling of not being able to deliver", "Hate seeing her unhappy face after you finish too quickly?")
• …then providing the answer ("You won't hear another word of reproach from her!", "Tonight you’ll prove your volume", "She will never leave you", "She will love the new you", and best of all, "You will be counting days before your rod will be almost reaching your knees.")
• earthy proverbs ("Why bark when you can get a dog to do it?")
• unlikely-sounding email addresses (chickenarmpit@priest.com, armfulchunky@samerica.com, cowslipannoy@rome.com)
• blatant lies, especially in conjunction with man-made tablets ("lose weight naturally", "Join thousands of satisfied customers")
• spelling errors, deliberate or otherwise ("peenis", "ppenis", "pennis", "peniis", " ejacculatte" - one for Starbucks, maybe)
• unusual grammar ("Good afternoon and the results will impress your girl", "notice huge differences in the way they you operate your beef machinery.")
  and
• downright insults ("Stop being a two pump chump")

~

Something odd was going on on Clapham Common last night as I wheezed by. A dozen groups of twentysomething Northcote Road types (boys separated from girls) wearing numbered bibs were doing rather pathetic imitations of press ups and star jumps under the supervision of wiry guys with camo trousers and backpacks (containing bricks to make things more challenging).
Maybe the situation in Iraq is so desperate that the army is drafting conscripts from the ranks of trainee accountants, junior lawyers and up and coming hedge fund managers of SW11 . I can't imagine that the 1st Battalion of Her Majesty's Greedy Young City Types would be much good for anything other than braying into mobile phones, wearing pink rugby shirts with the collars turned up (good for visibility on the streets of Basra), and arguing drunkenly with minicab drivers on a millionth of their salary about the fare home. Perhaps we're just trying to bore the Iranians into submission.
A more likely explanation is that this was some sort of test for the Duke of Edinburgh's award, or some other 'gap year' activity used to bolster the already overloaded CVs of the scions of the upper middle classes.
Whatever was going on, the instructor I rode past who was "supervising" a group of eighteen pink and glowing girls bouncing through their paces definitely had a glint in his eye.
A white courier van was lurking at the gates of Downing Street this morning - maybe our friends at Al Qaeda have given up mucking about in the woods outside High Wycombe and gone for the direct approach - Fedex the bomb directly to the head of the capitalist snake.
Only just resisted the temptation to yell "Banzai" at a squadron of Japanese tourists milling about in the bus lane on Whitehall whilst approaching them at speed this morning, but in the light of today's anniversary, decided not to.