Re[20]:

I'm currently passing through one of my periodic episodes of blog doubt and easing up on my output. One of the benefits of that easing up is that I have more 'on PC' time to devote to all those little housekeeping chores I've been meaning to do.

I've just spent an enjoyable 15 minutes sorting through my collection of Best Ever Spam Email sender names and I've attached some of the fruits of my labours as a screenshot.

My experience of spam is restricted to being a consumer rather than a generator but it seems clear that one of the essential requirements of effective spam to come up with the most bizarre sender names you can think of. Obviously the subject line is important and must serve the dual purpose of being both eye-catching and able to slip past spam filters but a really good sender name is the cherry on the cake. And it's hats off to the unnamed geniuses who came up with Englebert Snyder, Apollonija Quintero, Sergio Woody and Tourniquet E. Roomful.

There's a PhD thesis on spam out there waiting to be written and what it tells us about the human condition. Discounting the obvious tricky trickster subject titles such 'Re[20]', 'You left your coat' or 'Did you get my...' the bulk of spam subject titles seek to draw attention by playing on those things that concern us most. It comes as no surprise that those things are not particularly altruisitic or important.

But, speaking as a man with a small, eternally floppy penis with an unhappy sexual partner and who genuinely believes that wearing fake watches paid for by working at home for an hour or two a day will make people respect him more, I think spam is great and I, for one, can't get enough of it