we're a match, begins one subject line, from a young lady named Jamie who declares "I am NOT a Porn Chick", which is always a nice thing to know about one's match. This lady seems to think that I once answered a personal ad of hers - funny how my own memory always seems to fail me on such occasions, because I honestly can't remember having dabbled with same-sex Internet romances at any point. Silly me.

What makes this perons's (otherwise entirely convincing) claims slightly suspect are a) that she has included the addresses of three other people belonging to my ISP - what a coincidence that all four of us from the same ISP should have responded to her ad and that she should have suddenly remembered all of us at once. And b) that her email ends with "Js zrign i doppyexktoa volpijo lttjf ggdstk t hega nlb nxxwjwiy dnwddju". I fear that my linguistic skills aren't up to interpreting this; perhaps I should call the Translator and Interpretor service, but I fear I wouldn't be able to pronounce so many vowelless words.

heya announces the next message, implying a level of friendship and familiarity. Imagine my surprise when I find that it contains an ad! This ad begins with "Sick and tired of your stupid friends getting high paying jobs because they have a degree?"

Well, yes, absolutely. I think it's absolutely appalling. Darned competition; how dare my friends do well in life? I thoroughly resent it. Fortunately, my unnamed benefactor has given me a viable and thoroughly attractive alternative to permanently choking on my own bile.

"Does the prospect of studying hard and wasting years of your life and THOUSANDS of dollars so you MIGHT get a decent career sound dumb? We offer Bachelors, Masters, MBA, Doctorate (PHD) and All Diplomas!... No Books, No Classes, No Exams or Interviews. Just call this number and give yourself a career advantage over your friends and co-workers."

There we go; there's the solution. Obtain qualifications you don't have. This is brilliant. It goes on to say that "Our Diplomas are from Prestigious non-accredited universities..." so you too can have, say, a Doctorate in Pharmaceutical Engineering from The University of GreatNewOffers!!!.com.

I can imagine a new future where all the professional class has obtained their qualifications this way: doctors, nuclear physicists, systems programmers, solicitors... it's gonna be a great future, but at least we'll all have nice cars.

Date Single Christians! cries the next headline. This is just what the church today needs: an online dating service. What better way to find the partner God has specially chosen for you? Who needs to put these important matters of love and marriage in God's hands when you can chat up total strangers online?

Do you want to be a real man?! asks another subject line, this one penned by a "mr_dangerous000". The short answer to that question is: no.

And I'm certainly not going into the contents of this particular email.

Name A Star for Mom on Mother's Day! How can you help but trust an email from an address like "DirectQlick_kmj@dq02.net"? It just screams credible. This email invites you to buy the rights to name a star after your mother. Is this kind of thing something that is usually auctioned off in this manner? Were Sirius, Vega, Alpha Centauri, actually names flogged off by a predecessor of DirectQlick?

If this is for real, I bet there's just one unnamed star remaining in our night sky, and everyone who pays their $90 gets told that their star is now named after their mother. Then everyone will point out that particular star and sigh with pleasure to think that it's theirs. After all, who else will know? I guess the problem will come when they're writing some astronomy book with the names of the stars, and one of them's called "Helen Susan Kate Tracey Donna Melanie Corinne Rita Ida Hannah Lisa Jennifer Michelle Yvonne Sarah Dominique Ashleigh Mary Claire Miranda -repeat for about forty pages-". I think we might have to end up abbreviating that one.

Either that, or the star in question is in some galaxy three trillion trillion light years away that nobody has ever heard of or will ever see.

Finally, I love this line: "The Star Foundation is also the only Star Naming Service that gives to Charity up to 25%". Yeah, so whenever you find yourself stressed, trying to choose between the plethora of Foundations in the highly competitive field of Star Naming Services, always think of The Star Foundation first.

Are you happy? seems a slightly personal question for a first meeting, but okay. Am I happy? Yes, absolutely. But wait - reading this email - I've suddenly identified an area of gaping need in my life. I just need to get this 'ALL-IN-ONE' (?) male performance enhancement product and all will be well. After all, it was developed in Sweden.

Fire your boss announces Dario, who clearly has anarchic tendencies. Okay, rub it in why don't you: I have no boss. The last boss I had was a perfectly nice and amiable man whose career I have absolutely no desire to jeopardise.

For those who are now wondering how one can fire one's boss, apparently the proper course of action is to "get rich with online auctions" - you can "make insane money instantly". I don't quite know how this would give me the organisational/political clout necessary to fire my (currently non-existent) boss, but I'm willing to read on.

Apparently this deal is absolutely free, although there is a (vital) 'e-course' associated which presumably is less so. Click on the link to find out more - but the link does not work. Very good; thanks for wasting my time.

Dario of the Web Auction Team does kindly allow me the opportunity to unsubscribe from his fine publication, but alas, this link, too, is broken. Oh well, at least you gave the illusion there was some escape from receiving your bucketloads of rubbish.

Talking Toilet Paper is a subject line that speaks for itself, really.

(Miscellaneous note: the disclaimer at the bottom of this email reads: "As a leader in permission-based email marketing, we are committed to delivering a highly rewarding experience...")

happiness is protecting the family mts - what is a family mts? Or could it just be the attachment of random letters to subject lines that seems to accompany 90% of spam mails?

The body of this message is more inexplicable than most:

"Hi,
Gvojpjvomp cwgt S25uQ7CFB
Fks4r306I umr ks4r306I ynjlmr l5S2rVRh ynjlmr uinvn scatssjkqn taaosbm"

Well, you've sold me.

Iraqi's "Most Wanted" Playing Cards sounds interesting but isn't. It's nice to see the entrepreneurial spirit of the fine country of America rising to take advantage of great new marketing opportunities like war and terror. And I do like to get emails from an address like TurboRocketOffer@3cb-4e7f3a.cm03.net - where do I sign up?

The best part of this whole email is the following line: "Sorry, due to demand we must limit you to 5 per order."

is this a mistake? i t72jf41e is the subject of an email about more male performance enhancers. To answer the question: yes. Yes it is.

Earn unlimited income today is a remarkable promise. I feel reassured by the fact that the body of the email consists of nothing but broken images; it bodes well for anyone promising all the riches of the world in one day. And the email address of the chap who sent this mail my way seems, surprisingly, not to work. Alas, it looks as though I will never know how to earn unlimited income today. Maybe tomorrow.

I saw you in the chatroom is what Ervin tells me. Sounds like the title of a new horror film. You can imagine that Eerie Voice Over Guy intoning it in sepulchural tones, like a new sequel to "I Know what you did Last Summer".

Anyway, this genuinely is eerie that Ervin saw me in the chatroom, as I haven't been in one for some years.

Unfortunately I have no more information to go on, as the content of the mail is:
"ljic69reuevw8hs612at5kb
qwf6d423279ic3
hpos972sl2vu8"

Ervin must belong to the same planet as Jamie the Non Porn Chick and the family mts Guy.

Death by internet? was an interesting subject line, and ol' Tom did attract my interest by a) not featuring incoherent strings of random, unrelated characters, b) not featuring a coloured table and c) not including a huge collage of images. As such it took me two microseconds to discern that this was a spam mail, rather than the usual one microsecond.

This guy begins by deriding the 'get rich quick' schemes that one gets so many of in one's inbox. He goes on to say that, although these are all false, there *is a True Way*. "Nearly all of the richest people in the world used this method to build their wealth." What would that be? Inheritance? Fraud? Mugging old ladies? Unfortunately, the secret is revealed in a "click here" link, as with every other get rich quick scheme.

And I am one of only 17 new people authorised to use this method - I wonder how they chose me, an ignominous young Australian undergraduate, of all people? Maybe I should be more grateful.

miss college days? ikegxxjv Not really. It's only a long weekend, after all. I'm not so attached to the IT labs and lecture theatres that I miss them after three days of not being there.

But in the future, if I do miss college days, I can bring them back by using this new procedure which reverses ageing. That's right, it's gonna be sweeeet. When I'm 40 I'll use it and become 19 again. When I become 40 again I'll become 19 again. I'll be Immortal Woman. Mwahahahahaha.

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