…like an Egyptian

Okay. I’m usually too baroque to mention spam – but recently I’ve been overrun with the stuff. It’s like the little boy in that old fairy tale about the magic porridge-pot. And like a sea of porridge it’s just not clever or amusing, no matter what the so-called 'spam poet' Kristin Thomas might think. The advent of those random strings of words the spammers put in to get past the filters was mildly diverting for a week or two, and can still beguile the odd vacant moment, but I’d never elevate it to the condition of – well, even found art, really.

I did like this one though. Recent spam emails are all inserting a few random letters into the word PHARMACY, which is clearly blocked. (Note this, all you who are trying to ask your elderly relatives if they want you to pick up their prescription refill on the way home!) The other day I had an email from a sender called called Akhenaten Tuckerman, or some other inane-sounding last name, and the subject heading was PHARaoMACY.