Monty Python, amongst their myriad of sketches, did a take on the prevalence of processed meat in "greasy spoon" cafes dotted around the UK. When asked "what've you got" the waitress replied

"Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;"

This skit is made slightly surreal with a bunch of vikings in the background chanting spam.

Still, at the moment this skit shares much in common with the state of email at the moment, not that Vikings play a prominent role but that spam represents over 80% of all email being transmitted . Here at Flesk I.T. our mail server filters out much of the spam but I have a brief look at it every day just to make sure nothing important has been removed by accident.

It is because of this that I have noticed that the email-type spam is becoming a bit surreal too. Over the last few months I have averaged at least two or three emails an hour purportedly from the Inland Revenue Service in the US saying I have under-reported my income which must mean I have filed in the negative figures as I have no income in the States, that lasted until a few weeks back when they stopped only to be replaced by Her Majesties Revenue Commissioners saying exactly the same thing.

Each day some chap will contact me saying that he needs my help to transfer vast amounts of money from Nigeria and will cut me in on the deal if I help facilitate the transfer. Since the Nigerian in question changes each time I receive an email I can only suppose that the entire population is sitting of millions of dollars desperately trying to get it out of the country!

Oh, and I have won at least seven European-wide lotteries this week and only need to reply to their email to get my prizes! So next week I should be flying off to sunnier climes.

Every bank in Ireland, and a few in the States and the UK all have security issues with my account with them. This I can believe as I do not do business with any of them so obviously somebody is masquerading as me opening accounts all over the world!

I must also be doing something right on the Internet as my online personae is much better than in real life. I have hundreds of emails from hordes of young, attractive ladies interested in all sorts of....ahem.... relationships of a deep and meaningful nature.

Ho hum, back to the real world.