Please give five minutes of your time to read an emotional plea from an internet spammer

Please give five minutes of your time to read an emotional plea from an internet spammer

Good day to you Sir or Madam

I am writing to you with a unique investment opportunity.

My best friend's sister-in-law's cousin's aunt makes $80 every second that she spends on the internet. She has been fired from work for eight months but last month her payment was £150770000000 just for working on the internet for a few hours clicking on gold coins and bonus gems as they tumble down the screen, while avoiding the giggling goblins which incur a small penalty and sign you up to a mailing list that bombards your email inbox with inspirational Taylor Swift quotes.

I can vouch that all of the falling moneys are 100 percent genuine bitcoins issuing from a virtual leak in the online bank account of the late Colonel Gadaffi. As the executor of his estate I have been unable to stop the leak. Therefore I must proceed with the dissolution of his finances with all due haste. As the primary next of kin (you are Colonel Gadaffi's son or daughter) you will be entitled to an inheritance of 72 million pounds sterling which I will release to you as soon as you transfer the sum of £15,000 to cover administrative costs.

On a tenuously related matter my PR, Roxy, wondered if you might be interested in viewing some lewd photos that she and her friends took in a secluded cove while on a yachting holiday.

I also promised to pass on an offer from my UK-based business associate, Sandy, who along with her hot single friends in Brentwood is looking for no strings attached sex with strangers who she met on the internet. I appreciate that Brentwood is a long drive from Southend however I strongly urge you to join the sex commuter revolution at your earliest opportunity. Why not take advantage of the special train and bus services that have been laid on for itinerant man-candy like yourself. I assure you that this public transport is run by reputable operators and will definitely not deliver you to an unbonded travel agency on the outskirts of Birmingham where you can inquire about our many concessions and saver fares.

If you are concerned that your bedroom performance may not satisfy the unchaste desires of HOT MINXES LIVING IN THE VICINITY OF YOUR NEAREST INTERNET EXCHANGE then why not take advantage of the latest offers from our online Canadian pharmacy in Canada. Our Canadian Viagra is aged on cross-sections of redwood for seven years to ensure a smoother longer-lasting erection.

Our miracle penis-enlargement pills can make your manhood equal in both length and girth IN UNDER FOUR WEEKS! The longing for a cubed penis is the secret desire that fuels lust in the heart of every woman. They will marvel at the uniform dimensions of your mighty beef whistle. She will call you stud or your money back!

I wish to take this moment to recommend to you the benefits of taking a Canadian lover. One can be dispatched to you by overnight courier. See online for our latest offers on hot Canadian brides.

Why not meet me in the Mauritius Suite of my virtual casino where we can play blackjack and discuss all of this along with the size of the donation that you will make to my porcupine sanctuary.

Every minute a porcupine living in a sanctuary makes $40 working on the internet when they could be earning double that amount as an independent operator. Your £10,000 donation will purchase the materials to create a disguise that will allow a porcupine to slip past the guards and live out its days in the lush countryside surrounding Bradford, where it can take advantage of secret wi-fi nodes to conduct exclusive online auctions.

My fluorescent safety jacket speaks of my seriousness on these matters.

I await for you to confirm your urgent response immediately when you confirm this letter today.

Andrew Smith, English Minister for the Stock-market

The abiding incompetence of Mr Neaves

The abiding incompetence of Mr Neaves

“I have urged Mr Neaves to contact me with due haste.”

Thus spoke Mr Warton over breakfast. He furrowed his brow into a succession of three orderly creases which he hoped would convey the seriousness of the situation to the only other person in the room.

Mr Warton's daughter, Rebecca, was seated at the opposing end of the long dining room table. She returned the marmalade spoon to its crystal vessel beside the butter dish and drew a deep breath as if to compose herself before speaking:

“I find Mr Neaves to be a most vexing gentleman. His every action, no mater how mundane its purpose, seems to bring our family closer to penury. That we cannot easily rid ourselves of his unwelcome presence is a cruel fate indeed.”

The opinions of father and daughter were bolstered by the facts themselves which bore ironclad witness to the abiding incompetence of Mr Neaves. He was, to the insoluble regret of all who dwelled within the ivy-clad walls of Lavendon Manor, a distant cousin of Mr Warton. Formerly he had been a resident of Stribling, prior to the town being wholly occupied by wasps.

His most recent blunder, which teetered atop a pile of previous indiscretions, had occurred after his long-suffering host had placed him in sole charge of a cargo of live snakes. His duty in regard to these reptiles lay in arranging their conveyance from the Cornish port of Bellton-on-Milne, to Haroldwick in Buckinghamshire.

In pursuit of his objective Mr Neaves found it expedient to secure passage for himself and the consignment of serpents upon a commercial airliner. When attending to the matter of storage in the hold of the plane, he delegated to the smaller snakes the task of tethering the larger ones. With one half of his cargo secured and the remainder gainfully employed as jailers he satisfied himself that the job was well done and took his seat in the cabin.

“Mr Neaves evidently did not foresee the many casualties that would result from such a haphazard arrangement,” continued the brooding Mr Warton.

“I fear I will once more be compelled to procure the services of Mr Jackson. Though there are some in the village who refer to him as a bad-ass mother-fucker I have always found hum to be most agreeable.

“Rebecca, my dear. With your compliance I will avail of Mr Jackson and ask him to arrange for the bothersome Mr Neaves to be felled by a volley of musketry, fired from a passing carriage that will speed away from the scene before the assassins can be caught and blame apportioned.”

For the second time that morning Rebecca Warton composed herself, carefully selecting her words before speaking:

“I would approve of this course of action were it so, yet if asked in public I would censure it in the strongest terms.”

Mr Warton nodded.

“I fear that such a severe resolution will not be without cost. The expense involved in the engagement of Mr Jackson will dwindle the sum that I can offer for you as dowry. You must be prepared to forego both your first and second choice of suitor and thereafter must accustom yourself to the lowly role of wife to Andrew Catchpole who resides in one of the cardboard houses in Lower Mockford...”

Is the love affair with flying sharks finally over?

Is the love affair with flying sharks finally over?

By Tamara Winicott-Preedy

It was 11am on a Wednesday morning. As per usual Sera and I were enjoying a well-deserved cocktail brunch. We had decided to try a new place called Condensative which is just down the road from our office in Shoreditch. Cosmo recently branded it the most humid bar in East London.

As neither one us enjoys an over-abundance of moisture, and since the bar staff ignored our requests to turn off the humidifiers, we chose to sit at a table outside where it was cooler. Even there a waitress would appear approximately every five minutes and drench us both with a hand-operated plant mister.

We were idly chatting about a Darlia gig we had attended the previous evening which we had both filmed on our iPads. After about five minutes my arms got tired from holding mine above my head and I talked Graham into taking-over for the remainder of the show.

Anyway we were joking and laughing when suddenly Sera got all serious. I know when Sera is serious because she pauses the conversation and looks me straight in the eye. I was hoping that she was going to tell me that she'd slept with Graham as I'm getting a bit tired of him. I don't want to be the one to do the dumping because he's a part of our social circle and it would make waves.

More's the pity, it turned out that Sera's problem was nothing to do with Graham:

“Tam do you realise that this time next year we wont be drinking margaritas out of jam jars?”

“I don't see why we wouldn't be doing that. Drinking margaritas is practically my entire job description,” I replied archly.

Sera reached across the table and grasped both of my hands by the fingers. She held onto them so tightly that it hurt a bit.

“But don't you see ,Tam? Jam jars are on their way out. Gladstones & Mabel says that in a few months we'll all be drinking mixed drinks out of reconditioned boilers from Victorian steam locomotives. And you know very well that I am terribly allergic to anything from the 1800s. I'll end up drinking on my own at Muciform, or I'll have to talk to Oliver and his horrible stockbroker friends.”

Sera's dilemma reminded me of something I had overheard one of my interns reading from a magazine to my four-year-old boy - Nathaniel - during story time.

It concerned a film called Sharknado which is about a tornado that sucks up a school of sharks and causes havoc.

The flyaway success of the movie led to budding shark actors from all over the United States travelling to New York to audition for the part of one of the flying sharks in the sequel, which I believe is called Sharknado 2. Apparently the queue for the auditions stretched for five blocks.

All across America now there are colleges where instructors run courses teaching sharks how to fly, but the success rate is low. The man who does all the casting for shark movies said: “The truth is most sharks can fly like most L.A. actors can do a convincing British accent,” by which I assume he meant “not many”.

Not all of the flying sharks wanted to appear in Sharknado. Some wanted roles in highbrow productions like the Doctor Who Christmas special from a few years ago which also had flying sharks in it.

The problem is that there weren't any highbrow films or TV shows being made that required shark actors. Plus people were beginning to get a bit bored with the novelty of Sharknados which are going the way of jam jars as drinking vessels.

Some of the shark actors couldn't afford the fare home to whatever part of the United States they had travelled from and so had turned to drugs and prostitution.

Anyway the upshot of all this is that Sera is back on cocaine and has to go into rehab, otherwise she'll have to go to prison. Since I am one of her known triggers we won't be seeing each other for a while .

Ciao!

Tam