If it was first wise, and then possible, just how would correspondence look between a spammer and er...a customer? Never going to happen obviously; for some reason, though, it's impossible to let go off. Maybe it's because I'm tired, I was out late last night, but I've been plagued by this all day, wondering what it would look like. I decided to wake myself up by walking from where I live to South Kensington and back - about eight miles all told. This odd little notion matched me step for step, would n't let go; so now all I can do is put it into something concrete and hopefully get shut of that way. Here goes:

The Viagara spammer: "Dear Sir, such a quantity as you wish to buy would be, in our opinion, prejudicial to health; for us to provide you with such quantity would equally call in to question our commercial judgement, therefore we must regretfully decline your order"

The 419er: "Dear Sir, I am, how shall I say, a little bemused that you wish to apply for a loan. Our purpose is the reverse of that you assume: our commercial model depends upon the willingness of high net worth individuals such as yourself to permit us to utilise their funds for the collective betterment with the assurance of remuneration from us for this. We do not lend."

The fake rolex offer: " Dear Sir, Far be it from me to decry the advantage of digital watches as I equally respect your comment that watches should merely tell the time and not the athmospheric pressue at thirty fathoms, my organisation nevertheless does actively market to that particular constituency, it is therefore with regret that I decline your offer to supply us".

Enough, that's it, I feel cleared simply by writing 'em down. Though, there is a lingering thought that it might be worthwhile to start writing to these guys and seeing what they say.