Memo To Spammer

Charlie Stross is a damn fine SF author, well worthy of all the praise that has been heaped upon him. (I hope you get the Hugo again this year, Charlie!) He is also a damn fine bloke with a wicked sense of humour. I came across the following yesterday and should have noticed it ages since. Now all I have to do is work out how to spam the spammers with it...

Dear spammer,

It has come to my attention that you may be labouring under some misapprehensions concerning my interests. In order to facilitate our harmonious communications in future, please make note of the following points:

Electronic mail is a written, hence literary, medium. The first (and probably only) part of your missive that I see is your name and the subject line. If the name and subject line are mis-spelled, ungrammatical, or otherwise unpleasing to the eye, why should I assume that the content might be otherwise? You are, I fear, destined to remain on the slushpile of life until you lern 2 spel.

Sadly, I do not speak or read Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Turkish, or German.

My genito-urinary system is in adequate working order, thanks.

I am grateful for your heart-felt proposal, but I'm already married. (See also, "do not speak language X, above.)

This may be an unfortunate cross-cultural mis-communication, but your kind offer to leave me "drowning in sperm" appears to fall foul of local anti-homicide laws.

I'd like to thank you for offering me the cheapest counterfeit pharmaceuticals on the market, but I already have a National Health Service annual pre-payment card that's good for everything I need.

When trying to convince me to log into PayPal via the link in your helpful email, you ought to bear in mind that PayPal's Chinese servers routinely remind me to do this every fifteen to twenty minutes. You're next in the queue.

The same goes for my Chase Manhattan online banking account, my Amazon account, my eBay account, my Halifax PLC account, and all the other online banking and retail merchant accounts that I don't have.

Dear Mr Berlusconi, thank you very much for your request for financial assistance in dealing with your current embarrassing situation. Alas, I regret to inform you that I wouldn't cross the road to piss on you if you were on fire. Next time you're feeling desperate, send the corporate jet. Then we'll talk.

If you've identified such a wonderful investment opportunity, why don't you invest in it instead of spending all your time blowing the secret by emailing the rest of the planet?

Your offer of cheap OEM software will be much more appealing to me if you specify whether it runs on OS/X, Linux, or PalmOS.

Underage donkey incest rape videos are a little recondite, don't you think? (Not to say recherche.)

Thank you, admin@antipope.org, for telling me that my account is about to expire and I need to change my password. As the system administrator who maintains the antipope.org server, this came as quite a surprise to me.

Thank you for sending me your attachment. It would be easier for me to open it if it wasn't a Windows executable binary. (They don't run on powerbooks, you know.)

Dear Mr. Lee, I have no doubt that your factory in Shenzhou sells the cheapest and best brightly-coloured machine parts in all of China. Nevertheless, I have no current requirement for brightly-coloured machine parts. Perhaps you'd find it easier to make your quarterly sales quota if you visited a trade show instead of my inbox?

Thank you for reminding me of my recent lottery win. I'd be more willing to send you my bank account details if I recalled ever actually having entered the lottery in the first place.

I may have visited your website six years ago while researching a magazine article. However, you seem to have forgotten that I didn't buy your product, didn't check the box saying "spam me senseless" on your web information form, and my comments were so pungent that your lawyers threatened to sue me for violating the conventions on chemical warfare. It therefore should not come as a surprise to you to discover that I am not breathlessly waiting to hear about the latest upgrade to your product line.

Your attempts to convince me to help support your father's ailing mission in Nigeria would be more effective if I wasn't an atheist. (But I promise I'll pray for you.)

Finally,

When you ask, CAN YOU BE SINCERE? the answer is, of course, no.
Yours sincerely,

Charles Stross

Now go read the free version of his book, Accelerando. You'll be glad you did.