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Sales pitch that’s a bit stiff…

EVERY day I receive about 150 emails.

This is not because I’m popular.

Well, it is because I’m popular, but not with anyone who knows me.

I get emails from complete strangers. I don’t mind this. I am open-minded about making new friends. Not these friends.

I have emails from people who want to sell me Viagra (which, if you are not aware, is the ultimate cure for impotency, which I don’t have); from Nigerians who want to send me $50 million, if I’ll just give them my bank account details; from people who want to sell me genuine Rolex watches for $25, or introduce me to a sweet Russian peasant girl with big breasts; and from people who want to enhance bits of my body to improve the pleasure I can give women.

I assume they don’t mean my brain, although they clearly think my brain does need enhancing, or they wouldn’t send me this garbage.

I give you my solemn promise I have never, ever, done anything to suggest to these morons that I am interested in their products. I have never even winked at the computer monitor, but still they come.

Do they know something I don’t? Is it possible that I’ve been wrong all these years, and I am not, as I assumed, reasonably well endowed with watches, peasant girls, brains or any other part of my anatomy?

These emails are insidious. The persistence with which they hit my inbox makes me wonder if someone hasn’t been talking to the senders… a former girlfriend, maybe; or someone who doesn’t like my watch, which came in a packet of cornflakes.

I have taken to covering myself hurriedly when I step from the shower, in case there’s a hidden camera somewhere…

I don’t know how this happened. I have all the standard anti-virus programs but it hasn’t helped. Somehow I have been infiltrated. I suspect everybody in my computer contact list has been infiltrated, too.

I assume this is the case, because I received an email from my great aunt Ena, who is 83, inviting me to have an operation that would guarantee my ability to excite women’s sexual appetite. My great aunt doesn’t know what a sexual appetite is; and if she ever thought about it she would assume it was a hearty breakfast after you’d kissed someone. On the forehead.

You know the most frightening part? This wouldn’t be happening if it didn’t work.

No one would bother. Somewhere out there, someone is, even as you read this, typing in a reply to Mrs Mboto of Lagos saying: “I’m so sorry your husband died and you’re unable to access the $50 million he left in an account in Switzerland. Here’s my bank account details… and I look forward to receiving the $5 million commission you have promised me.”

Or they’re eagerly sending off for the ointment that will enlarge bits of their anatomy (I believe a paste of crushed chilli peppers and Tabasco will do this at a fraction of the cost, although I’ve never tried).

Talking of which, these uninvited emails now inform me that, if I prefer, I can buy Viagra in a liquid form. I suppose it’ll give new meaning to the notion of a stiff drink…