The International Writers Magazine: Comment: Spam Hell

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‘SPAM’S OFF DEAR!’ • James Skinner ‘That dearly beloved and departed comic actor, Peter Sellers, long before becoming famous as Inspector Clouseau in Blake Edwards’ ‘Pink Panther’ series, or as the human zombie Chauncey Gardner, who nearly takes over the USA in the masterpiece ‘Being There,’ used to appear on a hilarious BBC radio program back in the 1950’s called ‘The Goon show’.

The half hour nonsense was, in a way, a precursor to a latter version of daftness that set John Cleese on the path to fame. I refer to the television broadcast of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’. Seller’s radio fame extended further than his role as a Goon. He took on a series of impersonations of many well-known characters and situations of the era in skits better known to us as ‘Peter’s Mickey taking’. I recall three of them. One was on Elvis Presley; the other on Harold McMillan, British Prime Minister but the third was an odd one on American style ‘salesmanship’. It was called ‘Gateway to Balham.’

Balham is one of the many London suburbs that most people, including Americans touring the city have never even have heard of, let alone visited. Take Oxford St., Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, possibly Windsor Castle and Hampton Court, wrap them up in a glossy, and there you have your usual brochure handed out at Heathrow or elsewhere to most paying guests that enter the United Kingdom. Yet Seller’s marvellous audio commentary, with an exaggerated Texan accent, is superb in describing what possibly was - remember it is 1958 - a dull and run down part of London. What I recall best of all, during the final few seconds, is when the commentator – Sellers – goes up to what we assume is a typical New York style hamburger and hotdog stand, but in this case is a ‘Cockney’ lady selling tinned ham fritters known as ‘Spam’, and asks her for the menu. Her answer – also Peter Seller’s voice - is ‘Spam with this, Spam with that, Spam, Spam with this and, Spam Spam with that. Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam!’ When the commentator asks her for a sample, she answers ‘Spam’s off dear!’ Why have I reminisced on this obsolete verbal junk?

Because in today’s world it reminded me of another kind of Spam. It’s known as written Spam and it comes through the letterbox, with the newspaper, at the supermarket checkout and almost everything we deal with in today’s world. It has also invaded the Internet and the e-mail network. True or false?‘Give her an 8 inch cock!’ or ‘How do porn stars keep their come?’ is what I get everyday as an e-mail when I check my mail. Why? Because one fine day I decided to investigate on the Internet about prostate cancer. I belong to that age group that needs a regular ‘finger job’ and possible biopsy of the retched useless piece of gland we have up our anus. Next thing I knew was that I got bombarded with penis enhancing adverts plus all the bullshit on the Viagra and other erection pills.

On another occasion I inadvertently searched the web for information on back problems and other skeleton ills. I happen to suffer from the old age syndrome of ‘creaky bones’. Result? I got masses of sales pitches on vitamins and pain killing pills!

I thought I’d check a few finance pages to see why my meagre stocks and shares continue to lose money. Two weeks later they started. ‘You have been authorised a lone for 1M Euros. Congratulations!’ How the hell did that come through? Not once, but almost every day! If I accept the whole bloody lot, I’m sure I’d have enough mortgage ‘lolly’ to buy half of Westminster! That’s not all. The insurance companies jumped on the bandwagon and offered me coverage in case I popped off and left a widow to face the monthly down payments. Am I exaggerating? No way, Josephine, it’s the Gospel truth! Open up the Nasdaq or Footsie page and presto, you could become a millionaire debtor for the rest of your life!
How did this entire shenanigan start?

About twenty years ago or so, before the telecommunications industry lost its government dictatorial rights and was privatised the world over, all you got through the post was one or two bits of paper, usually a telephone bill or a disconnection note for non payment of the former. When the whole business was bust wide open and turned into a free for all of winners and losers, some bright spark in the US invented ‘Telemarketing’. Dozens of young unemployed ‘sweet voiced’ bimbos were set up behind a telephone, and with a sort of specialised ‘check list’ of victims began to ‘sell’ over the phone to specified possible customers. Most were taken from ‘clandestine’ lists of analysed credit card bills or other means of sorting out consumers. Depending on your shopping list at a particular supermarket, these little operators would call you to try to sell you the competition. Then began the mail Spam. Sophisticated at first as companies were set up to ‘sell’ customer lists to advertising companies, who in turn would obtain lucrative marketing contracts with the respective sales departments to target specific customers by post. If you inadvertently subscribed to a ‘girly’ magazine, or a serious ‘news’ one, you could bet your bottom dollar that within six months you’d be receiving plenty of offers for other types of magazine. From pinpointed targets the ‘spammers’ moved to mass mailing that included low paid errand boys running around filling letter boxes with a plethora of junk paper. And so it all spread to the World Wide Web.

Press ‘Enter’ and you open up Pandora’s Spam box. It’s getting so bad that even poor old Bill Gates is getting worried (he gets eight million spams a day - Ed). Sure, there are plenty of gurus out there that can install anti-Spam systems and other virus chopping software. But hell man! One can’t spend the rest of one’s net navigating life firing up the Rambo Spam killer every time some phoney tries to sell you a second hand giraffe or a five-wheeled car. In the meantime I’ve put out a contract to annihilate my postman and just finished firing my twin barrelled twelve-bore into the screen of my laptop.
‘Peter, can you hear me? What can I do? Huh? OK, I get it. Loud and clear.’ ‘Spam’s on James!’
© James Skinner. January 2005
jamesskinner@cemiga.es

Suggest you get 'Ad - Aware 6.0' James. You can download it. Ed
PS: Can you lend me on of those million euros not you are so rich?
PPS: I am pretty sure it was Eric Idle in Python who did the Spam sketch.

Told You So James Skinner on Iraq

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