The world spam industry has been suffering severe disruption today after an international spamming forum was bombarded overnight with coherent, purposeful and well-argued submissions.

Users logging on to check the latest posts on genuin-desiner-discounts.net were fuming after finding a three-page discourse on the perceived effectiveness of the latest proposals for the Greek debt crisis, a short discussion on the merits of capital punishment, and a few spoof news stories.

‘If people aren’t interested in spam then I don’t understand why they come to our forum posting this crap. It’s going to take me ages to delete all of this rubbish- there’s not a single discount on genuine handmade designer goods between them,’ said cheaplouisvuittonbags, administrator for the site.

‘You don’t see us going over to their forums and clogging them up with our limited term offers for massive savings on quality products,’ he complained, adding ‘amazing North Face discounts, cheap genuine Prada handbags, Armani watch bargains. Gucci.’

All the big providers, including GoogleMail, Yahoo, and MS Outlook, will now allow easy filtering of emails from friends and relatives called Pam. The new versions of software will automatically separate emails they deem to have originated from a Pam into a different folder. There will also be a button marked ‘Pam’, to do it manually. Equally, there will be a button marked ‘This is not Pam’, should any non-Pam email be inadvertently diverted to the Pam folder.

Mrs Anderson from Mansfield said, ‘This will make life so much easier. I live in fear of missing an email from my sister Pam in America. At the moment, I have to keep a keen eye out for emails titled ‘You rate duck or what?’ but now all the hard work will be taken care of. From now on, Pam’s emails go straight into the Pam folder – good riddance to the stuck-up cow. ’

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On reading one entitled “Are You Letting Her Down?”, John felt he had to confront some of his basic fears; namely that he is letting his wife/girlfriend down. He could put a smile on her face if he was “larrrger”.

Dear John, he replied, John here. You’re right. I am actually worried about the size of my manhood. Sandra’s never said anything, and I haven’t had many opportunities to do a fair comparison across other men, but – do you know it feels good to talk about this with someone.

The following evening, “John” replied. “I knew it”, the email read. “Have you ever considered that your insecurities – which often manifest themselves by your drinking too much at social occasions – could be down to this fundamental weakness? Perhaps this is all because you feel your father was distant?”

The family of the late King of Fakumba, have apparently sent ‘dozens’ of emails to suitable ‘good and responsible’ people across the UK offering them a share of the fortune, in return for a mere £2500. But as of yet, there has been no response.

Queen Echinacea and her daughter the Princess Jasmine are now concerned that people suspect the offer is too good to be true.

‘It is very strange, maybe people are unaware of the Kingdom of Fakumba, as we admittedly are a very small nation,’ the Queen remarked, ‘but we are easy enough to find, being north of South Africa and east of Nigeria. Despite being a very small country we are rich in oil, gas, gold, diamonds and numerous other precious stones, and it is perhaps unusual that more people aren’t aware of our homeland.’

The Fakumba royal family are now in hiding, but had managed to withdraw over GBP4.6million from bank accounts before the monarchy was overthrown in a military coup led by the former head of the army General Madeupi,

‘I really cannot stress how important it is that we receive the money we need to flee to Europe,’ begs the Queen in her email, ‘where we will be so happy to reward our saviour with half the money to say thank you for their assistance. My beautiful daughter Jasmine would certainly be willing to do anything for any man out there prepared to help us. However, for now we remain trapped in a safehouse in the hills of Fakumba, with my late husband’s vast fortune hidden in four large pillowcases.’

The lack of respondents has been blamed on a new cynicism surrounding the veracity of the internet, and echoes the case of Dr Augustus Shenckelmann who has personally emailed thousands of people to promote a new cream proven to tackle erectile dysfunction. ‘It’s incredible,’ sighs Dr Shenckelmann, ‘it’s almost as if people are not really interested in the latest developments in penile technology.’

‘Not only is the average postman’s bag overloaded with important messages re: your account,’ said Billy Hayes, General Secretary of the Communication Worker’s Union, ‘but the rounds have got longer since our members began delivering to ‘co.uk’ addresses.  And we’ve completely lost faith in the Hotmail management after their planned purchase of a new fleet of bicycles from a company offering name-brand products at crazy wholesale prices left postmen making their rounds on roller skates.’

The strike is expected to have a calamitous effect on the sex lives of Hotmail customers, with erectile dysfunction set to soar in the absence of trial offers of Viagra at $10 a go.  Experts also predict that the walkout could see the average penis size fall by as much as several inches as vital information about enlargement aids and natural supplements fails to get through to those who need it.  Members of the Nigerian royal family have also been quick to criticise Hotmail, though they have very generously agreed to give account holders until early next week to send them their name, date of birth and bank details in order to receive the $1 million that is waiting for them.

But Hotmail’s management are adamant that the service must be modernised after a regrettable mix up saw one customer receive a hand-delivered invitation to ‘Come visit brilliant store of my friend and your own eyes will say what madness these prices is,’ while news that Uncle Eric’s pacemaker finally hadn’t proved a match for his Thai bride was dumped straight into his trash can unopened.

Yet despite initial talks between unions and management, no one is hopeful of a swift end to the dispute.  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if many of our members decided the time was right to walk away from Hotmail and explore other opportunities,’ said Billy Hayes.  ‘Although none of them remember applying, some of the lads have just found out their credit card applications have been approved, and others have received lucrative offers to earn up to $500 a day working from home.’

‘It’s very worrying,’ said Gerald Norton, an expert on spammers and phishers. ‘This guy can spell words like ‘bank’, ‘security’ and ‘password.’ He can also construct a correct sentence from ‘link’ ‘to’ ‘confirm’ ‘your’ ‘password’ ‘click’ ‘on’ and ‘the’. So far, punters have always been able to recognize phishers by their appalling language skills.’

George Watson, 56, said he was completely taken in by the phisher, who has been dubbed ‘Shakespeare’ by bloggers. ‘You see, when I got this email I noticed that all the words were spelled correctly and the sentences were OK. So, I thought it was from my bank. If these phishers and spammers are learning to spell and write correct English, we’re in deep trouble. I have always relied on the fact that they can’t spell for toffee.’

But a successful phisher claimed the phishing community was unfazed by Shakespeare.  ‘Most of our target audience can’t spell for toffee either, so they won’t notice the difference. If a monkey took up phishing, it would make a million. No problem, period.’

Best left unopened

Hormel Foods Corporation, the US company behind tinned Spam luncheon meat, was left reeling today after a hugely expensive email advertising campaign yielded precisely zero responses.  ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say the messages weren’t getting through for some reason,’ said the Spam company’s Head of Marketing.  Subsequent research has suggested that customers did receive the emails, but that they stored them separately from their other messages to be opened only as a last resort.

Undeterred, the firm is now planning a more personal approach with millions of consumers set to receive an appeal from its Chief Executive, Dick Lengthener.

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Arthur’s widow Maisie, 75, tearfully explained that her late husband was meticulously polite all his life, and believed it was good manners to answer all correspondence promptly. ‘He was a good man,’ sobbed Maisie. ‘He believed in good, old fashioned manners and efficiency. He served 45 years in the Ministry of Agriculture and always boasted that he would clear his in-tray every day before leaving work. But just lately he became very depressed by the over-whelming number of emails he was getting. He was struggling to keep up with answering them all properly.’

Mr Spriggs first bought a computer three years ago to keep in touch with their son Barry, who had emigrated to Australia. Mrs Spriggs explained that all was well for a couple of years, and he even managed to keep up with acknowledging all the various joke circulars; forwarding round chain letters and petitions to ten friends; and politely declining invitations to help out potentially wealthy Nigerians. ‘But in the last few months the number of messages went up and up until it was thousands a day. Arthur was really fed up but he felt he just had to answer them all properly. That’s the way he was brought up, and it killed him in the end.’

Police investigating the incident found that the last 438 messages in Mr Spriggs’s sent folder read: ‘Dear Sir, I refer to your esteemed correspondence of the 18th inst. I beg to inform you that the length and girth of my penis is adequate for the requirements of my dear wife. I therefore must regretfully decline your kind invitation. I remain, sir, your humble servant, Arthur Spriggs.’