Not Interested

I, like pretty much every other right thinking person, hate spam, it drives me nuts – ok so I can control it with the delete button but the intrusion of my personal space annoys me.

I thought e-mail spam was bad – then I launched a blog and the comment spam started flooding in – I got on top of that and then started getting linked to by those nasty spam blogs – get over that and I get text message spam.

All of these I can just about live with because software can pretty much make them invisible – I know I’ll never get rid of them but with Thunderbird or Akismet I don’t really have to look at the spam.

On a visit to my parents in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in July a new kind of spam infiltrated my personal domain and this kind annoyed me more than anything that has come before.

Hemel Hempstead has a fully pedestrianised high street with shops either side of a very large middle section – plenty of space to sit and have a coffee, eat lunch or just chat with your mates.

It’s also perfect for people trying to sell you things or get you to sign up to things, fill in surveys or give money to charity.

EVERY BLOODY DAY we wen’t into the town centre we were stopped at least five times in each direction.

The first plays on the heart strings “did you know 10 million snails die every second at the hands of the French – just £10 a minute will help save 1 snail”.

The second plays on the geek strings “tv, radio, the internet and a pigeon for just £10 per month”, another goes for the cheap strings “save £100 every ten years if you spend just £50 a week on our voucher scheme”.

I hate it, it’s the most HORRIBLE, ANNOYING, INVASIVE form of spam there is – make it stop, make it stop now!

Fortunately it hasn’t invaded King & Queen street in Jersey yet – we have a couple of buskets who don’t really try that hard to get you to give them money – I can live with them.