Spammers are so funny!

One of my poetry blogs, Stones for the River, records small moments of intense observation.

A piece about the joys of looking through a miniature kaleidosope, which a friend gave me long ago, attracted this comment:

A person essentially help to make severely posts I would state. That is the very first time I frequented your web page and to this point? I amazed with the research you made to create this actual put up extraordinary. Magnificent job!

It was followed, of course, by a link to a website — to do with carburettors!

A poem about swimming in a creek and watching pelicans drew this comment:

An outstanding share! I've just forwarded this onto a colleague who had been conducting a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me dinner because I found it for him... lol. So allow me to reword this.... Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending time to discuss this matter here on your blog.

The link was to a website about 'payday loans'.

I'm grateful for Google's spam detection which prevented these gems from appearing on my blog, but I was almost tempted to let them through because of their hilarious incongruity. I so love the ridiculous.

The thought of the colleague doing homework on my swimming habits and/or poems about pelicans...! And being so grateful as to stand my spammer dinner — oh me, oh my.

But I must confess to, yes, years of research in looking through my kaleidoscope.

Can it be coincidence?

Hey, guess what? I suddenly realised my spam level has dropped to nil. Andrew says it's the same for him. Can it be connected to removing my 'adult content' warning from the poetry blog?

His connection to this profile is apparent but indirect, so I don't know. In his case it may have resulted from clearing his cookies after he responded to a message purporting to be from our bank – and luckily realised his mistake promptly.

Three cheers, anyway!

Cancelling the X Rating

Enough already! I have taken away the 'adult content' notification from my Passionate Crone poetry blog. Just couldn't cope with the level of sex-spam received thereafter, as previously reported. I decided my poetry is innocuous compared to real porn. Even the erotic stuff employs few four-letter-words or explicit descriptions. (I'm more likely to talk of 'flying' than 'coming', for instance.) After all, I'd rather use asterisks occasionally than have my work equated with hard-core material. The whole exercise was useful, I guess, for me to arrive at that conclusion.

The emails haven't stopped yet, though my spam filter is now identifying most of them as what they are. 'Give it time,' I thought. Then I found out my husband's getting a sudden spate of them too. So it can't have been the blog. None of his are x-rated.

Then today I received a very interesting email, which my mail program has labelled junk mail – quite correctly, I believe. It tells me I may need to update my anti-virus settings asap as my PC could have become infected. It lists nasty possibilities such as identity theft, spyware and so on, and helpfully provides several clickable links to enable me to get the sender's anti-virus program pronto. I use a Mac, so am less likely to have been infected ... but I do wonder if this timely offer is mere coincidence or something more sinister. I was already thinking seriously about installing a better spam filter. Spam is not necessarily the same thing as a virus, but may well carry at least one.

How did these people know I needed increased protection? Was it just a lucky guess? Or is it a set-up? A protection racket, in fact?

Becoming X-Rated

Suddenly I'm getting a new rash of sex-related emails. A bored girl wants to talk to me. Someone asks if I have ever dated a lonely housewife. (No, actually.) Some bloke is advertising his 'cherry-walloping cock'. (Yuk! There is a nasty level of violent misogyny in some porn.)

OK, these things do turn up from time to time, but why now in such numbers? Then the penny drops. I've just told Google that my new poetry blog, The Passionate Crone, will contain 'adult content'. This is because I might occasionally include some erotic pieces – more metaphorical than explicit, I'm afraid - and there might even be a swear word now and then. I decided to self-censor at the outset, so as to be free to post unexpurgated poems.

Now, when I or anyone else attempts to view that blog, we encounter a Content Warning saying, 'Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable. In general, Google does not review nor do we endorse the content of this or any blog. For more information about our content policies, please visit the Blogger Terms of Service.' We are then given the option whether or not to continue.

That's a bit rich for a brand new blog, when its author could have been the only person to report the 'adult content'! And I think it probably explains the sex-based emails.

Hey – I'm a girl! Not all that interested in sexy housewives, vicarious cherry-popping, etc.

Oh wot-the-heck, I expect they are generated by machines.