For those
of you old enough to be around before personal computers became a permanent
fixture in everyday life, spam had a different meaning.
In 1937,
the Hormel Foods Corporation
introduced a meat product called “Spam”,
which is still available today.
According
to the Oxford English Dictionary, the
origin of spam is apparently an abbreviation of “spiced ham”.
As the
Internet started to take hold of our lives, the word became a pariah in polite
company, taking on the meaning of unwanted electronic messages sent to a large
number of recipients at the same time.
This modern
usage of the word “spam” is said to derive from a sketch from the British
comedy Monty Pyton set
in a café in which every item on the menu is spam.
In 1975,
the Monty Python comedy team produced a movie called Monty Python and the
Holy Grail. If you’re
interested, you can watch it here. The movie further spawned a Broadway musical
in 2005 called Spamalot, which claims to
be “lovingly ripped off” from the movie.
Most of us
are not amused when we receive spam, which often jams our mailbox and prevents
us from getting to the genuine messages of importance, but I’ve recently
received a message from one Pandit Vikram, who claims to be “in charge of
Sovereign Wealth Funds” in Citibank. You may recall that no so long ago, a
gentleman by the name of Vikram
Pandit was CEO of CitiGroup.
The fun doesn’t
stop here. Mr Vikram promises that he
can arrange an interest-free grant to me of US$10.5 million, which “will stay
on CitiBank Books for 36 months” and then written off.
Mr Vikram
goes on to say that Sovereign Wealth Funds in his charge usually remain dormant
for years “because some leaders of the United Kingdom who made the initial deposits
intended to steal the funds after leaving office”.
Unfortunately,
Mr Vikram says, these depositors “are either kicked out or killed in office”. That’s why, he continues, the funds “go into
dormant mode”.
And what
does this privilege of an interest free grant (someone needs to prompt Mr
Vikram to look up the word “grant” in the dictionary) cost me? 40% of the US$10.5 million, apparently. This is how much of the “grant” I need to “set
aside” for Mr Vikram.
What am I
to do? I need to send Mr Vikram all my
personal details and a scanned copy of my “identity”.
If you’re
interested in having your identity stolen for US$6.3 million (60% of $10.5
million, after setting aside 40% for Mr Vikram), please let me know and I will
give you his personal email and telephone number.
Spam on…
