ON THE RUN (AGAIN)
It looks like the FBI are after me again. Regular readers will remember my last brush with the law back in January 2014. Well, it's happened again.
The last time, I was going to be arrested because I hadn't got a "certificate, endorsed and stamped". I never did find out what sort of certificate this was meant to be, only that it was going to cost me $290.
They were clear about what they were going to arrest me for and gave me a long list of law enforcement agencies involved in the case; the North Yorkshire Police were especially scary.
This time I need an "award ownership certificate". No, I don't know what it is either but I am going to be arrested for money laundry if I don't get one sharpish. I haven't been told how much this will cost me but I suppose I will find out soon enough.
Because I am a most dangerous felon, they are going to try and arrest me by email, here it is:-
Once upon a time, baiting Nigerian 419 email scammers was easy. You would just act as though you had been taken in by their scam and then proceed to drive them insane with a continuous stream of questions and demands. There is a good example of scambaiting (as it's called) here.
It isn't as easy nowadays as they are realising that most of the replies they get are from people like me, i.e. having plenty of spare time and a warped sense of humour. It's still worth the effort though as sometimes it can pay off.
One strategy for getting them wound up is to ask them exactly who it is they want to speak to, so this is where to start:-
The usual response to a reply like this will be a generic "I am being honest and sincere, you can trust me" type, and sure enough:-
This was quickly followed up by yet another, even more bizarre email where Dr Udele is getting a bit anxious about this matter.
I won't bore you with the next few days worth of exchanges which were much of a muchness. Then, out of the blue -
To be honest, I was starting to get a bit fed up with all this by now and decided to have it out with Dr. Udele.
Not heard from him since. Don't mess with the TGLJ.
I CAN'T THINK OF A TITLE FOR THIS PIECE
I was sitting in the Birchwood pub in Abbey Wood the other evening, sampling a splendidly drawn pint of Hobgoblin. It's brewed by the Wychwood Brewery, based in Witney, Oxfordshire and I would normally add a link to their website at this point but it won't let me in. I can't get past the bit where you have to enter your date of birth to prove you are over 18. I am 66.
Anyway, the beer was excellent and well worth the extra journey to get to it. My traditional (and nearest) watering hole has always been the Cutty Sark in Thamesmead Town Centre but they are usually closed by 9:30pm most evenings nowadays and I'm not really an early evening drinker.
The Birchwood serves a number of guest ales on a rotating basis so you never know what you are going to get; not that I've ever had a bad pint there. Because they have, over the years served many different brews from different breweries, the glass you get your pint in may be advertising any of them.
This time it had CVRS etched in large letters on the glass, a brewery I had never heard of. Digging out the reading glasses for a closer look, I realised that CVRS was the Cray Valley Radio Society.
I wonder how that came about. Why would a radio society have their own beer glasses and how would one of them finish up in the Birchwood?
I don't suppose I will ever know the answer to that question and it will have to remain a mystery for all time.
Meanwhile, you might like to read the PubSpy review of the Birchwood done back in February.
The Thamesmead Grump has rid himself of Sky TV entirely by cancelling his everlasting £10 a month subscription to use their Sky box as a PVR.
Trawling through the BT alternative, I find that the airwaves are now heavily polluted by crackpot religionist channels of various persuasions. Each seems to try and outdo the other with increasingly hysterical claims, often of the medical variety where they exploit vulnerable people by persuading them to part with their money in exchange for miracle cures.
Fortunately OFCOM, the otherwise rather toothless guardian of television standards are getting on the case with a number of high profile fines levied against some of the worst offenders.
They have just fined Asia TV's Lahme Channel after so called Doctor Pankaj Naram advised viewers that they should forgo chemotherapy treatments in favour of his own recipe of holy basil leaves and black peppers.
They claim that it had been broadcast in the UK by mistake and had now dropped the series, but only here. Presumably they will still be hawking this nonsense to the rest of the world.
Believe TV, another tele-evangelist money making scam was also fined £25,000 after one of it's preachers claimed to be able to cure cancer with his "Miracle Olive Oil Soap". The founder of this Church, The Victorious Pentecostal Assembly is a Nigerian immigrant called Pastor Alex Omokudu currently living in a £1.8 million mansion in Hornchurch.
This Church will also sell you a blackcurrant and olive oil concoction that will cure cancer.
The answer is to ban all of these so called religious channels from the airwaves. As far as I am concerned, they are all up to no good. A £25,000 fine is nothing to these people who are making huge amounts of money from the credulous and desperate.
Let me assure readers that the Most Holy Temple of the Great Leaping Jehosaphat would never stoop to such immoral tactics. It never asks for financial donations and is entirely funded by lottery winnings and voluntary endownments from widows suffering from long time cancer of the (insert organ here).
Meanwhile, you might like to read the PubSpy review of the Birchwood done back in February.
DIGITAL TV - THE SCAMMER'S FRIEND
The Thamesmead Grump has rid himself of Sky TV entirely by cancelling his everlasting £10 a month subscription to use their Sky box as a PVR.
Trawling through the BT alternative, I find that the airwaves are now heavily polluted by crackpot religionist channels of various persuasions. Each seems to try and outdo the other with increasingly hysterical claims, often of the medical variety where they exploit vulnerable people by persuading them to part with their money in exchange for miracle cures.
Fortunately OFCOM, the otherwise rather toothless guardian of television standards are getting on the case with a number of high profile fines levied against some of the worst offenders.
They have just fined Asia TV's Lahme Channel after so called Doctor Pankaj Naram advised viewers that they should forgo chemotherapy treatments in favour of his own recipe of holy basil leaves and black peppers.
They claim that it had been broadcast in the UK by mistake and had now dropped the series, but only here. Presumably they will still be hawking this nonsense to the rest of the world.
Believe TV, another tele-evangelist money making scam was also fined £25,000 after one of it's preachers claimed to be able to cure cancer with his "Miracle Olive Oil Soap". The founder of this Church, The Victorious Pentecostal Assembly is a Nigerian immigrant called Pastor Alex Omokudu currently living in a £1.8 million mansion in Hornchurch.
This Church will also sell you a blackcurrant and olive oil concoction that will cure cancer.
The answer is to ban all of these so called religious channels from the airwaves. As far as I am concerned, they are all up to no good. A £25,000 fine is nothing to these people who are making huge amounts of money from the credulous and desperate.
Let me assure readers that the Most Holy Temple of the Great Leaping Jehosaphat would never stoop to such immoral tactics. It never asks for financial donations and is entirely funded by lottery winnings and voluntary endownments from widows suffering from long time cancer of the (insert organ here).
