Apathy Sketchpad

From: prince masato (princevusi20@hotmail.com)
To: princevusi20@hotmail.com
Date: Mar 11, 2006 12:39 PM
Subject: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTAIL.

FROM: PRINCE VUSI MASATO
TEL: +27-73-0990-419
Private Email: princevusi2005@yahoo.co.in

ATTN: DIRECTOR / C.E.O

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTAIL

You may be surprised to receive this letter from me since you do not know me
personally, but for purpose of introduction, I am PRINCE VUSI MASATO, the
first son of DR. SIFISO MASATO, who was recently murdered in the land
disputed ZIMBABWE. I got your contact information from the INTERNATIONAL
TRADE CENTRE here in Johannesburg and decided to write to you.

Before the death of my father, he had taken me to Johannesburg to deposit
the sum of Twenty-eight Million United States Dollars (US$28 Million), with
a security and finance company, as if he foresaw the looming danger in
Zimbabwe. The money was deposited in a box as gem stones to avoid demurrage
from the Security Company. This amount was made for the purchase of new
machines and chemicals for the farms and establishment of a new farm in
Swaziland.

This land problem came when Zimbabwean President MR. ROBERT MUGABE
introduced a new Land Act which wholly affected the rich white farmers and
some few black farmers. This resulted in killing and mob action by
Zimbabwean war veterans and some lunatics in the society. In fact, more than
thirty-one (31) people have been killed because of this Land Reform act.

Heads of governments from the west especially Britain have condemned
Mugabe’s new Land Reform Act and for this reason, SADC (Southern African
Development Community) heads of states have met and voiced their support for
Mr. Mugabe. South African President and the President of Malawi have been
sent by SADC to Britain to support Mugabe’s new Land Reform Act.

It is against this background, that I and my family who are currently
staying in South Africa decided to transfer my father’s money to a foreign
account. As the eldest son of my father, I am saddled with this
responsibility of seeking a genuine account where this money could be
transferred without the knowledge of my government who are bent on taking
everything we have got and the South African Government seems to be playing
along with them.

I am faced with the dilemma of investing this amount of money in South
Africa for fear of going through the same experience in future since both
countries have lost similar political history. However, the South African
Foreign Exchange Policy does not allow such investment as I am seeking for
Asylum.

As a businessman, whom I have to entrust my future and that of my family in
his hands, I must let you know that this transaction is risk-free and the
nature of your business does not necessarily matter.

Therefore, if you accept to assist my family and me, we are willing to offer
20% of the total sum for your assistance, 70% for me and my family while 10%
will be mapped out for any pre-transfer charges or bank charges. I would
wish to invest in your country on commercial properties and buying of rents
based on your advice or from experts in your country.

If this proposal is acceptable by you, please, send me your bank details;
your name and address, bank name and address, telephone and fax numbers (if
any).

YOU SHOULD NOTE THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL AND SHOULD BE
KEPT WITHIN YOU ALONE.

Hoping to hear from you on the above phone or mail

Best regards,

PRINCE VUSI MASATO

You’re playing that dumb adventure game! Buy a potion from Gandalf the Master Wizard. That’s what I usually do.

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: prince masato (princevusi20@hotmail.com)
Date: Mar 14, 2006 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTAIL.

Mr Masato,

Yes, I got stuck at that bit as well. It’s a tricky puzzle but you can
solve it. You have to go back to the temple and talk to the boy there.
He can tell you where you find the butter knife, and once you have
that you can go back to the bank and bress B by the manager. I’m sure
you’ve already worked out what to do with the money.

Hope this helps,
Andrew

From: prince masato

Mailed-By: hotmail.com
To: taylor.andrew@gmail.com
Date: Mar 20, 2006 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTAIL.

Dear,

Please, I dont understand Your email. Can you get back to me.

From: Andrew Taylor
To: prince masato

Date: Mar 20, 2006 9:58 PM
Subject: Re: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTAIL.

Right.

You know just after the end of the “dragon” section, where you have
the shovel and the manhole cover but you can’t get into the market?
You need to use the manhole cover with the flagpole. It took me ages
to work that one out, so don’t worry about it, but that opens the
market and you can get to the temple that way.

The trick is to avoid the yellow squares, because they close it again.

Hope this helps,

Andrew

Apparently he managed it this time.

I find that emails beginning with the phrase “jag har ny” are terrifying.

From: solomon martins (solomon_martins02220@yahoo.se)
Reply-To: solomon_martins01@o2.pl
To: taylor.andrew@gmail.com
Date: Mar 21, 2006 5:27 AM
Subject: SOLOMON MARTINS LAW CHAMBERS

Jag har ny e-postadress!
Skicka e-post till mig p� denna adress: solomon_martins02220@yahoo.se

SOLOMON MARTINS LAW CHAMBERS
LEGAL SOLICITORS/PRIVATE LAWYERS
LONDON W1H 5AA

Attn: Sir,

My name is SOLOMON MARTINS, Principal Partner in SOLOMON MARTINS Law
Chambers, London, UK. I use to be a personal attorney to Mr. Mohammed
Saibi who was the chairman of Algosaibi Diving and Marine Services in
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Saibi died late last year of heart attack at the
ripe age of 79 years.

Mr. Mohammed Saibi a Saudi Arabia Philanthropist, before he died, made a
Will in my law firm stating that $5.2M (Five million, Two Hundred Thousand
U.S. dollars only) should be donated to any charity home of our choice
overseas as his last contribution to humanity when it became obvious that
he will not is alive for too long. His only son, Rasheed Saibi and his
entire family has no knowledge of this.

However, I am very much aware that he has left enough wealth that will
last his generation a lifetime. The true situation at the moment is that
the said amount of money was deposited with a security company only to
be paid out to a charity home.The charity home/organization would have
to be picked by my law office. This implies that you will stand as the
beneficiary to this Will so that the funds could be processed and
transferred to your account if you are ready and in a position to assist
me. You do not need to have a charity organization, all you need do is to
declare your interest and show seriousness.

The paper works to present you, as I will do the beneficiary’s am
particularly interested in securing this money from the Security company
because they have issued a notice instructing us to produce the
beneficiary of this Will as soon as possible, else the account would be
made dormant since Mr. Saibi was ill for a long period of time before
his demise.If you are interested in assisting me, I will give you 30% of
the entire funds after paying taxes due to your government and expenses
during the course of this deal withdrawn from it. The balance will be mine
although I intend to send some of it to a charity organization.

I urge you to contact me immediately for further details if you are
satisfied with my proposition and feel you are in a position to assist
me. Bearing in mind the confidential nature of this transaction, I will
Prefer you respond through mail.

Yours faithfully,

Mr.SOLOMON MARTINS Esq.
For:SOLOMON MARTINS Law Chambers
- solomon martins

I think I may have misread that.

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: solomon_martins01@o2.pl
Date: Mar 22, 2006 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: SOLOMON MARTINS LAW CHAMBERS

Solomon,

What an exciting development this is! I’m afraid I haven’t heard of Solomon Martian Law before, but then I’ve never had much call to deal with the Martian authorities. I’m open-minded, though, so I’ll happily help you out with them if I can.

Andrew

Apparently, so did he.

From: solomon_martins01@o2.pl (solomon_martins01@o2.pl)
To: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
Date: Mar 23, 2006 1:37 AM
Subject: THANKS FOR YOUR GOOD INTEREST

Dear Andrew ,

Thanks you very much for your quick reply mail to my proposed business together with your deep interest in handling this transaction for mutual benefits. Please Note how you will help.

The transaction is perfectly and legal under control as the whole arrangement for the bank to make payment in your favour will be secured from the legal body who will then instruct the bank to transfer the money to you as the legal next of kin to the money. The transaction is 100% risk free only that your logistic support will be required in accomplish the task to your account.

I wish to inform you as follows for proper understanding of what you are expected to do as regards to the successful completion of this transaction in your favour.

Firstly, your complete personal details, which must include your, your complete, address, your full name, your local bank account information and your personal telephone and fax numbers.

Asking you to give me your account is to know the account where you are going transfer the money finally transferred from the Bank Security Company to your stipulated bank account in your country.

Secondly, the above forwarded and requested information is what i shall use to apply for the transfer of ownership of funds to you as the next of kin to late foreign customer’s money. Application will be filed and forwarded legally to the Ministry Of Justice (MJ) to obtain the letter of administration, which then empowers our Bank Security Company here in UK to transfer the ownership of funds to you as the next of kin. As soon as this letter of administration are obtained in your favour copies of that will be faxed to you or e-mailed to you through attachment for your own record and understanding that the money has been approved in your favour.

Thirdly, immediately the whole matter about letter of administration are concluded at the Ministry of Justice, bank appropriate authorities will attest, contact you for the transfer of it to you local account in your country.

For more oral discussion, you should call always call me through my direct telephone number: +44 – 70 – 40120382. The phone is very important for better understanding. It will not take us more than 7 bank working days to accomplish this task in your favour, your fervent, logistic support are most highly needed in this transaction. Also you should maintain the confidentiality of this transaction.

Finally, I am expecting your mail and phone call today to enable me start quick commencement of this transaction in your favour.

Remain blessed.

Yours truly,

Mr. Solomon Martins

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: solomon_martins01@o2.pl
Date: Mar 23, 2006 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: THANKS FOR YOUR GOOD INTEREST

Solomon,

I apologise for the lateness of my reply, although I understand
Martian days are 40 minutes longer than ours anyway so you probably
are still watching ER. I only know my sort code, account number and
IBAN. Are these enough to do business with Martian banks, or do I need
a special interplanetary code?

Andrew

From: solomon_martins01@o2.pl (solomon_martins01@o2.pl)
To: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
Date: Mar 24, 2006 10:17 AM
Subject: SEND YOUR FULL DETAILS PLEASE.

Dear Andrew,

I got your mail and the information.

Please forward immediately the details as you stated together with your complete address, your full name, your and your personal telephone and fax numbers.

The transaction commence upon receipt of these information mentioned above.

Thanks.

Yours Sincerely,

Mr. Solomon Martins.

I mean, I just don’t understand how he expects to scam me without even reading my emails.

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: solomon_martins01@o2.pl
Date: Mar 24, 2006 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: SEND YOUR FULL DETAILS PLEASE.

Solomon,

I have checked with my bank, and they told me that my correct
interplanetary bank account code is SOL3/EUGB/JNY8675309.

Andrew

From: solomon_martins01@o2.pl
To: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
Date: Mar 24, 2006 8:34 PM
Subject: THE CODE IS OK BUT SEND OTHER DETAILS

Dear Andrew,

Thanks for your mail.

The account code is very ok but please send the rest of the request information of yours.

Your full name, your address and your contact telephone number.

I expect have that in your next mail of today.

Yours Worried,

Mr. Solomon Martins.

The account code is not “very ok”! I made it up! It’s a Tommy Tutone song!

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: solomon_martins01@o2.pl
Date: Mar 25, 2006 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: THE CODE IS OK BUT SEND OTHER DETAILS

Solomon,

My name is Andre Tyler, of Planet Earth. I come in peace. My address
is 142 Evergreen Terrace, Bongley, Great Britain, Europe, Earth. I
cannot give you my phone number as I do not know the correct dialling
code for Earth. Do you know what it is? Is it “one”? I would think it
would be. That or three, anyway.

Andrew

I don’t know which part of that tipped him off.

On page 16 of today’s Times, we learned that sick building syndrome does not exist.

On page 45 of today’s Times, we learned that a building has collapsed.

The skyscraper is believed to have died of natural causes.

I assume everyone here already knows that I think smoking in public is something that should be banned. Dave Hitt does not. But then, Dave Hitt doesn’t appear to think very much at all.

I found his website (The Hittman Chronicles — I swear, he calls himself “The Hittman”. It would be cute if he wasn’t a fully grown man) through a pro-smoking group’s website that I was looking to email because I’d seen their representative on BBC4 and he was demonstrably a moron. (He was consistently outwitted by a comedian. I think that politicians should be smarter than comedians but they persistantly prove to me that they are not. One wonders if we would be better off putting the comedians in charge for a while. The only problem is that of who’d do the comedy. Certainly politcians aren’t funny. Not on purpose, anyway.)

You may have noticed that both people I’ve mentioned so far who support smoking in public I have dismissed as morons. I want to mention that I don’t consider that they are morons because they disagree with me. In fact, it’s the other way around. They disagree with me because they are morons.

And now I shall prove that Dave Hitt is a moron. The page I was linked to on his website was this one. I don’t advise you bother actually reading it. That will just make you angry. I’ll give you the gist here: nobody can give me three names of individuals killed by passive smoking. Therefore nobody has been killed by passive smoking.

I touched on this issue before, but I thought it so clear why this argument is wrong that I left it to a six-word sentence in the comments section to explain it, but as at least one person is too stupid to understand it, I’ll spell it out more clearly. I spelt it out to him, too, and his response was to point out that studies of smoking were mostly inconclusive (and therefore, he presumably believes, any argument that reaches the same conclusion is valid). So I spelled it out again:

The “name three” defence is analogous to saying that someone who throws a six four hundred times in a row shouldn’t be accuse of using a loaded die because rolling a six is not that unlikely. Point to any given roll of that die and prove that it wouldn’t have come up six anyway. Can’t do it. But when you consider all 400 throws it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that the die is loaded.

Whether or not the statistics show smoking is dangerous [the] argument is flawed.

You know what Dave Hitt said when I told him that? I swear this is a direct quote from his email which has not been altered to make him look foolish (in the same way that people don’t draw stupid moustaches on photos of Hitler):

That’s a semi-valid analogy. Yet, if SHS were so dangerous that it’s killed a million people in the past twenty years, why can’t the very people who make a living selling the dangers of SHS come up with three measly names?

Because there aren’t any, that’s why.

Clearly he has some kind of mental block, so I decided to remove smoke completely from the equation and try him on something he has no stated agenda in:

You appear to have once again completely missed the point of my email. I am left with no choice but to slowly and patiently explain it to you a third time. I shall try to use shorter words and an example this time around.

In Cornwall, the local granite pours radon gas into the air. This is radioactive. A study has shown that this causes about 1% of UK cancer deaths — about 1000 people per year. But since cancer doesn’t leave a calling card, it’s not possible to say which ones, becuase for any given cancer patient there is only about a 1% chance that it was caused by radon gas. (This chance is higher in places like Cornwall, but still not 100%.) For any given patient, the cancer is more likely to have been caused by something else. This means that it would be impossible to produce even one name of someone killed by radon gas. It would be impossible even to pinpoint the exact figure accurately. This does not mean the risk does not exist. It is a very real danger that kills a thousand people a year in the UK alone.

If you know as much about statistics as you seem (or claim) to, then you already know this and are refusing to acknowledge it out of sheer stubbornness, or possibly the fact that you don’t actually have any valid arguments to fall back on. It’s hard to say.

Your “people say passive smoking is dangerous but when I ask people to name three people it has killed all anyone can ever think of is Roy
Castle” argument is akin to saying “people say radon gas is dangerous but when I ask people to name three people it has killed all anyone can ever think of is Marie Curie”. It’s a stupid argument and you would be wise to abandon it.

And do you know what he said?

Ah, but does it? You have numbers to make that claim, but how accurate are they? How big was the sample size? Who paid for the study? Was it a
cohort study, a case control study, or a meta-analysis? Was the data gathered by survey or interview? Was it done in such a way that recall bias would be an issue? Was it repeated independently, with similar results? And most importantly, does it have an RR high enough to be concerned about?

He doesn’t quite understand the concept of an example, does he?

That’s irellevant. That study could be totally ficticious and still
serve as a good example.

And his response?

Wow. Again, just, wow. You think *making stuff up* proves things. No wonder you’re so gullible.

What an utter twat. And I consider that I’ve now proved he’s a twat.

For the sake of completeness, let’s have another proof:

Dave Hitt, in common with much of the world’s other anti-ban propaganda artists*, believes that any statistical survey that produces less than a 100% increase in risk is inconclusive. Passive smoking does not double the risk of cancer, and as such no (properly performed) survey could ever prove to that standard it is dangerous. “Some risks”, to use his words, “are just too small to measure.” He repeatedly asserts that smoking is safe, implicitly on the grounds that nobody has yet managed to prove that it isn’t, and dismisses any study that suggests that is isn’t as invalid.

So why does he get to make that claim when people who claim that it’s dangerous are expected to prove it? Well, he has a handy thing called the Burden of Proof.

The Burden Of Proof is a sort of logical-argument version of Godwin’s Law. Generally in my experience the first person to mention it should be excluded from the remainder of the debate. Here, he uses it to show that as the Smoking Is Dangerous camp spoke up first they should be the ones to prove their claim, and should be assumed to be wrong until they have done it. It should be clear to anybody with half a brain that who says what has no bearing on the truth they are trying to find.

And what the hell? One last proof:

Dave Hitt eventually admitted to knowing that the “name three” argument was invalid and continued to use it.

But that’s not the fun part. Oh my, no. The fun part is that he believes that valid conclusions can be drawn from invalid reasoning. I’m not limited by petty details like facts or logic or common sense. So let’s start the real Dave Hitt bashing…

Fact: Nobody I know can name three people that Dave Hitt has met and not immediately raped. Therefore there aren’t any.

Fact: Out of everybody that has ever met Dave Hitt, the number that actually like him is statistically insignificant. Therefore, it is unreasonable to assume that Dave Hitt caused them to like him. Probably they have confused him with somebody else.

Fact: Dave Hitt has a beard. Fact: At least three murderers had beards. Therefore Dave Hitt is a murderer.

Fact: CDs are a silicon based data storage medium. Therefore Dave Hitt is a twat. This argument makes no sense, but apparently I can still draw conclusions from it.

Fact: Nobody I know can name three of Dave Hitt’s brain cells. Therefore he doesn’t have any.

Fact: Well, you get the idea.

Look at my comments system, by the way. It’s good, isn’t it? You know what it does? It lets people post things onto the page itself, and I’ve never once deleted a comment for disagreeing with me. Dave Hitt’s website has his email address at the bottom. All emails go invisibly to him and he never publicly responds.

Essentially, what he’s doing is putting up a website full of lies with a “please give me feedback” link at the bottom, and then winding people up who exercise the option. What an utter twat.

---

*This sentence was updated in July 2007 to give less undue credence to this idea, which, it has come to my attention, is basically lies peddled by anti-ban lobbyists and other propaganda artists. Also, I feel I should mention that Hitt’s new “mini-blog” has much the same open comment system as my blog has, although his “name three” page still does not. (Also, a brief but important update for the foreign or otherwise ignorant: smoking has in fact been banned in public places in the UK now.)

The main joy of webmastery is, I think, ruling supreme over your own little community of about five people. It’s like a text-based version of The Sims, but with less sensible conversations. But the next one on the list is definitely search strings. These are, if you don’t know, the things people type into search engines that lead them to your website. For example, people have found my website by searching for “3d dalek game” and “sketchpad”. But they’ve also found it by searching for “alphabetic discrimination” (I rank #11 on Google for that), “audrey heller raines” (for which I’m #22), “carex kills bad bacteria” (I’m actually ranked #4 for that — well above Carex’ own website), “is the head of the nsa”, “glen hugill” (I’m proud to be #12 on that one), “mark mccutcheon the final theory” (#34), “ray comfort banana test”, “hellbanning in phpbb”, for which I am most of the results, “mars pleasure you can’t measure”, and the Lost numbers.

But by far and away the most popular way people arrive here is by searching for things that strangers have emailed them. The 419 scams I post here pull in more people than any other part of the site, because people are constantly being emailed them and are, apparently, smart enough to Google them before sending off all their money.

But it’s worth mentioning one thing: the single question I’m asked more than any other about this website — probably more than all the others combined — is “do people really fall for those things?”. And the answer is yes, yes they do.

I’m rather assuming that posting a warning about them here of all places is so hopelessly redundant that I would be laughed at if I did, but people do, regularly. People genuinely believe that perfect strangers are willing to give them millions of dollars to borrow their bank account for a few days and that this is not a scam. Now there’s a case to be made that anybody that stupid shouldn’t complain if they get swindled out of a big bag of money, because they would probably have spent it on buying Heat Magazine anyway and to be honest that’s only incrementally better than giving your money to Nigerian conmen, but people actually get killed because of these people, and even the very stupid deserve better than that.

So if you know anybody that stupid, my advice is to give them a sound talking to and a GMail invite. The spam filters on GMail work so well that after a while you start to forget that spam mail doesn’t come with a little “spam” label for the convenience of email filters.

Although the fact that I also have three sudoku related pages draws in a lot of people as well.

I can only dream of the kinds of hits the sudoku-themed 419 scam will bring in…

Apparently, I am now considered to be exactly 50% as important as all those affected by the tsunami put together:

From: abdulla hassan (abdullahassan_1@sympatico.ca)
Reply-To: abdullahassan200@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Feb 24, 2006 2:07 PM
Subject: From: Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

From: Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

My name is Abdulla Hassan, A Bahrain national I have been diagnosed with
Oesophageal cancer .It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right
now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.
I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really
cared for anyone(not even myself)but my business. Though I am very rich, I
was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my
business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this
as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make
all the money in the world. I believe when God gives me a second chance to
come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have
lived it. Now that God has called
me, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my
immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends .I
want
God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give alms
to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good
deeds I do on earth. So far, I have Distributed money to some charity
organizations in the U.A.E, Somalia and Malaysia. Now that my health has
deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked
members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money
which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria and Pakistan, they
refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them
anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have leftfor them. The
last of my money
which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of Eighteen Million
dollars($18,000,000,00) that I have with a finance House abroad. I
will want you to help me collect this deposit and despatch it to charity
organizations.
N/B:KINDLY NOTE THAT 20% of this funds must go to the tsunami victims
and another 10% for your effort and time.

Regards,
Mr.Abdulla Hassan.
I WOULD WANT YOU TO REACH ME VIA MY PRIVATE EMAIL IF YOU ARE WILLING
TO ASSIST ME.

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: abdullahassan200@yahoo.com.hk
Date: Feb 26, 2006 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: From: Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

I would like to help you, but unfortunately by a cruel and ironic fate
I too have Oesophageal cancer. Would it be acceptable to pass this
offer on to a trusted third party?

Andrew

I wanted to build up a long trail of Oesophageal cancer sufferers to see how many it would take to make him question their existence, but then he sent me this:

From: Hassan Abdulla (abdullahassan300@yahoo.com.hk)
To: taylor.andrew@gmail.com
Date: Feb 26, 2006 11:51 PM
Subject: Thanks for your response.

Please i do need your assistance.

Thanks for your email and your concern. In my last email to you I introduced myself and gave you a summary of the present predicament I have found myself and how I lived my
life(financial-wise).my failing health has necessitated my present over view of life and the meaning of life itself as it relates to day-to-day living. Even surgery which is a last resort has been done but the cancer has already spread into the stomach and intestines.
I will attached some of my personal photos to my next email.
It is for this same reason I have randomly searched through the internet email directory to find somebody who has the predisposition to accomplish the task of passing on a privately kept fund of ($18,000,000,00) million dollars to charitable organizations as he or she deems fit, since I cannot do this myself due to my failing health.
It was this random search that yielded your contact email address with which I sent you my first email. Note that this was just a probing move to establish contact, because I am sure you know as well as I do that most people would snatch at the offer considering the large amount involved and more also since the disbursement of this fund would be entirely in the hands of the claimant.
For this reason I felt that after our initial communication I should be able to determine if we can precede based on certain indices as well as intuitive feeling I would deduce.I hope my first email did not embarrass you? If it did, I apologize for this. The fund in questions is privately kept and I wanted to put it in capable hands for disbursement.
Other such funds that I left to my relatives to disburse to charity were all plundered and used for their personal purposes. For this reason I have decided that within the confines of my hospital room and the privacy of my computer (to which I have internet connection) to look
for a suitable person to transfer ownership of the deposit to, and after claiming the money, disburse 80% of the $18, 000, 000, 00 to various charitable organizations of your choice in various countries and then retain 20% of the money for your effort.
The $18million dollars is physical cash in a private finance/security company in europe. This is not a business
proposal and I do not expect any returns or share of the money. I am dying and I have distributed most of my earthly possessions to various individuals, groups and organisations.This deposit of $18 million dollars is the bulk of what is left.
It is unknown to my other relatives. If I do not find a suitable person to disburse the funds as I plan to, then on my death the finance/security company holding the deposit would have to notify my next of kin to claim the deposit as stipulated on the deposit agreement. And from what I have seen of how they spent the other funds I designated for the same purpose, leaving the fund in their
care would be a colossal waste of all I have worked and lived for.
If you would be able to help me fulfill this last living request, I would need you to get back to me on the following issues,
1. That you are in a position to be trusted and GOD fearing person with such a large amount of fund, and that you have a heart for charity and thus would not have any problems locating the right charity and human aid groups to disburse the fund to. It would be nice to know
what charities you have in mind to donate the money to.
2. That you are willing to contact the finance company holding the deposit to discuss the terms of releasing the funds to you.
3. That you fully understand this transaction up to this stage and you are ready to proceed under these terms.
4.How old are you and do you have a family?
Please send your full contact details, full names,phone and fax numbers as well as your address.
I will need to send your contact details to the finance company regarding the release of this funds to you, await your response to the issues raised here.
I await further communication.
Yours Faithfully.
Mr.Abdulla Hassan

Pictures? I wasn’t risking not getting those. But nor was I going to give him a sensible reply, so I tried to come up with something amusing but that wouldn’t put him off.

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: Hassan Abdulla (abdullahassan300@yahoo.com.hk)
Date: Feb 27, 2006 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: Thanks for your response.

Mr.Abdulla Hassan

> 1. That you are in a position to be trusted and GOD fearing person with such
I am absolutely terrified of God. He knows what I get up to on a Friday night.

> a large amount of fund, and that you have a heart for charity and thus would
> not have any problems locating the right charity and human aid groups to
> disburse the fund to. It would be nice to know
> what charities you have in mind to donate the money to.
The Shazan ministers would have many good charitable uses for such
money. I shall ask their advice and get back to you.

> 2. That you are willing to contact the finance company holding the deposit
> to discuss the terms of releasing the funds to you.
No problem.

> 3. That you fully understand this transaction up to this stage and you are
> ready to proceed under these terms.
Indeed.

> 4.How old are you and do you have a family?
I am 42. I have a wife but no children, as they were tragically struck
down by Oesophageal cancer.

Yours,
Andrew

It worked. I got this email, along with a couple of photos and a fake certificate (shown below):

From: Hassan Abdulla (abdullahassan300@yahoo.com.hk)
To: taylor.andrew@gmail.com
Date: Feb 27, 2006 5:28 PM
Subject: my pictures and the origin of the funds

Thanks for your response.I would want you to take this
transaction very serious because my situation here in
the hospital is very bad.
I will attach to this email is my pictures and the
origin of the funds i deposited in a security and
finance company in Amsterdam The Netherlands.
I got this funds as a result of contracts i did with
yukos oil in 2003.This funds is deposited in two trunk
boxes and presently with the security company in
Amsterdam The Netherlands and i deposited the funds as
personal effects & family treasures.
I will send to you all deposit documents as well as a
document that will cover you as beneficiary to the
trunks in the security and finance company,this
document will enable you contact the company.You will
have to send me your full name and phone number so
that i can give it to the hospital attorney to prepare
the POWER OF ATTORNEY that will cover you as the
beneficiary to the trunks.
I cannot call you on phone for now because of my
present situation but i can manage to type email and
send to you so that you can contact the security and
finance company regarding the release of the trunks to
you.
I will be expecting to hear from you as soon as you
get this email so that we can proceed with the
transaction,thanks and have a nice day.

Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

�Let me just take your head and put it in the CT scanner.�

Abdulla appears to have lost a leg since the first photo was taken. And yet Janet Street Porter still loves him.

All real certificates use Comic Sans.

Well, I was very pleased with those pictures. (He sent me them twice but I thought it would be pointless to show you them twice. If you really want the full feel of it you should scroll back up and look at them again now.) I felt I should reciprocate.

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: Hassan Abdulla (abdullahassan300@yahoo.com.hk)
Date: Feb 28, 2006 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: origin of the funds

Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

Allow me to apologise for the lateness of my reply. I was in hospital
visiting my wife, who has Oesophageal cancer.

I got your pictures and the (I have to say, utterly convincing) funds
origin certificate. My favourite was the one with with the huge
impressive array of hospital equipment. I will have to send you a
photo too sometime soon.

Yours,
Andrew

Well, he excelled himself and sent be two more improbable documents:

From: Hassan Abdulla (abdullahassan300@yahoo.com.hk)
To: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
Date: Mar 1, 2006 8:58 AM
Subject: CERTIFICATE OF DEPOSIT & SHIPPMENT AIRWAY-BILL

Dear Andrew,

I will attach to this email the CERTIFICATE OF DEPOSIT & SHIPPMENT AIRWAY-BILL
and these are the deposit documents,i have spoken to the hospital Attorney and he has agreed to prepare the POWER OF ATTORNEY that will cover you as the beneficiary to the trunks.
I have given him your full names because he asked for the name,i will let you have the documents as soon as i have them and i will also send to you the details of the security company in Amsterdam The Netherlands so that you can contact them regarding the release of the trunks to you.
I will get back to you very soon,thanks and have a nice day.

Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

The signature is my favourite part.

Note the sheer startling accuracy of the globe in the corner.

Now to send him my photos. But alas! Tragedy!

From: Andrew Taylor (taylor.andrew@gmail.com)
To: Hassan Abdulla (abdullahassan300@yahoo.com.hk)
Date: Mar 1, 2006 10:45 AM
Subject: Re: CERTIFICATE OF DEPOSIT & SHIPPMENT AIRWAY-BILL

Mr.Abdulla Hassan.

Thankyou for sending me the documents. Alas, I fear I cannot give you
the photos I promised in my last email because my camera has
Oesophageal cancer at the moment. I shall look forward to your next
email.

Yours,
Andrew

I haven’t heard from him since then, which is a shame, because I want some more pictures of him with his rapidly diminishing supply of limbs. I want to see him when he’s just a head and a copy of Corel DocumentForge.

Criminals are just so inconsiderate, aren’t they?

For those of you outside the UK, here is how train prices in this country are calculated:

A day return costs a certain amount, depending on how far you want to travel, and whimsy. (Some trains are ridiculously cheap for no stated reason.) This ticket will allow you to go to a station and return that same day. A return valid for longer costs more, because if you pre-book it gives them more time to, er, do whatever it is they do. If you make the same journey using seperate tickets to go there and back, this will cost more again, except on some journeys, where it is by far the cheapest option, for no apparent reason. If I go from Leeds to Manchester and back that costs £16. If I go from Dewsbury to Manchester and back, and then excess it to Leeds that costs me £15.90. I’m not sure if this means that I can save 10p by setting off a station further down the line or if it means that I can save 10p simply by buying the wrong ticket and changing it into the correct one. Either way it’s ludicrous.

And return tickets only work on two-way travel. If you want to go from A to B and back then they’re great (except when it’s cheaper to get two singles) but if you want to go from A to B, then on to C and from there back to A then you’re screwed. There’s a good chance it’s cheaper to come home via B.

Also, you can buy a “railcard”, which makes all tickets cheaper, except before 9:30 in the morning, presumably because trains are more expensive to run early in the morning. Another way to get cheaper tickets is to buy them further in advance.

If you want to upgrade to first class, this costs £10, regardless of the length of the journey or whether first class will be any different in that train, except on some journeys, where it costs 5p. These journeys are chosen essentially at random.

And half the time they never check your tickets anyway. And when they do check your tickets there’s really no way for them to stop you staying on the train long past the stated destination. I could have saved loads of money by now by cunningly choosing not to pay.

I mean, why? What purpose does any of this serve? It’s not cheaper for the train companies to move me around if I bought my ticket the week before. It’s not cheaper for them to move me around in the afternoon. It’s not cheaper for them to move me around twice on the same day than twice on two different days. It’s certainly not cheaper for them to take be home via B. If they want people to use their service (which I assume they do) then they should make it so that the average commuter understands how to do so. If the government allows these morons to run the public transport network and price it in such a needlessly convoluted way then they really ahve no business telling people off for driving everywhere. Petrol prices might be extortionate, but at least people understand them. You don’t have certain roads that randomly need less petrol to drive along than others, or petrol that only lasts a certain amount of time before it vanishes, used or not.

It seems to me that there could just be one price for each possible leg. You’d pay, say, £5 to get from Leeds to Huddersfield, another £5 to get from Huddersfield to Stalybridge, and another £5 to get from there to Manchester. Leeds to Manchester would then be £15. If you got on a train that made additional stops it might be different, I suppose, but you’d only need to have a website to change that. You could work out all other prices from there. Railcards would be valid at any time and take a flat 10% off the bill. First class would cost an extra 15% or whatever, and travelling at peak time would cost an extra 15% or whatever. It would be easy then. Just pick a journey. You could tot it up in your head if need be. Somebody explain how that system would be worse than the current one, because I for one can’t see it.