Someone somewhere has the best job in the world: coming up with the user names for spam messages offering free watches, cheap loans and vast gentlemanly appendages. Whoever he is (and I bet you it's a bloke), he's clearly a big fan of postwar US fiction. The likes of Herrmann Myung, Carsten Spike, Michael J Wnuk, Lilybelle Rutledge, Boerre Digness, Kamaar Marcipont, Schiopulescu Runions, Herculie Llewelly and Piotr Ledbetter are more than qualified to walk alongside Kilgore Trout, Oedipa Maas, Von Humboldt Fleisher, Bucky Wunderlick, Isadora Wing and even Major Major Major Major.
But now I've received conclusive proof that this anonymous genius is a true man of letters: a message offering 'Penis Enlargement Reviews', under the frankly preposterous name of Harper Collins.
13 comments:
I did a quick 411 search and there were three business and two home listings for Harper Collins in the US. I say we ring up these Collinses and ask them to remove us from their e-mail lists (unless, of course someone is a personal friend of theirs, then it's something different altogether).
A very merry Easter Mr. Footman
'How to invent names for fictitious characters without fear of prosecution? This morning's Times has births to Clague, Fimbel, Futty and Prescott-Pickup.'
(Evelyn Waugh, diary entry for 5th May, 1963)
If ever he'd been on his uppers I daresay he could have turned his hand to inventing spam senders. 'Bruno Hat', indeed. Dickens, too: 'Dolge Orlick', for goodness' sake.
I wonder what the going rate is?
Maybe Penis Enlargement Review is a new literary magazine - have you checked?
Why not just phone Rupert Murdoch personally, Rimshot?
Christopher: Nothing can beat Margot Beste-Chetwynde (aka Lady Metroland).
That, or an album by Nine Inch Nails, Patroclus.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Save your money. Mine actually shrank.
Hotblack Desiato. A deranged patron in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and an estate agent in Islington.
Hmm - which came first, though?
"Gentle VanDeburgh" - not even spam, but email from someone at an arts organization. i would like to meet this person (i assume "Gentle" is a woman) because i am certain i will feel calm and peaceful in her presence.
what a burden, to carry a name like Gentle. i would prefer some of the ones you suggest, particularly Lilybelle. reminds me that once i found someone's receipt at a gas station and the woman's name was Lily Diamond. which i promptly appropriated for a character in a story i was writing at the time.
Yes, Murph, but is it as pointy?
You'd never guess that from those yellow trunks, Dick.
As I understand it, Mangonel, Adams used to get letters telling him that some upstart estate agent had appropriated his character's name, and he had to explain that it was the other way round. Wasn't he the rock star who'd decided to spend a year dead for tax purposes?
Gentle VanDeburgh sounds like an organic laxative, Amy. But Lily Diamond is nice. A Jewish good time girl, I reckon.
"Gentle VanDeburgh sounds like an organic laxative" -- i don't usually do this, but ROTFL!!!
In Shakespeare's day 'gentle' also meant 'maggot', thus provoking lol (never thought I'd use this abbreviation) from the groundlings in the pit. I believe it's still used in this sense in certain parts of the UK where they go in for coarse fishing. Just thought you might like to know.
Sorry Tim. I meant to say the penis mightier than the sword. Bit of a cock up on the typing front.
Ooh, you should ROTFL more often, Amy. It suits you.
I'd forgotten the maggots, Christopher. Extraordinary how much of an English degree drains away within minutes of the first pint following the last exam.
Yes, Murph. Always avoid splitting your penis in two.
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