Spam

Up until just a couple of weeks ago I could reckon on receiving 20, 30, 40 or even 50 or more spam emails every day.  Granted, my ISP managed to sort them pretty well and only the odd few would not go straight into the spam folder.  Although I knew that occasionally, just very occasionally, an email that was not spam could end up in the spam folder, I seldom bothered to look there.  But now, all of a sudden, I find that the quantity of spam has diminshed and I receive only a handful, usually fewer than five, a day.  And not one of them offers me free money to use at a casino or a fake Rolex watch or the solution to all my problems in the bedroom or pictures of bored housewives.  Almost without exception they are comments which have been posted on my blog by somebody called Anonymous.

Now, I do find it a bit of a drag having to go to the right place to delete all those spam comments.  OK, I know it's not difficult, nor is it exactly time-consuming, it's just a drag.  And I know I could quite easily stop Mr (or Mrs, Miss, Ms or Mx) Anonymous by requiring people posting comments to use word verification.  But that irritates commentators, so I won't go that way.  I'll just live with the spam.

Talking of spam, or rather Spam, reminds me that I haven't seen it around for a long time.  Is it still produced, I wonder?  Ghastly stuff, but we were very grateful for it when "proper" meat was either too expensive or just not available.  I can still remember my mother serving a meal of it: Spam, boiled potatoes and (I think) tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce.  Did we really think of it as a substitute for ham?  Which leads me to another memory.

It was in 1950 - or maybe 1951 - that I contracted pleurisy and was, quite literally, at death's door.  When I started to recover, I said I would like a ham sandwich.  Back then, ham was a luxury and quite why I asked for it I cannot imagine.  Did I really recall the taste of such a rare delicacy?  I doubt it.  Of course, there was no ham in the house, nor any chance of buying some.  My mother must have asked neighbours if they had any but none did.  One, however, who lived on the other side of the road and several houses along, had a chicken which was offered.  In those days chicken was as much a luxury as ham so it must have been quite a sacrifice on her part.  Nowadays chicken is considered a cheap meat.

Ah well, such is the passage of time.

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The same copse as yesterday, this time as seen from the bedroom window this morning.