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The latest in a long line of Muslim junk-mail hitting my inbox is Cordoba Gold, “The Sharia compliant MasterCard”. Very nice, but I am getting rather tired of “ethical” Muslim companies that think they can help themselves to my email address in order to notify me about their latest product. Yes, you may well have seen my email address in somebody else’s mailing list and you may, quite ingeniously, have worked out that the Muslim theme would interest me, but it’s not exactly polite.

But it seems it’s not just companies that are doing it. The other day I received notification from the “Dialogue Society” that I had signed myself up to their mailing list. Well I hadn’t, so I didn’t click on the URL to confirm that I had and deleted the email, thinking that would be the end of it. No, not quite. The confirmation process clearly isn’t that efficient, since I received an email about their latest seminar anyway. Friends, I know your intention is good, but could you perhaps, you know, ask me before signing me up to all these websites you think will interest me?

At first I didn’t really mind receiving the emails for one Muslim magazine or another, but now I just can’t keep track of them. There seem to be so many, not that they last very long. So much news, so many glossy features, and then the requests that I help sustain them. Yes I know, I should. Somehow. And perhaps I would if my inbox wasn’t being flooded with junk mail.

I took it for granted that my Yahoo account would fill up with spam daily: my West African contacts who promise me riches if I forward them a little capital never fail to disappoint. But my other account was meant to be a spam-free zone, reserved for friends and family, kept secret from the online world and out of corporate hands. Well it’s too late now; a lost cause. It seems I am destined to receive Sharia Compliant Junkmail for ever more. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Goodnight.