Apparently, according to my email inboxes, I am suffering from erectile disfunction, stunted growth, a propensity for gambling in casinos and a myriad of other lesser known ailments. I also seem to have a lot of lady friends dotted around the globe who wish me to see their naked bodies, or just their general cavorting with various buzzing appliances. The general diagnosis, as we all now know, is SPAM.

My letterbox is also telling me that my guttering and fascias need updating, my roof is looking decidely jaded, my drive is past its sell-by date and I need to eat more pizza, chinese and asian foods. It seems I can also become a multi-millionaire by buying property (although this is feasible it will not work currently, due to falling house prices and negative equity. I may explore it further once the market bottoms out) This is the snail mail SPAM aka JUNK MAIL.

I am beginning to get Victor Medrewitis and want to start fighting back, but whatever you put in place the spammers soon find a work around.

The Royal Mail offer a Mailing Preference service, but this is largely ineffective and in fact a large slice of its revenue is derived from their delivery of junk advertising by their own staff. Lately I have been scooping this up and dropping it into the post box on the corner of the road on my way out to work, particularly as they have ignored my requests to cease.

As far as what you will read below, I have already adopted one of the suggestions. If I receive unsolicited material that contains a pre-paid reply envelope, then all what is sent from that company is stuffed into it with a curt note and mailed back,. At least it costs them postage both ways then and no business is generated, but it will not stop them.

I do not know how effective this process is to handle junk mail through your letterbox in the UK, but it certainly seems palusible ;

http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/bulkmailer/

As it points out in the text, as long as you send nothing obnoxious (same laws apply in the UK). Perhaps we give it a go by repacking all the mail they have sent to you in a new envelope (or the pre-paid one they provide) and send it straight back. Now if we all did that.....................

The above link also refers to a method of destroying email spam (another one!), this works (apparently) by utilising links on web pages to generate lots of random email addresses, this in turn would effectively destroy the email harvester's listings, or so the theory goes;

http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/

As far as spam emails go, then I think we all agree, we have to have a sacrificial email address or hop around the providers, changing addresses as we go. One of the biggest issues and one that appears to help the email harvesters is the propensity for forwarding joke emails, without first removing all your friends and their friend's email addresses from the body of the mail.

One of the most useful things to do is to modify your email address by pre-fixing it with something;

no_junk.fred.bloggs@msn.com

for exxample. This identifies you to your friends and, as you are already in their mailbook, will not cause them issues when they wish to wrtite to you. In terms of mechanised harvesiting it helps a great deal, although mail lists can be 'washed' with a simple piece of code to filter this, so be creative.

At least my telephone has quietened down since I registered with the Telephone Preference Service. But this has not stopped my bank, electricity and gas, my mortgage provider et al ringing, usually during dinner or when I am settled with a glass of wine ready to watch that programme. I have tried being polite, but that does not drive the message home. I am cautious now when I answer a telephone call;
"2682, who is calling please?"
"Is that Mr Kelly?"
"Who's calling please?"
" Oh! It's Natwest Bank, just a courtesy call"
"Can you hold, I'll go get him"
I then leave the phone off the hook and return latter to replace the handset when the high-pitched tone tells me they have hung up.

The worse calls, and we have all had them, are the ones that start, "Good evening, my name is Simon". The accent with be strongly Asian, the line slightly echoing or crackly.
"This is not a sales call", it goes on, slighty desperate, hoping you do not realise it actually is.
"What are you calling me for then?"
"Do you have a mobile phone...."

One trick to get salesmen off the line if you are caught out and find yourself suckered, "Sorry, I am not allowed to buy anything since I was declared redundant/bankrupt/insane", delete as appropriate.

You could of course draw amusement from junk telepone calls. Many call centre staff are paid by results, for example, by the number of appointments they make, so they will be eager to placate you as you hum and har. Drag it out as long as possible, suggest some dates, they retract by saying you have an appointment already, keep your eye on the clock, the longer you go the less they earn. Ultimately tell them you have changed you mind.

Alternatively, create your own language, or learn to talk as Stanley Unwin did, this will have them gone in seconds. Sorry I no speak English, in a very strong Asian/Polish (and any other UK immigrant language)  accent.

If all else fails then some verbal abuse is permitted (profanities or racial slurs are not), I will leave that to your imagination, but creativity is the mother of invention.