Giggl

Letter from Santa

From: Craig
To: Santa, Workshop.
Subject: Blacklisted?!?

Dear Santa.

Thanks for your disappointing letter.

Just to recap…

You only allow a certain type of behaviour

You blacklist people who don’t conform

You’re threatening me with the wrath of fictional characters

Are you running some sort of cult?

I have a friend who could probably give you great rates on advertising if you’re looking to recruit new members?

Merry Christmas!

Craig.

From: Santa
To: Craig, (naughty list)
Subject: re: Blacklisted?!?

Dear Craig,

Make that December 2016.

Ho ho ho!

Santa.

Kids, don’t argue with Santa.

A few days ago I received this kind warning from a friend. It was a scary email warning about hackers. We’ve all had emails like this, and we’ve all either ignored them or had a brief panic about them. I thought it best to investigate…

From: Email Contact
To: Craig
Subject: Fw: Fw: VERY URGENT – PLEASE READ – NOT A JOKE (better safe than sorry)

: Fw: VERY URGENT – PLEASE READ – NOT A JOKE (better safe than sorry)

PASS THIS ON!

IF A PERSON CALLED SIMON ASHTON ( SIMON***@HOTMAIL.CO.UK ) CONTACTS YOU THROUGH EMAIL DON’T OPEN THE MESSAGE. DELETE IT BECAUSE HE IS A HACKER!!

TELL EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST BECAUSE IF SOMEBODY ON YOUR LIST ADDS HIM THEN YOU WILL GET HIM ON YOUR LIST. HE WILL FIGURE OUT YOUR ID COMPUTER ADDRESS, SO COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE EVEN IF YOU DONT CARE FOR THEM AND FAST BECAUSE IF HE HACKS THEIR EMAIL HE HACKS YOUR MAIL TOO!!!!!……

Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on. This information arrived this morning, Direct from both Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who has access to the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled ‘Mail Server Report’

If you open either file, a message will appear on your screen saying: ‘It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.’

Subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC,
And the person who o sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.

This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus software’s are not capable of destroying it .

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself ‘life owner’..

PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them to
PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!

Take Care

From: Craig Anderson
To: “SIMON***@HOTMAIL.CO.UK”
Subject: Fw: Fw: VERY URGENT – PLEASE READ – NOT A JOKE (better safe than sorry)

Hi Simon.

I got a warning email from a friend saying that this email address belongs to a hacker. The word “hacker” is also followed with two exclamation marks, so it sounds quite serious. I just wanted to confirm whether you are a hacker or not.

I also wanted to address a few potential inaccuracies in the warning email, just in case you are a hacker. The inaccuracies are probably the fault of the sender of the warning email, ut just in case you’re new to the world of hacking I thought I’d let you know too.

The email says that if I add you to my list, you will find out my “ID COMPUTER ADDRESS.” Rather than ID address, I’m assuming they (or you) mean IP address? If you are a hacker, and you’re looking for my ID address, you could be looking for the wrong thing as my ID won’t be of much use to you. I’m not even sure that ID COMPUTER ADDRESS is even a real thing. If it is an IP you’re looking for, then you may find this site of some use – http://whatismyipaddress.com

It appears that both Microsoft AND Norton are aware of you and your ambiguous “Mail Server Report” email. Personally I think you have chosen a bad subject title for a hacking email. Not everyone will want to open an email with “Mail Server Report” as the title, as it doesn’t sound interesting. Most people would be wary of opening it, simply because it sounds like a hacking email.

Back in the day when I was a hacker, I always found sending emails with the subject “You have received a Greeting Card” got the best results. Who cares about servers? Getting a free greeting card from a friend always rocks!

The warning email also says that a message will appear, once I’ve opened your infected email, saying “It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.”

Do you know the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? That phrase is often misinterpreted. People take it too literally and believe it to mean that if a person sees beautiful things, they too will be beautiful. This isn’t the case. The phrase actually means that people see different things in different lights. People see beauty in different ways. A rock, for example, may be quite a dull thing to one person, whereas to another person it may be a fascinating, beautiful thing. Different people see different aspects of everything and so a boring thing to one person may the most amazing thing to another.

With that in mind, how exactly will you make MY life less beautiful? Things of beauty, to me, are vibrant, colourful things. It doesn’t matter what the thing is, as long as it is vibrant, fresh and full of colour. Do you have the ability to drain colour from things in everyday life, or to hypnotise me into seeing everything as quite blasé? If your hacking skills surpass the usual “gathering-personal-info-from-a-PC” and involve controlling peoples minds after they have opened an email, then you are way more advanced than I believed at first! I suggest you leave the hacking thing behind and concentrate on a career as a mind reader or a mentalist. You may want to contact Derren Brown. He loves things like this! His website is here – Derren Brown’s Website

I’m also having problems understanding the following paragraph; “Subsequently [after opening the email] you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC, And the person who o sent it to you will gain access to your name, e-mail and password.” How, exactly, do you plan to take everything from IN my PC? My graphics card, for example, is far too big to fit down the telephone line. Is it just my data you will be (trying badly) to steal? The warning was a little ambiguous.

If the claim is correct, I’m impressed that you have been able to create a virus that antivirus software is not capable of destroying! Mightily impressed! Have you thought about contacting newspapers? They love reporting on this sort of thing. You could be in for some sort of award, or a huge payout from Norton! It could even pay for you to move out from your parents after you pass your G.C.S.E.s!

And why do you call yourself ‘Life owner’? Everyone already knows that your name is Simon Ashton; it says so at the top of the email.

If you are trying to take over the world with your hacking skills, I think you may be going about it all wrong. In summary, I’d change your email subject to something more appealing, I’d learn more about computer terminology and probably get a spell checker.

If you’re not a hacker, ignore everything above.

Craig Anderson
Head of Now (twicm) renumbering
EMI.

From: “MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com”
To: email_4_craig@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, 2 December 2011, 13:01
Subject: Failure Notice

Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address.

[simon***@hotmail.co.uk]
Remote host said: mailbox does not exist

Now Thats What I Call Music email

From: Craig
To: EMI contact
Subject: Issue with NOW albums

Hi EMI.

I have a concern. It may take a short while to explain, as it is quite in depth, but please bear with me.

Along with releasing music for the vast array of artists you have signed to your record label, you’re also well known for releasing sequentially numbered NOW (Thats What I Call Music) albums. I still have a few very early NOW (twicm) double albums on vinyl featuring, oddly, a pig on the cover. What was all that about?!?

Since their release in 1983 all was going well with you releasing the numbered albums in order; Now 13, for example, was followed by Now 14, then Now 15… etc. Last time I checked you were up to NOW 79 which is a great ratio of 3.2 albums per year!

But….. A few years ago you released special compilation albums, like NOW 1980. The first time I saw Now 1980 I was a bit confused. I thought that either I had been transported into the future and missed a huge block of numbers, or you had forgotten how to count. However after looking at the tracks on the CD, I realised that you meant the year 1980, and you hadn’t actually released NOW 1,980.

After releasing these special compilations, you reverted to the original numberings continuing to release NOW albums in sequential numerical order.

Now, something has occurred to me that you have maybe not considered. In 590 years time, when the sequential numbers actually reach NOW 1,979, what are you going to call the next album? You can’t call it NOW 1980, because you’ve already used that number. I know I’m talking about something 587 years in the future, (or 472.5 years if you get a crack on and release 4 per year rather than your current ratio of 3.2 per year,) but it concerns me that you haven’t thought this thorough properly.

You’ll have the same problem of duplicate numbers for each special compilation you have released, if NOW #### has already been used.

Obviously it won’t directly affect you as a person, as human life has an average lifespan of far less than 590 years, but it is very likely to affect your descendants.

You may be thinking that it is so far in the future that it won’t affect you, but it is this kind of slapdash thinking that leaves many businesses paddle-less in a certain type of dirty creek, if you know what I mean.

I have, therefore, thought about a few ideas that will help avoid the issue. You are free to implement any of them, and I’m confident they will help your company avoid any confusion.

You could suffix all duplicate numbers with v2, so people wouldn’t get confused between the two. NOW 1980 would remain the original and NOW 1980 v2 would be version 2 of the same number.
You could prefix all duplicate numbers with #, the international symbol for “number”, differentiating it from the “year” one, as in NOW #1980.
Maybe you could add the words “New and Improved” to the front of the word NOW, so it would become “New and Improved NOW 1980”
Adding a comma to all numbers over 999 would also be a great idea, however it may still confuse search engines.

I hope I have given you ideas-a-plenty on how to avoid the inevitable confusion, and please let me know which, if any, you decide to use.

Thanks, EMI!

Craig.

*Sorry if “albums” isn’t the right word – I’m 37 and thats what they were called when I was young.

From: EMI contact
To: Craig
Subject: re: Issue with NOW albums

>>Hi EMI.

>>I have a concern. It may take a short while to explain, as it is quite in depth, but please bear with me.

>>Along with releasing music for the vast array of artists you have signed to your record label, you’re also well…

etc…..

From: Craig
To: EMI contact
Subject: re: re: Issue with NOW albums

Hi again EMI.

I emailed you in the middle of November with a query relating to the way your NOW albums are numbered. In reply to my query, you seem to have just forwarded my query back to me.

I’m unsure how to interpret your reply. What I am supposed to do with my own query? Are you returning it to me in some sort of Mr. Miyagi way, posing some sort of philosophical quandary in which I think about the problem myself along with its consequences and hone my morals?

Maybe, like Daniel-san, if we were to meet in real life you’d ask that I wax your car or paint your fence. I’d do it, obviously, but I wouldn’t know WHY I was doing it. Well, not until you came at me a few days later with fists ablazing and I’d realise that, along with giving your Ford Fiesta a crispy sheen, I’d actually been learning self defence.

Maybe you would prefer me to sort the issue out myself? It is something I queried and so obviously something that affects me. Is the fact that you’ve given it back to me a good thing or a bad thing? Have you returned it to me because, maybe, I’M a good person or a bad person? I never knew that the decision on how to number NOW albums was based so much in the “absurd” branch of existentialism.

I’ve considered all the potential reasons why you have posed my question to me, and I can only assume that you are making me in charge of sorting it out. Excellent!

I’ve always wanted to get my foot in the door with some big music corporate, and so I thank you for giving me this opportunity. How many staff do I have? When do I get paid? What perks of the job are there? Am I now exempt from prosecution if I download copyrighted EMI music now? Brilliant!

I await further information relating to my new employment, and I’ve amended my email signature accordingly in preparation for this new venture.

Craig Anderson
Head of Now (twicm) renumbering
EMI.

80sNostalgia Classic TV Reviews

80sNostalgia, one of my other sites, is undergoing a huge revamp. It is moving servers for the first time in 6 years and, to celebrate it becoming a teenager, (2012 marks it’s 13th year online!) I thought I would treat it to brand new additional content.

The 80s was a huge decade, for TV especially, with hundreds of shows airing or making their début. Because it was so huge, I haven’t always been able to find the time to add new content to 80sNostalgia as often as I would like. If you look through the Classic TV section, for example, there are so many missing descriptions of Classic TV shows. I just haven’t got the time to write about them all.

So I have decided to open up a huge section of 80sNostalgia to you, fellow fans of the 80s.

If you would like to contribute your memories of 80s TV, by writing a description of a show and see your name in websitey lights, then please have a look through the list of shows below. It isn’t a definitive list of every 80s TV programme, as there are far more 80s programmes than I have listed, but it is a list of the most searched for programmes on here. Adding details to the programmes listed here first will be of more instant help to the majority of visitors.

If you would like to contribute:

Take a look at the list below. If you would like to write the description for any programme, please email me first (reviews@80snostalgia.com) to say which one(s) you would like to write a description for. Emailing and getting the confirmation that you are the only author first ensures that you are guaranteed to have your writing published. Without this system, if 5 people instantly write and email me great descriptions for the same programme, I will only be able to publish one of them, meaning 4 people will have written descriptions for nothing. This seems the fairest way of deciding whose articles to publish.

If you would like to write more than 1 description, please list the shows you would like to write about in your email, up to a maximum of 5. Whichever shows you are confirmed as writing about will be reserved for you for 2 weeks from the date of the confirmation email. If you do not submit a review for a show you have been confirmed for within 2 weeks, it will go back into the pool and someone else may become the author.

Only claim the shows that you genuinely have time and knowledge to write about. If you would like to claim more after writing and submitting your first ones, you are very welcome to! Doing them in batches of no more than 5 ensures you don’t take on more than you can deal with in 2 weeks, AND leaves other people a choice too.

If you have written anything for any other websites in the past, please forward a link to your work in your email. You don’t HAVE to have written anything online before to have your descriptions published here, but if more than one person asks to write about the same show it will help me to decide who to allocate that show to.

PLEASE use proper full English words and correct grammar in your descriptions. The people you are writing descriptions for are around the 30 – 45 year old mark. IF they are anything like me, they won’t understand abbreviated slang words or TXT spk. It will also please my friends, the Internet Search Engines.

The description should include a brief synopsis of the show, maybe talk about the characters in it, an overview of the plot lines, when it aired from and to, any memorable moments in it, and can be written in an amusing way if you like. There should be no bad language, nothing libelous, and no descriptions that could be seen as insulting – I’m often in contact with people who worked in TV in the 80s, and arranging interviews or competition prizes is quite hard if reviews on my site slander their work.

On average the descriptions already on 80sNostalgia are around 500 words. There are usually a few paragraphs, and a few pictures. If you can find the time to write the descriptions, I will add all the images.

If you can also include a link to the intro to the programme on YouTube, that would also be an immense help. It isn’t necessary, but it would help.

So have a look through the list below, and if you see anything you like (things with lines through are already written,) and would like to take part, just let me know via reviews@80snostalgia.com

Action Force
~~Airwolf~~
~~Alf~~
Asterix
Aubrey
~~The A-Team~~
The Adventure Game

~~Bagpuss~~
~~Bananaman~~
Barbapapa
Basil Brush
~~Batfink~~
Battle Of The Planets
Battlestar Galactica
~~Bertha~~
Blue Thunder
~~Bod~~
~~Button Moon~~
~~The Banana Splits~~
The Box Of Delights

~~Captain Caveman~~
Captain Pugwash
Care Bears
~~Charley Says…~~
Charlie Chalk
Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chorlton and the Wheelies
~~Count Duckula~~
Crystal Tipps And Alistair
The Chipmunks
~~The Clangers~~

~~Danger Mouse~~
~~Dastardly & Muttley~~
~~Defenders Of The Earth~~
Dempsey and Makepeace
~~Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds~~
Dreamstone
Droids
~~Dungeons and Dragons~~
The Double Deckers

~~Ewoks~~

~~Family Ness~~
Fantastic Max
~~Fingerbobs~~
Fireman Sam
Fred Basset
~~The Flumps~~

Galaxy Rangers
~~Garbage Pail Kids~~
Garfield
GoBots
Going For Gold
Going Live!
Gran
Grange Hill
The Get Along Gang

~~The Hair Bear Bunch~~
~~He-Man~~
Heathcliff
Hector’s House
Hi-De-Hi
Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy
~~Hong Kong Phooey~~
Huxley Pig

Inch High Private Eye
Incredible Hulk
Inspector Gadget

~~James The Cat~~
~~Jamie and the Magic Torch~~
Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors
~~Jimbo And The Jetset~~
The Jetsons
~~Jossys Giants~~

Kissyfur
~~Knight Rider~~
Knightmare

Ludwig
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

M.A.S.K.
Mary, Mungo And Midge
Miami Vice
Mighty Mouse
Monkey
Moondial
Morph
~~Moschops~~
~~Mr. Benn~~
Mr. Magoo
Muppet Babies
~~Mysterious Cities Of Gold~~
The Magic Roundabout
The Munsters

Noah and Nelly
Not the Nine O’Clock News

~~Orm and Cheep~~
Out Of This World

Penelope Pitstop
Pipkins
Play School
Pob
Poddington Peas
Pole Position
Postman Pat
Puff The Magic Dragon

The Raccoons
~~The Raggy Dolls~~
~~Rainbow~~
Rainbow Brite
Real Ghostbusters
Rentaghost
Road Runner
Robocop
~~Roland Rat : The Series~~
~~Roobarb and Custard~~

~~Secret Squirrel~~
She-Ra
Smurfs
Snagglepuss
Sooty and Sweep
~~Space Sentinels~~
~~Speed Racer~~
~~Spitting Image~~
Star Fleet
~~Starcom~~
~~Stoppit and Tidyup~~
~~Storybook International~~
~~Street Hawk~~
~~Super Ted~~
~~Super Gran~~

Mr. T
T-Bag
Teddy Ruxpin
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
~~Telebugs~~
~~Terrahawks~~
The Tomorrow People
~~The Trap Door~~
~~The Tripods~~
Thomas The Tank Engine
~~Thundercats~~
Tintin
~~Tiswas~~
Top Cat
Touche Turtle
Transformers

~~Ulysses 31~~

V
The Village With Three Corners
Voltron

~~Wacky Races~~
~~Wait Till Your Father Gets Home~~
War Games
~~What-a-Mess~~
~~Willo The Wisp~~
Wizbit
The Wombles
~~Worzel Gummidge~~

Query to Heinz

Heinz have released their “Squeeze and Serve” soups. They are a squeezy sachet of concentrated soup that you squeeze into a cup, then add water to. They look delicious!

But I had a query with their Mediterranean Vegetable soup, so I filled in the online query form on their website.

Hi people of Heinz.

Is there an email address I can email a query to? Your online form is perfect for short queries, but my query is longer than your query box will allow.

Thanks,

Craig.

I got a reply about an hour later!

From: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
To: Craig
Subject: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****A.

Dear Mr Anderson

Thank you for your Email contact.

Please get in touch with us on our free phone number 08000152075 from UK landlines and quote reference number 00151****A so we can help you further.
We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Peter

So I sent this later that day…

From: Craig A
To: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
Subject: Re: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****A.

Hi there.

Thanks for getting back to me with advice to phone you.

I’m sorry, I know you are not big scary people, but I much prefer to email. Is this the right email address to use?

Thanks so much for your understanding.

Craig.

I got a reply within 30 minutes!

From: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
To: Craig
Subject: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****B.

Dear Mr Anderson

Thank you for contacting us with regard to your enquiry.

You can email our department at : consumercare@*********

We hope the above information is helpful.

Regards

Peter

I obviously had the right email address, and I knew people were there because I was getting replies within the hour. They were showing far better customer service than any other company I have ever emailed, (except the wonderful Nethosted whose query reply time, when I used to use them years ago, was usually no more than 12 minutes!)

I decided to email my query…

From: Craig A
To: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
Subject: Re: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****B.

Hello Heinz

I read with interest that you had released “Squeeze and Stir” soups. They appear to be a condensed soup in a large sachet. From what I can gather, you squeeze the contents into a cup, then you pour in boiling water, then stir. With the addition of the boiling water, it transforms into a real soup. I guess it is pretty much a liquid version of cup-a-soup, but far less powdery. Don’t get me wrong, I love cup-a-soup. In fact I went through a stage about a year ago when I are nothing but cup-a-soup. I even emailed Batchelors about it, but I can’t for the life of me remember what for. Oh well.

I have a question about one of your new soups from your new range, in particular the Mediterranean Vegetable.

The list of ingredients says it contains, amongst other things, Tomato (63%), Courgette (3%), Onions (3%) and Red Pepper (2%). I’ll refer to these 4 ingredients as the “fresh” ingredients. These 4 “fresh” ingredients alone account for 71% of the total ingredients. The remaining 29% are a mix of water, sugar, olive oil and seasoning.

So I wondered why you called it “Vegetable Soup”?

The only vegetable in the recipe, making up 3% of the total ingredients, is onion. 68% of the “fresh” ingredients, (Tomatoes, courgettes and peppers,) are fruits. Obviously water and sugar are not a vegetables, olive oil and cornflower are not vegetables, and the seasonings are also not vegetables.

In that 97% of the ingredients are NOT vegetables, but the majority of them (68%) fruits, surely a more appropriate name would be Fruit Soup.

Your website states “Heinz policy of continuous product improvement may result in a change to the label” and so I thought I’d let you know quite quickly in case you needed to recall everything and reprint the packaging. The last thing you need is some know-it-all getting in touch and pointing this sort of thing out, before you’ve had chance to rectify the issue!!!1!

If you could let me know whether you are recalling all the Mediterranean Vegetable soups, I’ll gather up the ones I have bought and post them back to you for reprinting.

Thanks,

Craig.

From: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
To: Craig
Subject: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****C.

Hi Craig

Thank you for your query we looking into this for you.

Regards

Peter

From: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
To: Craig
Subject: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****D.

Hi Mr Anderson

Thank you for getting in touch.

It would be generally understood by a consumer that soup made with these ingredients would be described as a vegetable soup even though botanically it might be fruit.

We thank you for your comments and have shared this with our soups team.

Regards

Jennie

From: Craig A
To: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
Subject: Re: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****D.

Hi again.

I do like your use of the word “botanically.” You are, of course, correct; the assumption with the general public is that a soup containing these ingredients may well be seen as a Vegetable Soup. But ALL companies make a variation of “Vegetable Soup.” If you follow my suggestion, you COULD be the first to make “Fruit Soup.”

With such a bold step you could become known as the soup mavericks, continuing to lead the market but in an exciting and new way! You’re already the market leaders, but adopting this new outlook and product name could further extend your lead!

I’ve even thought up a tagline that you could use for advertising purposes, if you were to adopt the idea:

“Heinz Fruit Soup – The same as Vegetable soup, but botanically correct.”

(Having read that back a few times, it actually isn’t that catchy is it? Sorry.)

I think you are the first company I have emailed who have a Soups Team. Are there many in the Soups Team? Would you mind passing on my thanks to them all for being involved in the discussion. I know they’re all probably busy making or designing soup, but it might make their day a little more cheery if you could pass on my thanks to them.

Finally, are the Soups Team working on anything top secret at the moment? They couldn’t give me a sneaky peek at any upcoming projects, could they? I promise I won’t tell anyone!

Thanks in advance,

Craig.

From: Heinz Consumer Care UK and ROI
To: Craig
Subject: Communication from H. J. Heinz 00151****E.

Dear Mr Anderson

Thank you for getting in touch with us about our HJ Heinz Products.

We have shared your thoughts with our Research, Packaging and Design team.

We always appreciate feedback so thank you again for letting us know your views.

Derek Smythe

I could tell they were bored of me, and so I decided to stop emailing before I became too annoying. I hope that was ok, Kerry…