Friday, February 27, 2009

Does that make it an 'adverse'?

.

You've heard of 'advertorials', a combination of of advertisement and editorial,
well what you see before you is part advertisement and part poem.
So I guess it is an 'adverse'.


An Expensive Education

The saddest mail I get
Takes the following tack:
“My Dad has lost his super,
Can you help us get it back?”

There’s little I can do
To ease the callers pain;
The money’s in Nigeria
And wont be seen again.

'Super' = superannuation = retirement savings.

The point of this little ditty to to advertise the fact that I have started to put up the correspondence I had with Nigerian conmen in years gone by, in an annotated serial form. The link is in the sidebar. It may be a little lumpy for a couple of days as I play with the format.

There are a number of reasons for me doing this:

1. Pride - I am very proud of the letters - they were great fun, even if they are not in verse. Some were even published as a book; I still have some books and will possibly put a link up on the blog. If anyone knows the best way to sell on-line, let me know.

2. I fear that in the current economic climate more people may be tempted by the allure of easy money and, in the process, lose what little they have left. If I can head that off, so much the better.

3. I cannot keep up the pace of the poems forever and this gives me another string to my bow. I am planning to post the letters in readable chunks, daily. Poems will continue but probably less regularly.

There are ads on the site. I'm sorry about that but needs must. Everything helps.

But this does give an unexpected source amusement as it is not always easy for Google to decide the most appropriate ad to put on a page.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them.
... Print this post

9 comments:

  1. I wrote an article once which happened to have "millionaire" in the title. I got the following comment (it is incredible):

    "hie!i am Farid!i dont know where begin!i have so sad story i need 50000$ for doctor my father ill and we have no any money for it!i cant want any body becaus e i know they dont give there are animal!please i know in world have true people help me!i have no cards or credit cards!if you want help me please send money how much you can pleasse if you know somebodu who can help me say me it my email break_353@live.ru my addresss AZerbaijan baki Y/guneshli ev 6 m 56!i know in this time you cant belive i swear i say tru!please i have no helping!pleasee"

    Hilariously, he then commented immediately after with:

    "sorry it is my email it is farid breaker_353@live.ru "

    and then again with:

    "please help me i dont want so my father die!!!pleaseeeeeeeeee "

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooooh, I can't wait to read them. I'm sure they're fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent - love the adverse, and I'm sure I will love the letters too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I read the book (Dancing With Thieves) and I laughed and laughed and laughed!

    I still read it!
    I even read it to my rabbits!
    They are very amused by it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. ....oh yeah, and it's good to do this, sir, as I've already begun seeing offers for things too good to be believed!
    (and not just from Nigeria, either)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good move, I reckon.
    Just keep the poems coming too.

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  7. Please don't cut back too much on the poems. (a friend loaned me the book. 'twas terrific!)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Cannot keep up the pace of the poems forever? But...but... you are J. Cosmo Newberry! You are the poet's Dalai Lama!

    You. Must. Press. On. (say that in a Capt. James T. Kirk voice)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I will follow you wherever you go -- prose or poetry!

    P.S. It was really really weird to read non-poetry from you. Kind of shocking really but I can get used to it.

    And did you ever read Ted L. Nancy's Letters from A Nut?

    ReplyDelete

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