MONTY PYTHON might have made spam funny in 1970, but by the time the word acquired its new meaning it was no laughing matter. Spam is less of a nuisance today, thanks to better filters. In some ways it is even funny again. The statistics reveal some Pythonesque absurdities – spam selling anti-spam software, for instance. Don’t be tempted to buy it, though, even if spam drives you mad: it takes just a handful of purchases for the spammers to turn a profit (see “Spam, spam, and more spam”). The best defence is to laugh in its face.
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