Dear Friends

As we move closer to the end of another year I wanted to thank you for all the e-mails you have forwarded to me over the past year.

I must send a big thank you to whoever sent me the one about rat shit in the glue on envelopes, because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, I now have to wipe the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it all to a sick girl who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. But that will change once I receive the £15,000 that Bill Gates and Microsoft are sending me for participating in their special email programs. Or from the senior bank clerk in Nigeria who wants me to split seven million dollars with me for pretending to be a long lost relative of a customer who died intestate.

And I need no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me. I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward emails to seven friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I no longer drink Coca-Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy petrol without taking a friend along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm filling up.

I no longer go to shopping centres because someone will drug me with a food sample and rob me.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number and then I'll get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan.

I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my bum.

I can't even pick up the five quid I found dropped in the car park because it was probably put there by a crazed axe murderer waiting under my car to grab my leg.

If you don't send this email to at least 144,000 people in the next 10 minutes, a large pelican with an acute case of diarrhoea will shit on your head and fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a most unsightly hairy hump. I know this because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour's ex-mother-in- law's second husband's cousin's plumber - and it was on Good Morning Australia.

By the way.... did you know that a South American scientist has, after a lengthy study, discovered that people with low IQs who don't have enough sex, always read their emails while holding the mouse. Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

Regards, Your friend