Spam, spam, spam, spam. The Monty Python team would have turned in their collective grave. One week on and I am still being bombarded with the stuff. We all are.

Not the greasy spiced meat I used to get in my school satchel between two doorsteps of sliced bread. I'm talking about the unsolicited emails that were outlawed last week - yet we are still being deluged with the irrelevant, commercial, seedy, titillating and often downright disgusting messages.

Recently I've received online invitations to plump up my lips or pep up my sex life with viagra from America (no prescription required) to make me "twice the man" I am. Another spam email says I can lose six stones "immediately" (which would make me half the man I am).

Take my wife, Sonia (please). She is sick of the daily messages she receives from the Penis Enlargement Clinic. I mean, she has 'Sonia' in her email address, so how could she possibly be confused with a man needing penis enlargement? Or are they just trying to give her ideas? Weird that, because I - not she - receive the email offers to enhance my breasts with a new super suction device.

How the enlargement clinic advert managed to get through her company's strict automatic censor beats me. It is so discerning, she once tried to email a picture of her boss in a press release to dozens of newspapers. The electronic censor scanned the picture, saw too much bare flesh on his bald head and decided it was pornographic!

Spam is a modern plague. My old dictionary describes it as a tinned meat product made mainly from spiced ham. My new book of words says spam is: "To post irrelevant or inappropriate messages to one or more Usenet or mailing lists, or other messaging system in deliberate or accidental violation of Internet etiquette."

There's nothing accidental about some of the emails which land on my work computer. Especially the one from a Thai husband wanting to share intimate photographs of his wife's love life. Trouble is, in a big, open plan office, you unknowingly open up these messages and the lurid pictures jump out on to the 17-inch monitor in full view of all those innocent young female colleagues. You blush and imagine them muttering "pervert" just out of earshot, convinced you have actually ordered the material.

Today is a good example. After a day off, I return to work and find 47 emails waiting to be opened. More than half are spam, offering me "cool toys for boys of all ages", or a not-to-be-missed chance to eliminate my debts for up to 70 per cent of what I originally owed. Many were spam emails from former York councillor Nick Blitz on holiday in Australia, who delights in telling us what he had for lunch on the 12th of the month. And buried somewhere in there was a time-sensitive email from my boss which I nearly missed.

Spam has also been made illegal in America where one state is offering 20-year jail sentences for offenders. One chap has already been arrested and state police are in negotiations for the surrender of his accomplice. Public Enemy No 1, obviously.

It's hard to imagine that email had never even been dreamed of when Monty Python were singing about spam. Now, though, electronic mail is a lifeline, a pastime, and a nuisance.

The problem is, it's far too easy to fire off an email instead of a letter, especially in anger or intoxication.

You can sit at your computer any time of day or night, you may be fuming about something, and you get it all off your chest and on to your keyboard. All you have to do is press the "send" button and off it goes, arriving at its destination in seconds, no calling it back.

With a letter, you have to compose the message on paper, put it in an envelope, buy a stamp and take it to the postbox. Lots of time to have second thoughts. You can even set fire to the postbox or mug the postman if you decide later you should not have written to your boss/in-laws/lover telling them what you really think of him/them/her. Only kidding...

One moment, please, I have an incoming email. Ah, it's from the Innovations catalogue people. Look at this, a prescription magnifying car windscreen, "Throw away your driving glasses, the Prescription Windscreen has arrived." And this one, the amazing Smoke Mask, "Stay in your burning home or office for up to 60 minutes longer with this innovative protective hood."

You see, email does have advantages.

Updated: 12:26 Tuesday, December 16, 2003