Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Huzzah!

I get to sell-out! I shall retire and... realise that sounds very boring.

Oh, what do you mean Mr E. Insurance is only offering me a one off payment of £30? But they offered the Muppets man £40 and I've been going longer than him.

Corporate whoredom isn't exactly lucrative, is it? Maybe I should start telling all the tales of Endsleigh inflicted woe I know, and set up this site as a gathering point for all the infuriated students (Endsleigh seem to perceive insurance to be something like a valve for money). I know someone whose job it used to be to target anti-whatever sites and bribe them to close down, so I know some companies do it (and usually defray the cost as Search Engine Optimisation; well, it is, of a sort).

Actually I'm sure I could earn more for bog-standard whoredom (though obviously depends on the bogs; those of Tate Modern Members' Room come highly reccomended* and have the added bonus of coming highly, although there's no windows so you can't tell).

*Ok, so not by me, or anyone I know (that I know of), but there's little chance of putting your elbow through the wall in those caverns, and they are infrequently used, except by those two staff members who were obviously cleaning one room extremely vigourously.

But back to the email, it starts:
I currently work at...

Spot the extraneous word, which by its presence makes it suddenly seem not so extraneous. Why do I end wondering if he's about to get sacked?

It continues:
I am constantly looking at ways to divert traffic through to our websites.

Bad word, that divert. Generate, promote, stimulate, encourage. Divert says zero-sum. Divert says, "we gain, you lose".

And am I really supposed to care if you have spent your entire life devoted to creating webtraffic or whether it's a dull Tuesday, you're bored, and link upping is a diverting whim?

I was wondering if you would be willing to have a static text link to one of our sites from your page...
Were you? Really? How very interesting. What else do you wonder about? I suppose I should be glad that he didn't "I am just writing to say...".

Unnecessary redundancy which serves no purpose is both fairly pointless and mildly annoying, thus, slightly hypocritically**, I abhor it. And if you're thinking what you should be thinking, I know.

** But it's not like there's any ulterior motive for the blog; the whole thing is pointless, which wasn't the case with the proposition.

We would be willing to pay £30 for this service.
Where's the rest of that sentence? We would be willing if you were a baked bean, but as you not, we are not.

Unfortunately I think printing out the offer email, marking it in red pen, scanning it and emailing the image back to him might be just a tad too much effort.

I'd just like to clarify...
I would or I had? It can't be had, so once again why the timidity, why the uncertainty?

And this from the Internet Marketing Coordinator; no mere underling for me. Unless they have someone to coordinate their coordinators.

But having written the above, I now notice:
Information contained in this email is intended for the use of the addressee only, and is confidential and may be the subject of legal professional privilege. Any dissemination, distribution, copying or use of this communication without prior permission of the addressee is strictly prohibited.

Except I would have thought the addressee would be the person to whom the email is addressed, and the first line confirms this (unless they just sent me an email telling it is for the use of the person sending only, in which case that's a novel file storage system they have). The blanket ban on reproduction sounds worrying until I notice that I have to get permission from me first. Ok then. Sorry, that probably should have been at the top of this post.

So not only is it a rather uninspired appeal, but the offer is equally uninspiring. £30 for a link of uncertain duration. How long do they expect the link to exist? Forevermore? Let's say it's for a year. That's a sixth of my road tax. That's a sliver of [currently purple] paper which could be covered by a penny and a tuppence. That's eight pence a day. That's a text message every day and half (guess who's on Orange Pay Through The Nose). So unless they feel like revising by a couple of orders of magnitude, it's not really going to happen.

Yes, ok, I've had bad day and am taking it out on poor misguided fools, but then I also completely discounted what someone said when interviewed on the news because she used "completely" thrice and in all instances purely as an amplifier. I'll now get back to editing something else while wondering if I can find another synonym to lower the repetition rate of "so/thus/hence/therefore/thereby".

Hmm, 'consequently' sounds too convoluted, and I've never really known anyone use 'ergo' and would probably think it a fungus if asked at the wrong time.

And with such scintillating thought, I'd return from whence I came.

Anyhoo,