Freemail

Email is fantastic, of that I have no doubt.  Alas, though, its users are not always fantastic.

It is said that the best things in life are free, but email, which often is free, well, setting up an account generally is, is showing some humans for what they really are: dumb animals, because they are ruining something which should be of great benefit to humanity.  And yes, I’m about to go on about one of my pet hates, spam, which, more often than not seems to originate from addresses which are linked to free email providers: read hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail et al.  It really is, alas, far too easy to set up a freemail account, and, again, alas, this means that these accounts are abused to hell and back, and then some.

This aspect of the Internet should be known as the ‘World Wild Web’, for that is what it has become.

What’s to be done about this spamful situation?  Now, that is a very good question, but something does need to be done and everybody needs to be involved.  Web junk mail is just getting out of hand.  So, how about registered email addresses?  These addresses could only be had only after subjecting applicants to a detailed proof of identity process, something which spammers just would not have the time or the will to go through.  Or perhaps we could all be issued with 3 or 4 personalised digital signatures which can be related to our tax numbers or birth certificate numbers.  Or maybe the number of email addresses that any one person or company can hold could be tied to a database of passport or tax numbers.  You would be able to extend the number of addresses, but only by following a validation process, which should in itself put off abusers.   The number of emails that can be sent from any one address needs to be strictly limited, unless the sender has a legitimately registered address which is linked to a real organisation.

As an example of just how ‘unregistered’ email addresses are, I know that two of my main email addresses are already ‘in the wild’ and I’ve been getting tons of reverse fee fraud mails recently.  I’m pretty sure I’m not alone, and I’m doubly sure that everyone is getting pretty annoyed about this ridiculous situation, so people must be open to ways of ’securing’ email addresses.  It really is too easy to set up an email account, and it is frighteningly easy to set up an email address that looks as though it has come from someone else.  This, again, is just plain daft.

Something needs to be done, and it needs to be done soon.

Italian food

To round off the weekend, we ended up at a local restaurant this Sunday evening. The place, called Il Quadrifoglio (four-leaf clover), is located merely a stone’s throw away from our place and it does do some nice stuff. This time round we had a rather scrumptious plate of salmon with tagliatelle, scamorza cheese and weeny tiny octopuses. We washed this down with a nice white wine and followed it up, well, my son and I, with a very good fruits of the forest cream dessert. And coffee, of course. Then we came back home and I finished off yet another translation I’d been doing.

Yep, once again, I found myself working on a Sunday. Tough, isn’t it? Well, sort of. When you work for yourself, you never really work ‘regular’ hours. I guess that is just one of the prices you pay for ‘freedom’.

Oh, and it’s baking hot here in Milan. No wonder most of the city’s inhabitants have fled for their summer breaks.

Blair’s other legacy

Many would have you believe that post-Blair Britain is a fabulous place. Many people have more money than they know what to do with and everything is hunky dory. Only, this is not necessarily true for 100% of the population, at least not according to the story which one of my students told me after a recent visit to London.

I was a little surprised to learn from him that there is an apparently sizeable group of people who are really struggling to make ends meet, or at least that was what he was told by a Londoner he met. Soaring property prices and low salary levels seem are probably the culprit, I suspect.

I decided to check this out, so I hunted around a UK job search website and looked at a couple of estate agents sites.

With regard to jobs, I discovered from taking a look at the some admin jobs advertised in Bristol, a moderately wealthy southern UK city, that salaries of around £13,000 and £14,000 are still quite commonplace. This means that a couple earning around £28,000 would just about be able to afford a mortgage on a one bed property costing £98,000 – which is just about the lowest price you will find on the market in that area.

Such low salary levels mean that what my Italian friend told me is quite possibly true – there are plenty of people who are struggling to make ends meet. How many, I don’t know, but probably more than I would expect.

Did Blair benefit everyone in the UK? Good question. Answers on a postcard, or comment please.

A small update: This article in on the Guardian website seems to indicate that even graduates are finding living in the UK something of a struggle.

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