Oceanfree ran off with my Winning Notification and Via9rA

Its heading into its third day since Oceanfree mysteriously shut up shop. Rumour on the Internet points to a changeover going on, but, like many of the Internet service providers, free email suppliers, dot-com wonderbreads, absolutely no advance warning of a loss of service was issued. So I like everybody else, have to sit it out and await developments. I'm without email. Uncontactable. It's spookily quiet, in fact.

There are, of course, many alternative email options. I have a G-mail account (but can't remember the settings without having to go fish out an old diary. Yes, you've guessed, any password questions would doubtless be forwarded to my non-working email account!), and one can always get the dreaded Hotmail going. But there's a comfortable familiarity about using one's own accounts on one's own computer in Outlook, complete with the never-ending Rules and Blocked Senders lists that grow and grow with every piece of crappy spam that comes in.

How much do you rate the chance that Oceanfree (or their new incarnation) are working furiously at spam blockers as we read this? Maybe that's the cause of the delays? No. I didn't think so either.

Things to fall over on your doormat

There are 170 unread email messages in my inbox this evening; another 135 filtered into Junk Mail, and 106 more in the Deleted Items folder.

By comparsion to this unending deluge of electronic crap, it's almost a relief to fall over five items of real junk mail on the doormat.

Tonight, in no particular order, I have been invited by leaflet drop to:

1) Sell my house with the best agent, for the best price, and with the best deal on fees;

2) Install customised iron gates, security grills on the windows and doors, steel doors or security barriers. I might also like to opt for that iron gate being made automatic.

3) Call a local Chinese restaurant which is offering me four telephone lines to contact them upon and 179 menu items, with Take Out Service and reheatable microwavable containers.

4) Hire a landscape gardener who will weed, plant, fence, flag, wash, or slab my garden. He will also lop, prune, shape, or remove my tree, poison the roots and grind them. And if my hedge feels left out, he'll prune or trim it as well.

5) Get Dancercise in my area. Where I couldn't Cha Cha, Samba, Rhumba, Jive, Salsa, Waltz or Tango, or for that matter Latin line dance, I can look forward to doing all of these and more if I'm so inclined.

So I think I'll select the iron gates, security grills and doors first, then get the garden trimmed, lopped, poisoned and ground down, before I'll put the house up for sale. While I'm waiting for that to go through, I think I'll order a Number 172 and to work it off I'll do a little Waltz to the Dancercise class.

That reminds me. I must get onto the Council again and find out what happened to our request for another waste-paper recycling bin.