I have new mail - 975,421 of them

I usually don't believe a lot of the rumours about the internet. You know, like downloading certain files gives you a stitch, your computer will actually smell of pork if you visit a certain site or holding down CTL+ALT+R+U+N+S makes you need the toilet.

But some things are undoubtedly true. I still despair of hearing people say 'I only clicked on the button marked DOWNNLOADD UNLIMIMTED MONEY HERRE and it installed a virus that sent pictures of Adrian Chiles to all my email contacts' and once or twice i've had emails from 'YOUR BANK' telling me 'DEAR LOYEL CUSTOMER, WE NEED YOUR ACCOUNT DETAILS' etc.

Frankly, my bank wouldn't have the time to do that, what with sending me personal loan offers and copious marketing material with comedy cartoon characters on them every few days.

But Spam email. Well, that really does happen, and I sure does know it. I used to have a yahoo email address - ah, it was my first hotmail account (goes teary eyed with nostalgia) - and for years I had no problem. Then, back in 2005, I got a few spammy things. Nothing too racy, just video/tv download sign ups, online gaming type things.

And I did the stupid thing. I replied with the subject line "UNSCUBSCRIBE". Oh dear lord know. As schoolboy an error as spelling Sutton Coldfield as Sutton Coalfield in my GCSE Geography exam, and claming it was a place built entirely on coal mining.

As you may know, if you send UNSUBSCRIBE back to these emails then the automated system knows it's found a valid email address and then proceeds to tell all of it's spam soldiers to advance. Within a few weeks I was clearing out 10-15 pieces of spam a week. But then clearly, the spam word got round 'Hey, head over to timolsky@yahoo.co.uk - there's a party going on.

And the spam grew. The messages from the likes of Ellis Casey: Re Pharmyceuticals for you and Bingo Wangrasster Re: iiii have love message, they started to pile in. I couldn't even deleted them in date order as - somehow - the spam started coming from dates like 20 Dec 2983 (really? time travel emails?) It got to the point where I had to leave the account, there were over 100 spam emails, it was doomed. So I set up a new one and left it behind.

Now I'm very careful what I sign up to, and that I never reply to stuff I really don't know about. And a good job, because I went back into my yahoo account today for the first time in 2 years and had 975,421 new messages waiting for me.

Can't wait to reach one million. Maybe I'll buy some cheap watches, discount viagra and whatever Bingo Wangraaster's love is.