Confederacy of a Dunce - Son of Letterbox Spam

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

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A few weeks ago I started keeping the various pieces of junk/advertising that have been shoved through our mail slot (first post here), and now that two more weeks of junk have built up, it's time to see what it looks like again. Last time the mail slot was dominated by restaurants' delivery menus, but in the past two weeks we only received four more menus (three for pizza places [one of which featured kebabs on equal billing], one for miscellaneous Oriental). None of which look remotely good (although I was amused at all the spelling errors on the "Basil Pizza" menu. Fata cheese, read onion and vagetable lasagne indeed. You'd think they'd check the spelling given all the money they're spending on their menus).

This time the most prolific category was in home services. I count the three cards from the same taxi service as three items, therefore giving a total of 11 home service offerings. These included satellite TV, a "local & reliable window cleaner", a company offering to cut our utility bills by a lot, a telephone company, a catalog from a DIY shop, a freight/courier company ("we offer our services very efficiently and courteously that 99% of our customers keep coming back with the same testimony", and "the Quality of our services endears us to ALL." although I am not sure how these are quantified. Their flyer advertises rates to Nigeria, Ghana, and Others on request), and an estate agent who seems to have our street wrapped up. But the big winner in the "selling through fear" sweepstakes is the London Gate Company of Chigwell whose flyer shrieks (not literally, but just about) "WHY WAIT TO BE BURGLED?" (obvious follow-up "...WHEN YOU CAN BE ROBBED STRAIGHT AWAY?").

There were three items of political content (local elections are coming soon). In addition to "The Londoner", a monthly newspaper (20 pages this month) from the beloved Red Ken, Mayor of London, the Conservatives have been out on foot in the neighborhood, (perhaps) vainly trying to shake loose the entrenched Labour council. In a genteel and measured manner, of course ("It's a two-horse race, and Labour is the Donkey!" and so on). I'm sure we'll see more of these in the next month; we'll just have to see who does the most footwork.

Only a few pieces of self-improvement junk post this time. Two were very brightly colored and of a religious nature, advertising the Joyous Hour of Worship at the Redeemed Christian Church of God at the Lord's Sanctuary (opposite Argos Stores). Heavily Nigerian judging from the names (and perhaps the fact that they offer services in Yoruba. On the other hand they also feature Portuguese; I'm not quite sure where that fits in). But the last was an especially good one: a high-quality multi-color flyer from a home learning college. Prominently featuring the phrase I'm looking for when making my educational choices, "AS SEEN ON TV". It also features a statement that all successful students are referred to a (particular) recruitment agency. All I can say is, sign me up!

Score so far: 21 days, 30 pieces of advertising.
Total amount spent by the Dunces based on letterbox advertising: £0.

consume

Tuesday, April 04, 2006 4:19:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)