Wednesday 29^th November 2006

So: e-mail autoresponders. You’ve seen the things: your friend/tutor/co-worker is on holiday or somesuch, you send them a vital and time-critical e-mail, they respond immediately—wow, that was fast!!—but instead of the problem being all sorted out, you get some slightly smug message telling you that they’re off somewhere having a good time while you’re stuck in your room/library/office with whatever problem you had before and no-one to help.

But there is a more tasteless application: why not set an e-mail autoresponder to reply to messages when you die?

Re: your message

Unfortunately, I've died, so I'll probably have restricted access to e-mail for a while!

If you wish to communicate with me, you might be best advised to explore some of the more speculative aspects of philosophy or theology.

Thanks for your message!

PS Wish you were here!

The perfect way of gently breaking the news of your passing away to all your regular e-mail correspondents.

It might even get picked up by some spammers eagerly awaiting a response to one of their many penis enlarging or phishing offers and there’s always the chance that such poignancy would show them the error of their ways. Hunched over his e-mail server, a little tear would come to our con-man’s eye (just opposite the glint brought about by the prospect of all that money hard-won scamming idiots) and for a moment, just a moment, he would see that life isn’t all about theft and deception, go outside, pick a daisy from the grass and skip gaily down to the Job Centre where he might start again in a fresh profession cleaning toilets at a Viagra factory.

And before you ask: yes, pre-recording a message for your answerphone for use from beyond the grave is too much.

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