I mean it. If you don't continue to read this post right to the end without missing a single word, something really awful will Happen to you. Within 5 days of skipping this post you'll start scratching your backside and no amount of worm powders will cure it. Your life will be spent squeezing your buttocks together in some vain hope that the itch might just be relieved. But it won't.

So I dare you to try it. Go on... skip to the end and see what happens. You're not superstitious are you? You don't care whether you'll have a lifetime of good luck if you guide at least 5 visitors to this post, and a guaranteed lottery win of at least £50,000 if you bump that up to at least 10 visitors, do you? No, of course not. Because you don’t believe any of that baloney, do you?

For the umpteenth time this year I've received one of those "Send this mail to 10 people within an hour and blah blah blah but break the chain and your grandmother will wet the bed tonight whilst wearing her best wynciette nightie" type emails, and they're all from the same person.

I keep telling her that although some of them contain sweet messages like "25 reasons why men should be eradicated from the planet", I'd rather not receive them. Why? Because I'm bloody superstitious, that's why. And if you admit it, so are you. Because if you weren't, you'd have skipped all this and gone straight to the bottom, just to prove to yourself that you don't give a monkey's armpit about potential embarrassing itches or £50,000. Wouldn't you? Eh?

I don't like to see myself as a superstitious person - in fact if people ask, I always say I'm not, but if the truth be known, whenever I get to the end of a humorous email only to discover that my toe-nails are going to rot if I don't forward it to at least 10 people, a nasty shiver goes up my spine. I mean, what if it really does happen? How can you be sure it isn't possible? Strange things are happening all the time after all, and if anybody can bring themselves to have an affair with John Prescott, then surely there must be people out there who are able to send curses via email?

Please... if you're ever considering sending me one of those emails, stop a moment and consider just what kind of dreadful situation you're putting me in. I don't know 10 people I can send the damned thing to so you're dooming me to a life of pus-filled spots, constipation, unpaid bills and loneliness. Do you really hate me that much?

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Chain Mail