Story Archive

Slings and Arrows

Edd Joseph bought a PS3 online, but the gaming console never turned up. He’d paid by bank transfer and couldn’t get his money back. He complained to Gumtree, the British classified ads site where he found the machine, but Gumtree said the bank transfer broke its rules. He complained to police, but they said he had little chance of catching the fraudster. Joseph had the offender’s mobile number, an unlimited texting plan, and an iPhone that lets him copy long documents into the texting screen and send them all at once — as bombardments of short messages, 1,143 of them in the case of Hamlet. He began working on sending the entire works of Shakespeare, some timed to maximize disruption. The fraudster sent him “abusive messages” and then tried calling him, but to no avail. “I’m going to keep doing it,” said Joseph. “If nothing else I’m sharing a little bit of culture with someone who probably doesn’t have much experience of it.” (AC/London Telegraph) ...A tun of treasure hasn’t been so poorly received since Henry V, Act I, Scene 2, text 71.