I've just made commenting on this blog harder - apologies!

I know, I know - I also hate being asked to fill in word verification forms, but it's the fault of the moronic pond-life vermin scum toss-pot whoresons who infest websites with anonymous and irrelevant pseudo-comments consisting of illiterate gobbleydegook followed by an invitation to visit their websites, where you'll be offered the chance to buy anything from double-glazing and anabolic steroids to premature ejaculation prevention pills and bizarre sex toys.

I wrote about these pests last year (here), when the volume of phoney comments was still relatively small, but I'm now averaging about 70 a day. Google (whose excellent blogging system I use) manages to prevent most of these actually making it through to the website, but I still have to delete them all from my inbox, and I've missed quite a few genuine emails as a result (and anyone trying to comment as "Anonymous" is pretty much stuffed).

I know what a drag this is - I sometimes find it hard to make out the letters myself, but I presume if they were too easy to read, some annoying sod would come up with an add-on to automatically "verify" the words and allow the spammers back in. If I stop receiving any comments as a result of introducing this extra barrier to entry, I'll remove it after a week - because I'd rather be put to a bit of trouble and still receive the comments than  the other way round.

Venceremos!