Net Nannies

I’ve been reminded of net nannies (I don't know why, I just have, OK?). While working for Leeds City Council it became clear that some emails were being ‘delayed’ so somebody somewhere could check them out ‘for content’. The net result (top pun there) was that my fellow band members and ‘top mates’ generally would send me emails containing individual specially selected rude words to see what would be allowed. They would then follow this up with messages such as “‘wanker’ got through here no problem, did you get my ‘twat’”? In addition to that, legitimate emails wouldn’t get though because they mentioned ‘sex’ or ‘drugs’ or whatever. Being connected to the Youth Service was always going to be good on that score what with Drug Action Teams and anti teen sex projects and the like - I should say that I meant anti teen-sex and not anti-teen sex projects. I don’t want to imagine what one of those would be.

I ended up composing emails solely for the person whose responsibility it was to check them. I'd ask them who they were and what they thought they were doing, how it was justified and their qualifications for the job. I never got a reply, mind.