Posted in Kampala and addressed to "Mrs Linda" at Echo House, it purported to have been sent by Dorothy Nassali (never heard of her – does she even exist?) and began presumptuously:
"Dear parent, Let me use this chance to say hullo to you. I am a young girl now aged 19 years old with two young brothers.

"We were staying with both of our parents but unfortunately they both died of Aids disease which has killed so many people in our village and also in the country.

"Our mother died first after a very long illness at the same time when she was pregnant.

"She died during her delivery in our local maternity centre. The baby also died that same day.

"Our father also died of the same disease after a very short period of three months since the death of our mother. He died in his bed at our home because there was no money to take him to the health centre.

"Before the death of our parents, I was attending a nursing and midwifery school and I was taking a three years course in midwifery and I had already completed my first year."

Now comes the crunch – "Dear parent, I now remain with two years to study. It requires me a total of 1,500 euros per every year.

"The purpose of this letter to you (underlined) is to request you kindly to please assist me with my tuition fees so that I can go back to the training school and I complete my course."

It ended with a further appeal for cash: "I kindly wait to hear good news from you soon, yours faithfully, Dorothy Nassali."

Yours faithfully knows this to be a wicked scam. Enclosed was a photocopied end of year examination results report, dated November 21, 2006 for Dorothy Nassali bearing the letter head of Kawempe School of Nursing & Midwifery with a PO Box number, yahoo email address and the motto "In God We Trust."

How despicable. How wicked and sinful. All orchestrated no doubt by some fat, greasy slime-ball of a man sitting in an office in Spain or somewhere else in Europe, outside of our jurisdiction, waiting for the lolly to come rolling in.

And make no mistake, some poor old person will be conned.
Send 10,000 of these begging letters out in the hope that 500 will fall for the scam, and I can bet my bottom dollar many poor souls will send the £1,000 I was asked for.

They get your name from a mailing list and, once you respond, your name is circulated to more scum of the scams. It's organised robbery.
Like beggars of the past who left a chalk mark on the door post of a person who had helped them, you're a marked person.

Respond to this and you'll be inundated.
Somebody is telling someone to write a hard luck story. How I wish this ring of evil was smashed.

I shared the letter with my friend Denise Robertson, agony aunt for ITV's This Morning, who I know sponsors three Ugandan children through the Christian charity World Vision, which is working steadfastly in that country.

"Put it in the waste bin," said a seething Denise. She was as furious as me.
Contrast that letter with the committed efforts of World Vision, which strives to lift up people like her adopted children Maria and orphaned brothers Fred and Emmanuel Ssemanda, whom I have written about.

Denise met them on her haunting trip to Uganda for This Morning. She told me how she found the boys sitting in a mud hut, little Emmanuel shaking in the heat because he was so hungry and staring at a tomato in a basket.

When Denise asked through the interpreter why Emmanuel couldn't eat the tomato, his big brother said: "That's for tomorrow."

They had nothing and their meal that day had been white ants.
Today Fred and Emmanuel have a house in the village with a toilet after a fantastic and unforgettable money-raising night
I attended at the Pure Bliss salon in Sea Road, where staff and friends gave their unwanted clothes for Denise to auction after salon owner Lisa Seferi heard of the boys' plight.

For Christmas and Easter, Lisa, her clients and their friends bought everything from chickens to goats and medical supplies for the boys' village through World Vision.

The boys go to school and all the village is benefiting from them being sponsored.

That's how World Vision works in an area, using any surplus cash to help others.

"I have had beautiful letters from the boys," says Denise. Maria's dad, thanks to her sponsorship, has now trained as a carpenter and so the good work goes on.

It's worlds removed from the low-life who are lining their pockets with scam letters like the one I received this week.

Paula Cummings, communications officer with World Vision, explained how £18 a month to sponsor a child will help four other people.

Schools, health clinics, wells, school meals, livestock and much, much more is transforming lives thanks to world Vision and good people with the good sense to give only to a reputable charity.

In this Scam Awareness Month with the Office of Fair Trading campaigning to raise awareness of all kinds of scams, I would urge everyone to be constantly on their guard.

The OFT Scambusters Team with partner organisations showed that UK consumers lose £3.5 billion a year to scams every year.
And that's only what they know about.

Don't be a sucker for anyone! For more information from World Vision log on to www.sponsor.org or call 0800 50 10 10.

Truly, madly, deeply in love

I NEVER doubted it that love really is a drug. You don't have to be a professor of psychiatry to know that people when in love do extraordinary things. "Like getting married," quipped one pal. That's the power of love.

And that was the predictable verdict of Raj Persaud Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry, who came up with what is common knowledge when commenting on brain scan research of love-struck people.
The effects of love on the brain are similar to those of cocaine, say a team of researchers.

Romantic love could be an emotion as fundamental as hunger or thirst, according to the brain scans of young men and women who had fallen madly in love, or were lovelorn.

Researcher Arthur Aron, a social psychologist in New York, said: "Dopamine system activation is also related to focussed attention, underpinning the feeling that just one person is at the focus of your world."

Apparently, it's all down to dopamine-rich regions in the brain which "signal satiation of deep needs."
Love is one of the strongest of the basic drives. And if you're on a high, take note.

Helen Fisher, an anthropologist who studied scans of love-struck people, said: "Addictions are very powerful, and cocaine addiction is associated with dopamine systems."
So, if you're a love junkie, now you know why!

* "NOT tonight darling, I'm too tired," is most definitely what the male ladybird is telling rampant females in some sex-crazed colonies where there are 100 females to every male.

The fewer males there are, the more the female demand soars, says a new study.

Researcher Greg Hurst said: "It's amazing that the number of males can get so low and yet the population is still sustainable. You don't need many males to continue the population successfully."
Mmm, there's a point to ponder.

In sickness and in wealth

PRAISE be for the vicar who denounced over-the-top weddings as inappropriate and un-Godly. He suggested hailing a taxi to get you to the church on time instead of a limo, and wearing a secondhand dress.
Extreme, but you get the message.

He, like many more Church of England ministers, must be sickened by the sight of no-expense-spared nuptials.

Is it any wonder that the reason why so many couples are there in the first place is lost in this competitive and obscenely costly show?

It's all about showing off and keeping up with their mates' flash bashes. What an unholy waste of a wedding day.

And will he even recognise her given the average bride will spend £1,063 on looking her gorgeous best for her big day?

According to a recent survey by Youandyourwedding.co.uk, the search for perfection has replaced a simple visit to the hairdressers and a manicure on the day of the wedding with brides-to-be spending up to 18 months dieting, training, and having boob jobs to ensure there isn't a single unflattering photo in the wedding album.

Many a bridegroom must wonder: "Do I know that woman?"