However, the remainder of said e-mail was perplexing. "I am writing, on behalf of [FIRM NAME DELETED], requesting for the withdrawal of your postings or possible postings of press releases received on July 6th, 2005 from [FIRM NAME DELETED]," said the cryptic missive.

"Please be aware of and cautious that there are quite a number of details needed to be amended because of the very recent swift change of development and direction upon the entire organization," continued the e-mail, somewhat breathlessly.

Hold on a minute here. As an IT publication, we are accustomed to swift changes of development and direction. As a marcom person working in PR, we assume that the e-mail's author would be similarly accustomed. And there is a procotol to press releases (even in the IT sphere): they are created, checked, then released to the media. If they need to be amended before they are sent then that should have been done-notice the use of the past tense here.

After the onset of hyperventilation, said email surged into full panic mode: "By the time the releases to be printed out, it is doubtful that MAJOR changes would have already taken place. That is the issue and main cause why I am repeating over and over again to request for your withdrawal of print-out, or publication, or uploading on the sites....Please see to the situation and make sure (if any postings already on about [FIRM NAME DELETED]), please pull them down. Thank you for your regards."

Errrh...huh?