Before we get started, let me illuminate you about the title, or the first part of it at least. I have capitalised the letters GOB because they stand for something. I have recently come to realise that I have finally achieved the status of Grumpy Old Bloke (I could have been a Grumpy Old Man, but GOM-Smacked doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Now that I have achieved the illustrious heights of GOBdom, it becomes clear to me that I have been in training for this position for some time. To qualify as a GOB it is important that you have undergone adversities in life - neither of my parents was a millionaire, so I've reached the first rung of the ladder already.

A true GOB will also have attained a ripe old age without ever making either a fortune or a name for himself. I'm in on both counts. In fact, the quintessential GOB not only has a strong feeling that the world owes him something, he is also acutely aware that there is not a snowball's chance in Hell of the world ever opening its capacious wallet and paying up.

A final prerequisite is that a GOB should indeed have a gob; You can't be a real GOB if you sit quietly and just take what the skinflint world throws at you, no matter how miserable you are about it. So, here I go, about to open my gob and let forth a spray on my pet peeve of the day. Be assured it is not the only pet peeve that I have - there's a whole menagerie of the little critters whom you will no doubt get to meet in good time. For today, let's be content to meet The Scammed.

Here he is looking forlornly out of today's Post, Benny Brainless, who has nonchalantly forked out $150,000 to some conman from Nigeria or the Cayman Islands or the Republic of Scammerstan. He didn't do this all at once, you understand. Once our friendly scammer received the first $5,000 and realised just how brainless poor old Benny was, he came back for a second bite, then a third and a fourth until Benny's bank account has bled dry, he's mortgaged his house and borrowed every last cent from his aged and terminally ill mother.

You know this scam, right? You get an email out of nowhere telling you that you've inherited a fortune or won a fortune or (most amazingly of all) somebody just wants to give you a fortune. All you have to do to get your hands on the aforesaid millions is pay a lawyer's bill or bribe an official or settle some trifling documentation; send money at any rate.

Here's where the alarm bell rings for 99.9% of the population - for Benny and the rest of the folk in the Village of the Scammed, however, the sound of the bell is drowned out by the overwhelming clangour of greed - and the rest is history.

I won't bore you with Benny's reasons for allowing his dismal mug to grace my morning paper, thus displaying his idiocy for the world to wonder at. You can guess that he wants to warn others of the unlikelihood that the hidden treasures of Mambo-Jambo have been allocated to them, or that they have won a lottery in which they never even had a ticket.

I guess we're supposed to feel sorry for Benny and his ilk - I have to confess that the combination of stupidity and greed doesn't tug at my heartstrings. In fact, here is where this GOB wants to give Benny and his village brethren a big smack (Aha! now you know the reason for the second part of my title.)

For the love of God, how did Benny ever manage to accumulate $150,000 in the first place?! Turns out he's not actually the village idiot, he's a former teacher. Benny's neighbour in the village is a retired company director who has run a successful business for years. Another Scammed resident is a politician (Ah, okay, no surprise there, either that he's cashed up or clueless). Yet another has a string of investment properties, all of which now belong to the bank he mortgaged them to, so he could line the pockets of the honourable Igotcha Kashmani, son of a disgraced Nigerian chief.

GOB has worked all his life without achieving that sort of wealth, even though it is apparent he has more common sense in the fingernail of his right pinky than resides in the whole population of the Village of the Scammed. C'mon guys, if you want to throw your money away, throw it in my direction; I'll even make up a good story to entertain you for your troubles.