Stitched up

I had an email from a great guy and friend I used to work with this morning telling me that he'd just bought a copy of Serif Panarama Plus. It's a computer program that helps you stitch photographs together to make seamless wide angle pictures. Not the kind of thing you do everyday but nether the less very useful for those odd occasions.

Here's one I did earlier using Canon PhotoStitch.

Serif, who he bought the program from, is one of those companies that bombard you with flyers and emails offering you some fantastic product which you can't live without for just 99p. The interesting thing though is that the emails are all sent by someone called Natasha Allachina.

Of course she doesn't exist. I asked Serif once about her and they admitted it it was a made up name which kind of spoilt it for me. I'd always imagined this svelte Eastern European goddess; a sort of cross between Anna Kournikova and Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love. I expect they thought that the illusion would lure sad suckers like me into buying.

If you respond by phoning them, they try to smooth talk you into buying a complete package of programs. Stuff that you would never even install let alone use. I notice on their website now, they have some fancy Adobe style pricing e.g. £323.25 for a complete Page Plus package which is a far cry from Natasha's 99p offer.

Once you've contacted them, you're guaranteed a succession of emails and flyers through the door for years to come now. Once Natasha has you in her sights she doesn't let go.

I use Serif's Page Plus desktop publishing program even though I have a copy of Quark XPress. I hope Natasha doesn't find out that my copy of PagePlus is version 9 because the program is now onto version 12 which they neatly call X2 (I wonder which fruit branded company they got that idea from). The fake Russian goddess would be on to me in a flash and I don't think I could resist her offers anymore. I know I would weaken and hand over my card details