To give others a heads up... At 10h45 EDT on 19 Oct the following alert was provided for flat-rate Email users. (Might also provide additional info in relation to the SCBL as well).

SpamCop and others are monitoring a huge global increase in spam volumes that started late last week. Networks are reporting anywhere from 30-50% increases in spam volume. On our system, this is causing occasional mail delays as our filtering systems struggle with the load. We're working on installing more systems in the filters to increase our capacity but this won't be finished for around a week. In the meantime, we may have delays during the middle of the day. We're aware of the problem and doing what we can to mitigate it until all the new systems are operational.

Andrew