The server experienced a problem with email deliveries earlier today.
The cause of the problem was a failed internal name server, which in turn caused domain lookups to fail. Not being able to look up destination server IP addresses, emails had nowhere to go.
Initial report 11:00 GMT
A runaway website script has dumped many thousands of emails in the queue. We have stopped the script and are currently working at carefully removing the emails in question. We are doing this very carefully so that we do not inadvertently delete any good emails. Please bear with us; this may take another half an hour or so.
Update 11:20 GMT
We have the mail queue under control again; queued messages are being delivered at the moment. It may take another hour or so for delivery to get back to normal. Please bear with us.
Update 12:25 GMT
Email service is back to normal again. We are still processing messages that were queued earlier today. They should all be delivered in the next 30 minutes or so.
Update 12:45 GMT
Everything is back to normal. We regret the inconvenience caused.