Pet-ty

Some people believe their cats are psychic.  For example, if their cat gets shut in a shed, they believe that the cat projects mental images, telling their owners where they are.

I am not sure about this.  As an atheist / general sceptic about anything that science can't prove, I'm generally unwilling to abandon my logical decision-making process for the sake of telepathic felines.

However.  And I resent this "however".  Monty Cat knows something.  I'm not sure how, but he knows.

I am currently trying to clear out the wardrobe in our guest bedroom.  This is for several reasons:

• Ostensibly I want a digital piano.  The piano needs to go where the wardrobe currently is
• The wardrobe is hideous.  Hideous, hideous, hideous.  TheBloke (TM) bought it when he first moved into my flat in Bethnal Green, and it was too early in our relationship for me to say, "Yeah, that thing you just had delivered... from Argos?  Get rid of it."  Four years down the line, I think it's time to own up.  I hate it and it doesn't even shut properly.  Hate hate hate.

So, in order to get rid of the wardrobe, we have to get rid of all the crap in it.  I say "we", but if I'm honest, 89.6% of said crap is all mine.

This includes:

• Unwanted Christmas presents
• Pretty shoes that hurt my feet and so are never worn
• Cosmetics I either bought on sale or never used, or unwanted Christmas presents (see point 1)
• Ball dresses - I cannot remember the last time I went to a ball - or when I'm likely to go to a ball in the future
• Size 6 clothes that haven't fitted me for a very long while, and never, ever will again.  This is OK (the size thing), but the clothes are still pretty.

So it's up to me to declutter.  And much of it is saleable, so I decided to eBay it.  I carefully laid out all of my items, which are obviously advertised as from a smoke-free, pet-free home.  I figure 50% correct is fine, and it's not as if Monty Cat pisses all over my clothes.  Well, not every day.

As I went up to our guest room to get the next item for its photo shoot, I noticed a big, fat, ginger Monty Cat carefully stretched out along the full length of my Calvin Klein suit.  I swear he did a wiggly roll as I tried to scoop him out of the way.  HE KNEW.  He KNEW that was the next item I was photographing.  Until I got the camera out, he was peacefully curled up, fast asleep underneath the dressing table, out of harm's way.

I'm not sure I can advertise these as pet free.  Perhaps, "entirely made from natural (cat-based) fibres" would be more accurate.

Wired

"A couple of days of annual leave, sandwiching the weekend will be just the very thing," I thought.  "It will be splendid.  I shall have lie-ins a-plenty, I shall finally crack on with all that admin I've been ignoring, and I might even manage to pay a visit to Mr and Mrs Nunn."

And lo, it was so.  Up the M1 I toddled (to be fair, I'm not sure "toddled" is the right verb, but Mrs Nunn might be reading, so let's pretend I was driving at 64 mph all the way up the motorway).

And of course, Plogs pretty much wrote themselves whilst I was there.

"I was right," proclaimed Mrs Nunn.

"Sorry?"

"I was right," she asserted.  "Wi-fi does cure blindness."

This threw me.  I had been unaware that she was either a) an eye-surgeon or b) blind, let alone the more baffling questions of... actually I can barely articulate the tens of different questions that were buzzing round my head.

I thought I'd start with the obvious.  "How does wi-fi cure blindness?" I asked.

"I don't know, I'm not a doctor!" she replied, thus answering my point a) above.  But she continued, "The important thing is that scientists agree with me and wi-fi has been proven to improve people with eye conditions.  Do you remember at Christmas.."

She then launched into an anecdote about how my 88 year-old grandma beat us all at table tennis on the XBox Kinect several times over, despite having eye problems.  I was still unsure of the connection - unless doctors were now claiming that the very fact she'd visited my parents' house, with its fancy wi-fi had produced some miracle cure.

"She was saying her vision was better when she got home.  I knew it was the wi-fi."

Interesting.  I had to do some Sherlocking here.

"Mum," I asked, "do you definitely mean wi-fi?"

"Yes," she said.  "That table tennis game."

"You don't mean that Nintendo Wii has been proved to help hand-eye co-ordination, do you?"

"Yes!"

"OK.  We brought up an X-Box, not a Wii, but both of those things are different to wi-fi."

"Wii, wi-fi... what's the difference?"

I then teased her for a good five minutes, imagining all the wi-fi internets jumping into my eyes to cure them.

I'm not welcome back just yet.

Cat nap

Crikey, I have been an absent Plogger.  Must try harder.

So what's been keeping me so busy?  Well, if I'm totally, utterly honest, mostly afternoon naps.  You see, the temperature hasn't risen above freezing for about two weeks, and essentially, when this happens, my body goes into survival mode.  Here are the necessary ingredients for survival mode:

• Central heating turned up to the maximum setting
• Compulsory Slanket to be worn at all times
• Stash of chocolate to be no further than 6 inches from my face
• TV remote in graspy little hand
• Kindle at arm's reach
• Ideally, a purry Monty Cat to use as a pillow / hot water bottle.

Of course, I've had to drag myself away from the sofa FIVE horrid times this week, in order to go to work.  At work, the maximum temperature setting is 23 degrees, which kind of sounds OK (in Celcius), but when you're sitting on your arse all day, it gets pretty nippy pretty quickly.  And unfortunately for me, the financial sector is still very much "suited and booted" and less (more's the pity) Slanket attire.  And according to my most recent written warning, they're not a fan of the afternoon nap either.  Meanies.  One day, when I'm in charge, things will change.

I've always been very much a "get up and go" kind of person.  Not since I was a teenager have I enjoyed a long lie in at weekends, and I'm usually up and about by 8.30 a.m. on a Sunday.  Well, that I can cheerfully report is very much still the case.  What has changed however, is the fact that I'm now fast asleep by 9.30 p.m. on the Saturday night.  And by 2 p.m. I'm due an afternoon nap.  Or two.

Usually by February the weather is getting better and you're seeing the first cherry blossom buds, or tentative snowdrops peeking their little heads above the damp soil.  This year we've got a couple of inches of snow that JUST WON'T FUCK OFF.  And so I am boycotting the world until it's gone.

Wake me up when it's spring.

Career girl

I was never one of those people who always knew exactly what they wanted to be when they grew up.  My list of chosen careers morphed throughout the years (ooh, that rhymes!  I should have been a poet!).

It went something like this:

- Age 11 - Psychiatrist.  Swiftly kiboshed when i realised you needed to be a medical doctor first.  This in itself wasn't so bad, until at the age of 13 I realised I well and truly couldn't do chemistry.

- Age 13 - Lawyer.  Wasn't really sure why.  At this age, I think I was only aware of three careers - doctor, lawyer, teacher.  It seemed the best of a bad bunch.

- Age 14 - Actor.  Got the chance to play Anne Frank in a 45 minute school play, and it rather went to my head.  For about two weeks.

- Age 15 - Teacher.  Mr and Mrs Nunn (also teachers), threatened to disown me if I took this route.  This made it infinitely more appealing.  It was also around this time when I watched Dead Poets' Society.

- Age 16 - Psychologist.  Back to psychiatrist, but without the pesky medical degree.

Anyway, my school, being the pushy exam-factory hothouse centre of academic excellence, made us all see careers advisors in our GCSE year, when we were about 16.  Some of my friends' parents paid for them to have pricey aptitude / career tests where a computer programme told them what their ideal career was.  I was really, really jealous of this (I loved anything computer-based, because I was am a massive geek), until the results came out.  One of my friends who was literally almost blind without her glasses was told that her top choice should be "Airline Pilot".  At which point I realised it was all guff.

Anyway, off to the careers advisor I toddled, for my 30 minute interview.

It started well.  He asked me my favourite subject (English).  He asked me what I was taking for A-levels (English, French and History).  He asked me what I wanted to be.  I said I didn't really know, and may have questioned whether that might have been his job to come up with suggestions.  He looked thoughtful.  He ummed.  He aaahed.

He looked at his feet.  Finally he spoke.  "Have you ever considered becoming... a careers advisor?"

This seemed a coincidence.  But I put it out of my mind.  Until a schoolfriend came out of his office an hour later.  This particular friend had wanted to be a doctor all of her life.  She was gifted at science and was well on the path to her medical degree.  It was likely to be a short interview she had with him.

"That was rubbish.  He told me I should be a careers advisor."

Worst careers advisor ever.  Only knew one job.  His own.  I could have done a better job than that.  I could have been a better careers advisor.  Oh.  Hang on a minute...

Brush with disaster

I have been a slack Plogger.  Apologies.  We have been experiencing the joy of having a new kitchen fitted.  This was a task that was supposed to take two days, but actually took about a week, and involved a kitchen fitter who "didn't like" following the plan we'd carefully agreed on, and decided to fit the sink where he thought it looked best.  It was joyous.

Last weekend was lovely.  My university friends came to visit en masse (to help us test out our new kitchen).  TheBloke (TM) and I had a good clear up of the house before they came over.

"TheBloke (TM)?" I called out.

"Yes," he said.

"Why have you left a paintbrush in the middle of our lawn?"

"I haven't," he asserted.  This was clearly a lie.  Because there was a big old paintbrush in the middle of our lawn.  I decided I'd go back to worrying about why the sink was in the wrong place.

A day later we heard a loud thunk.  "What was that?" TheBloke (TM) wondered, as the cat thundered through his cat flap.

We didn't have to wait long to find out.  We are clearly the owners of the most stupid cat in the world.  Despite never yet having killed anything larger than a small spider (and if we're being truly honest about that one spider incident - he stepped on it accidentally and then looked as mortified as a big ginger kitten can), he appears to think he's Paintbrush Hunter Supreme.

Not only had he gone in to a neighbour's garden to steal the paintbrush (indeed, the paintbrush wasn't ours), but had managed to jump up onto a fence, jump up from the fence to our conservatory, and then through the upstairs window, all carrying a paintbrush.  Which he then proudly deposited at TheBloke (TM)'s feet.  And this is a big old paintbrush.

Idiot cat.  He's clearly hinting that the new kitchen could do with some redecoration.

Writer's block(ed sink)

As a reasonably long-time blogger, I'll admit there are occasions when it's difficult to find a topic to write about.  There might be really funny stories from work that I'd like to tell you about, but it would be inappropriate to do so (I recently had to complete some mandatory e-learning on "Social Networks", so I'm not allowed to tell you anything about my job at all.  I work for MI5.  I'm a spy.  Bwah ha ha.).  Perhaps there's something fascinating in my personal life, or that of a friend, but because they might read the Plog, I can't divulge all.

So sometimes, in order to generate material for you, my dear reader, I have to do one of two things:

1. Visit Mr and Mrs Nunn - this provides me with endless anecdotes with which to amuse you.  However they are often so ridiculous, most people refuse to accept their veracity.  Which is unfair, because anyone who's met my parents knows they are unconditionally crazy.
2. Have a kitchen installed.  Last time this happened, the kitchen fitter ate all my chocolates (whilst replacing the ribbons to make it look like it was a full box of chocs), disappeared for a month and stole my iPod.  Whilst I'm hoping for nothing quite so calamitous this time, I am still hopeful it will provide me with an anecdote or to, with which to regale you.  The kitchen is about 75% complete so far (with the sink already fitted in the wrong place), so there's good scope.

You will be delighted to know that in addition to having a kitchen fitted, I am also meeting Mrs Nunn for lunch. Surely this should spawn a bumper crop of Plogs?  Watch this space.

Financial support

I am regularly berated for working in the financial sector.  The press hasn't been kind to bankers over the last few years, and whilst my job (designing and delivering training) is about as far away from understanding the ins and outs of hedge funds as possible, I can't deny that the training I deliver is indeed for a bank.

No-one enjoys winding me up about this more than my brother, Jack.  Jack also works in Learning and Development, but works in the charity sector for a cancer charity.  TheBloke (TM) is an accountant, but he too works for a charity - focused on homelessness.  Between them, they enjoy making pointed comments to me about the "evil financial sector", and how I'm a leech on society.

Until I found the foolproof argument.

"So," I said to TheBloke (TM).  "You work for a charity, right?"

"Yes," said TheBloke (TM).  "Because I am altruistic* and essentially better than you."

"And charities are funded how?"

"Mostly donations," he said, "and sometimes government funding."

"Interesting," I said.  "And do they pay you a salary?"

"You know they do," TheBloke (TM) said, narrowing his eyes and raising his ridiculous ginger eyebrows as he knew I was up to something.

"So are you actually taking money from a charity each month?  Depleting the charity of funds that would otherwise have tackled homelessness?"

"Well," stuttered TheBloke (TM), "they need accountants..."

"Answer the question, bitch!" I shouted.  "Do you or don't you take money from a charity each month?"

"Well, yes," he admitted.

"OK," I said.  "So we've ascertained you take money from a charity each month.  Good.  And this charity aims to prevent homelessness?"

"Yes," he replied.

"So essentially, its aim is to eliminate homelessness?"

"Yes - ultimately."

"So if the charity succeeds in its aims, you'd actually be out of a job?"

TheBloke (TM) looked a bit perplexed.  "Well, erm..."

"So," I said, "you're essentially hoping that homelessness continues - in order to support you.  You're actively working to ensure homelessness continues.  Sicko.  Plus every holiday you take is effectively prising a meal out of a homeless person's mouth.  Even as we speak, some homeless guy in Scotland's dog is going without dinner tonight because you chose to do overtime last week.  I hope you're proud of yourself."

TheBloke (TM) wept quietly in the corner.  I turned my attention to Jack, "And you," I said.  "You're essentially banking your career on the fact that they won't ever cure cancer.  Nice.  And you have the audacity to call bankers evil?"

I finished with, "So both of you have no qualms in taking money from charities each month and secretly hoping that you never solve the issue that you receive funding for.  Sick."

Some days I think I'm wasted in Learning and Development.  I should have been a lawyer.

* He didn't actually say this.  His vocabulary isn't that big.

Kindling desire

As a proud Kindle owner for over a year now, I'll admit it's a full twelve months since I've picked up a paper copy of a book.

"Oh," but I hear you say, "I like having a physical book."  I thought I would too, until I realised I can read the Kindle one-handed, hanging off a rail on the tube.  "Oh," you might continue, "but I like to keep all my books.  I have them arranged in alphabetical / chronological / colour of the cover* order."

Well bully for you.  You either have a much bigger house than I do, or you're a much slower reader.  With two hours spent per day on London's Sewage System (London Underground), I average 2.5 novels per week.  If I kept every book I'd read, I'd need to live in an aircraft hanger.  I did consider this for a while, but I'm always cold, so it turned out the energy bills would probably be prohibitive.

"I like to lend my books to people when I've read them," you might finish with,as your final Kindle argument.  And you've got me there, because that is the one down-side of a Kindle.  You can't zip your book across to someone when you've finished it.  Nor can you take it to the charity shop or sell it on eBay.  But for me, at least, these are minor niggles in the overall awesomeness of the Kindle.

As TheBloke (TM) has a Kindle too, we're going to clear out our bookshelf soon and be honest with ourselves about which paperbacks we're actually going to read again in non-digital form.  I suspect most of them may go bye-byes.  Even those books we love, and we may read again one day (in which I include in my favourites: The God of Small Things, Lolita, Rebecca, and in which no doubt TheBloke (TM) will include The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy plus anything with tits, dragons or lesbians), honestly, I don't need it to be the exact same copy I was holding in my hands in 1998, 2002 or 2005 respectively.

Honestly, as a grown-up, I very, very rarely re-read anything anyway.  Which is odd, because as a child, I think I re-read old favourites more than I read new books.  I remember reading Enid Blyton's Malory Towers series literally dozens of times.  Not to mention her Naughtiest Girl series (lovingly collected from various jumble sales, several pages missing with "10p" invariably written in pencil on the inside cover).  Even as a teenager, Judy Blume books would be read and re-read (I never said I was precocious in my literary tastes!).

As an adult - I have probably only re-read maybe six or seven books.  The three already mentioned, probably Pride and Prejudice, and then a handful of stuff that my book club wanted to read and I'd already read - but not recently enough for me to be able to recall it with enough clarity for book club.  Hence the fact I had to read sodding Wuthering Heights twice.  I'm still angry about that.

My parents' house was always stuffed to the rafters (literally) with books.  I'm wondering - despite being an incessant reader, will one day our house be entirely bereft of physical, paper books?  Does it matter?  Will books - ironically - become kindling?

Anyway, from re-reading, back to re-watching; the 1990s Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice.  Nostalgia at its best.

*I know someone who does this.  Everybody wave to Nice Kate.

Christmas pudding

I find that in life, people are generally divided into two categories: those who love Christmas, and women.

Men fah la la all over the place, and talk about how lovely it is to get the family back together.  Women have to choose tree decorations for a China-produced hunk of green plastic, send Christmas cards to people they don't really like, or even know (apologies to all those who received a Christmas card from me), and choose presents for an ever-expanding list of acquaintances and their offspring.  Oh, and hold down a full-time job, and in many cases, very often do the bulk of the childcare.  Joy to the world.

Well, fair dos to Mr Nunn, who does indeed do most of the cooking, chez Nunn, but all the same, the Nunn family is firmly split down the gender divide with those who love Christmas (Mr Nunn and Master Nunn) and those who hate it (Mrs Nunn and yours truly).

Of course it's lovely to see the family again... for about twenty-five minutes, before you revert to the behaviours displayed when you were 14.  And then of course, the shops before Christmas are rammed and no-one in their right mind would go for a poddle.  And everything's shut on Christmas Day.  The weather's usually shocking and no-one can face the often mooted, and seldom carried out "going for a walk".  Before you know it, you've spent 72 hours trapped in a house with six other people, feeling a bit like Anne Frank, only with more turkey and fewer Nazis.  By the end of it, you've probably developed Stockholm Syndrome.

However, a new Nunn family tradition was started this year - one which I hope will go on indefinitely.  Someone, and I'm not saying who, brought along some rather special brownies, which made the day a lot funnier than it would otherwise have been.  You've seen nothing until you've seen your pensioner parents off their faces, giggling at the TV remote.

Of course the side effect was that time slowed down and the day seemed to last even longer than usual.  You win some, you lose some.

Mulled whine

Over the last year or so, I've somehow found myself enjoying cooking.  Oh yes, of course the mid-week meal when you don't get in until 8 p.m. can still be something of a slog, but I've found myself in my spare time at weekends scouring the web for recipes, loving my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, and being amazed that actually, I can produce something that tastes half-decent.  Who knew that having the right ingredients in the right quantities was so important?

So today, I made some Christmassy cookies, then noticed I had two-thirds of a bottle of red wine left over from a stew I made last week.  "Mulled wine!" I thought, fishing out a mulled wine kit that's been sitting in my cupboard for a few weeks  "That will go perfectly with my super-Christmassy cookies.  I am SO Martha Stewart / Nigella / Lorraine Pascale."  (I didn't want to be Delia.  Perhaps it's the haircut.)

"Aha," I thought.  "I shall use my slow cooker for this."  I bought quite an expensive slow cooker about a year ago.  It's one of those fancy ones that has about ninety different functions and promises it can bake you a cake whilst making your soup.  Basically, I'm desperate to use it at pretty much any opportunity.

"A mulled wine kit," you might ask.  "Surely you can make your own mulled wine from scratch?"  Well, you know what, I probably could.  But what kind of person, I ask you, has star anise just sitting in their pantry?  Not me.  I thought I was doing well with home-made vanilla sugar.

The cookies turned out well.  The wine... well, it looks like the lowest setting on my slow cooker is a teeny bit powerful for mulled wine.  After twenty minutes it turned out I'd made a red wine reduction with the consistency of treacle.  Two sips of it gave me a migraine that's lasted for about an hour so far.  The rest of it went down the sink.  I had to fish out all the spices and cinnamon sticks and shit and throw them in the bin.

My kitchen bin now smells like Santa has thrown up in it.

You win some, you lose some.

(Bad) language and literature

Many people consider university days to be the best days of their life.  Whilst I was lucky to meet good friends, and had fairly decent accommodation, life has definitely got better since not surviving on Tesco Value pasta, going to nightclubs where the toilets would regularly overflow (actually, make that "going to nightclubs", full stop) and moving to a city that isn't entirely comprised of hills.

Add into the mix that for my three years at Bristol it rained twice; once for one year, and then a second time for another two years.  A lot of students end up with Fresher's Flu; I actually started to grow mildew.  It wasn't until I'd lived in London for a good six months that I felt myself drying out.  This is only partly a joke.  In my third year, I went to the doctor as my ears felt like they needed to pop all the time.  I wondered if they were blocked and needed to be syringed.  The doctor told me that after flu and contraceptive enquiries, ear problems were the most common ailment they saw; the air in Bristol was so damp it actually buggered up people's sinuses.  The problem went away as soon as I left the city.

Anyway, I was clearing out my PC's hard drive recently, and stumbled once again across the folders of essays I'd written at university.  All of them were carefully referenced, with full bibliographies.  Some of my tutors had set incredibly baffling essay titles, presumably to make themselves feel better about their own intellects.  Favourites include:

• Acting is antithetical to romance
• "'The nobility of poetry, says Wallace Stevens, 'is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without.' It is the imagination pressing back against the pressure of reality." (Seamus Heaney, The Redress of Reason)
• 'It makes little sense to define "ethnicity as such", since it refers not to a thing-in-itself but to a relationship: ethnicity is typically based on a contrast.' (Werner Sollors)

And my all-time favourite nonsense intellectual wibble (described in a previous Plog):

• ‘The romances explore what it means to be a subject: an agent of the self, within the state, seeking for satisfaction.  And so the epitomic figures are the ones denied their place at the centre, not only the rogues, slaves, fishers, and vagabonds, but the itinerant princes, and, crucially, the exiled women.’ (Palfrey) Discuss with reference to Jonson and/or Shakespeare. 

If that makes any sense to you at all, I would be delighted to hear from you.  I remember reading it out to myself seven or eight times in a row, thinking, "Surely this is an Emperor's New Clothes type of thing.  Surely we're supposed to go back to the tutor and tell him that this is a fuckload of bollocks."  Turns out not.  You live and learn.

Despite writing the essay, I still have absolutely no idea what "an agent of the self" means.  Still, I got a 2:1.

Which may explain, by the time we got to the third year, I'd really rather had enough of it all.  I'd had enough of the fact my ear wouldn't pop.  I'd had enough of walking uphill no matter which direction you went.  I'd had enough of the fact that my clothes wouldn't dry out, ever.  I'd had enough of agents of the self, of fishers and vagabonds and of fucking Seamus fucking Heaney.

And so I wrote my dissertation on Philip Larkin.  Specifically on Philip Larkin and swearing.  Last I heard, I still had the Bristol University record for using the world "cunt" 32 times.

Though apparently I shouldn't have said it to the head of department, whilst handing the essay in.  You live and learn.

Mini drama

TheBloke (TM) is no stranger to the comedy voice.  Usually delivered in a falsetto, he will frequently adopt a Mexican / French / Italian accent (that's not three different accents, by the way, it's just impossible to pin a location on the voice) and say something silly.

So be it.

Anyway, a while back we were at a friend's wedding, staying in a hotel.  We'd both woken up early, had breakfast, had a potter around the city, and as the wedding wasn't until late afternoon, we had a bit of time.  As South Africa were playing rugby that day, TheBloke (TM) repaired to the hotel bar to watch sport, and I retired to our room and thought I'd chill out for a while.

After taking a bath I felt a bit sleepy, so snuggled down under the duvet.  I dozed for a while.  Suddenly, I heard a knock at the door.  I jumped, then remembered; we'd only been given one hotel key.  TheBloke (TM) needed to be let back in.  As I was starkers though, I thought I'd better do a quick check before opening the door.

"Who is it?" I trilled.

"Ees Minibar!" said TheBloke (TM) in one of his hilarious voices.

I laughed (out of pity, probably) and went to the door and opened it to let him in.

It wasn't TheBloke (TM).  It was the Mexican / French / Italian man the hotel employed to restock the minibar.  Who was looking, quite incredulously - though it has to be said, not entirely disapprovingly, at my tits.

I shut the door again, possibly not quickly enough to avoid quite an awkward moment.

And then hit the minibar.

(Not so) epic fails

Being something of an "A" type personality, combined with a school education that basically meant if you hadn't been awarded a doctorate by the time you were 14, you were an underachiever, I've always been fairly driven.

However, there have been times in my life when I haven't quite reached my own high standards.  Presenting:

Laura's Big List of Failures (in no particular order)

1. My fifth form mock GCSE Chemistry exam.  There were 40 questions.  I had period pains.  I have never liked Chemistry.  I remember staring at the wall for a lot of the exam,.  When I got the results, I got 37.5.  I was chuffed.  Perhaps, deep down, I was a genius after all.  It wasn't marked out of 40.  I got 37.5%.  Honourable mentions also for the History mock A-level paper where I misspelled "Cranmer" all the way through (and had him executed for Catholicism), Maths homework where I got 0/10 and the French prose, for which I was awarded a princely -18/25.  Yes.  A negative number.  And French was one of my stronger subjects.  I told you the school was tough.

2.  My first driving test... was marked by an ex-Police examiner.  I got 32 minor faults.

3. My second driving test... was on A-level results day. Although it was a year before my own results day, a lot of friends were in town.  One of them waved at me during the test.  I didn't wave back, but took my eyes off the road for long enough to edge what was deemed to be "too close" to the car in front, earning me a failure and a big "D" for "Dangerous" on my exam paper.  The shame.

4.  Meaning to tell the attractive bloke I worked with (who was looking for a new flat) that I had a spare room.  I meant to say, "There's a space in my two-double bed flat," or "There's a room in my flat," or "I have a flat share available," or something along those lines. What I actually said was, "There's space in my double bed if you don't mind sharing."

5.  My Grade 3 violin exam.  I guess I was about 12, and to be honest, I didn't know it was possible to fail an Associated Board music exam.  I thought they were there just to rinse parents of cash, and if you turned up with approximately the right instrument, you were good to go.  Turns out you're supposed to practise and shit.  Who knew?

Beauty is skin deep

Often I wonder if I'm a "proper girl".  I hate clothes shopping, going to the hairdresser and (brace yourselves) only own about four pairs of shoes.  And one bag.  Deal with it.

Never more am I reminded of this than when I go to the beautician.  Oh, of course I'm not one of those perma-tanned Essex girls, but every so often, something has to be done about the thickets of eyebrows which sneakily grow in the night.  Normally I can maintain myself, but every so often the mass becomes so dense I have to hire a professional.

Whenever I do go to get my eyebrows waxed or threaded or whatever, I try to tie it in with another undesirable treatment that I probably should have (and would want to have if I was a proper girl).  The last time this happened was just before we went on holiday.  I decided that if I was going to get my eyebrows sorted, I may as well book in a manicure and pedicure too.

I can genuinely never understand how other women manage to enjoy a visit to the beautician.

Those of you who are long-time followers of this Plog will know that I don't generally get on well with pedicures.  In fact, I have something of a habit of kicking the pedicurist in the face.  I have ticklish feet.

Anyway, forewarned is forearmed, so I jokingly said to my pedicurist, as she started on my feet, "I am ticklish, but I'll try not to kick you in the head!"

The Chinese girl administering the pedicure looked up at me and said, "You fuckin' kick me, I know good lawyer."

This wasn't going well.  The woman in the next chair looked horrified.  I tried (and thankfully succeeded) not to kick the pedicurist.

"How long since last pedicure?" she asked?

"Oh, erm, about six months," I said.

"Six month?  Six month?  That is disgusting!"

Now, I will admit that some people have disgusting feet.  I can honestly say though, whilst I'm not going to win any foot-modelling contests (slightly hairy big toe), I actually have quite nice feet.

"Oh," I said, "they're not that bad."

"Yes," she said.  "I never go most two weeks without pedicure.  You disgusting!"

Eyebrows next.  Normally eyebrow waxing isn't that painful, but this time, for whatever reason, it really stung.

The eyebrow waxist was the same woman who'd done my feet, called me disgusting and threatened to sue me.  "Is this first time eyebrow waxed?" she barked at me.

"Erm, no..." I said.  "Are they that bad?"

"No, not bad," she said.  "Just why you being such a baby with eye watering?  You need relax."

I tried to relax.  She came at me with tweezers.  I inadvertently flinched.

"For God sake!" said the beautician.  "I don't understand.  You have had this done before so why you being like this?  It's so annoying!  You rubbish!"

Finally it was over.  I left.  I left a tip.  I didn't want to get sued.  Or followed down the street with tweezers.

Joint account

So, based on the last post, TheBloke (TM) and I decided that in order to get the best of both worlds, we should collaborate on a novel.  Now, because we don't like each other's company enough to actually sit down and decide plot, character and style, we decided just to write one paragraph each.  The below is Chapter One.  See if you can guess who wrote which paragraphs.  It's not rocket science.

The Emotional Vampire Unicorn - Chapter One


Sonia woke up knowing it was going to be a good morning.  The sun was shining, it was a Friday, and she was planning to meet her best friend Jeremy for lunch in town later.  As she got dressed, she admired her bedroom, which she’d recently had redecorated.  The painter had done a really good job.  She was happy.  She went downstairs to make breakfast.


As she skipped down the stairs towards her kitchen, her massive breasts bounced as if in slow motion. Her roommate Tanya was already in the kitchen making a fresh coffee. She was naked, which was not unusual for Tanya, as she quite often walked around the house naked. Sonia admired Tanya’s sexy curves, while gathering supplies to feed her dragon who would be arriving soon from the mountains of Smork to be fed and then take Sonia off to work.

Sonia and Tanya were very best friends... but that wasn't to say that sometimes Tanya could irritate Sonia.  They had had countless petty arguments about whose turn it was to buy toilet roll, and who had run up the phone bill last quarter.  But underneath the squabbling, they were solid.  They'd been at school together and were as close as sisters.  Sonia was slightly jealous of Tanya's job, as she worked from home most of the time, as a freelance journalist.  Sonia herself had to trek to Westminster every day for her job as a political researcher.

Sonia said good-bye to Tanya with a passionate kiss on the lips and a soft pinch of her nipple. Tanya smiled and smacked Sonia's pert buttocks as she turned to leave. Gathering the food for her dragon and her trusty sword, she headed outside where Fenhark, one of the mightiest dragons in the kingdom, was swooping down towards the clearing outside of Sonia's house. Once Fenhark was fed, she mounted the mighty beast and they headed for the skies on route to Westminster, which was also known as the forbidden forest, where Sonia would research how the clans of the north would react to her killing the ninja warlord Shupang, in a bloody battle.


Whilst Sonia went off to work, Tanya finished clearing up in the kitchen, got dressed and sat in front of her laptop.  A freelance journalist's lot was not an easy one; today she had to try and eke out a 1000-word article on the merits of a certain brand of dishwasher powder.  She promised herself that if she could do it within an hour and a half, she'd reward herself with a cup of tea, a biscuit and a chance to write some of her personal project - a story about a little girl with a big imagination.

Just as she was about to type, the front door shattered and zombie lurched into the house, seeking living flesh to quench its insatiable appetite. Tanya reacted quickly and reached for her powerful laser-guided splinter-gun, which was secured to the underside of her desk. She turned with the gun firmly in her slender hand, as the first zombie reached for her throat. Tanya jumped backwards as the zombie’s flailing hand missed her throat, but caught her blouse, tearing it to shreds. Tanya didn’t hesitate, firing the first round of the powerful handgun into the undead creature face, splattering its brains across the newly repainted wall. Sonia would not be happy when she returned tonight.

Screen dump

TheBloke (TM) was watching something on TV last week called Game of Thrones, but to all intents and purposes, could just easily have been named "Dragons, Tits and Dwarves".  TheBloke (TM) said if there was a series that was actually called that, he'd definitely watch it.

So, always an aspiring writer, I asked him that if I were to write the perfect film for blokes, what ingredients would it have?  Here is his list in order of preference:

• Tits
• Tits
• Tits
• Lesbians
• Dragons
• Explosions
• Sword fights
• Alien spaceship
• Tits and bush
• Car chase
• Bromance
• Bi-curious cheerleaders
• Group (female) shower scene
• Guns
• Zombies
• Dwarves
• Ninjas
• Tits

I told him how I thought that was somewhat limiting, and he took the opportunity to remind me that the only type of story I enjoy is one about a little girl with a big imagination.  I said that was completely untrue.

And off we went to see Matilda at the theatre.  (Which was brilliant, by the way)

Singing the BBC's Praises

Say what you like about the BBC.  A) Their complaints process is one of the swiftest to reply I've ever come across and B) They have a sense of humour.  Below is the reply I received from them today in response to this tongue-in-cheek complaint:

Dear Ms Nunn

Thank you for your comments with regard to ‘Songs of Praise’ broadcast on BBC One on 6 September.

I understand your feel we did not take into account that this day is an important Satanist day and you were unable to sing along with the hymns as you were too busy sacrificing a goat.

I am sorry you missed a fine show, but you seem to have been confused about the dates. This year, the Satanic Feast often termed ‘Marriage to the Beast’ falls on 7 November, a Monday. You also seem to have misinterpreted the nature of the ritual involved. However, I do hope you manage to enjoy the rest of the series and am glad that you find the hymns so uplifting.

I do understand you feel very strongly about this, so I’d like to assure you that I’ve registered your concerns on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's made available to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, programme makers, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions on future BBC programmes and content.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to contact us.

Kind Regards

Mark Madden

Praiseworthy

My old comedy tutor, Rob Hitchmough is running an hilarious campaign to get this week's Songs of Praise the most complained about TV show of all time.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the programme, essentially it's a churchload of old people bussed into a church which is obviously normally nine tenths empty and forced to sing hymns at a camera, for the reward of a slight chance of being on the telly.  They usually feature shots of at least one "ethnic" to show how Christianity is all-encompassing.  Vom vom vom.

"Why Songs of Praise?" you might ask, and you'd be right to do so.  It's a reasonably harmless TV show (save for the fact you have to watch mindless human sheep bleating to their imaginary shepherd), and that's precisely why complaining about it is a genius idea.

For those of you who never saw the extremely special Jerry Springer - The Opera, this is why.  The show went on tour, and was picketed by Christians... the vast vast majority of whom hadn't seen it.  Because "they just knew" they'd find it offensive.  And perhaps they would.  From memory, it does contain the lines, referring to the Virgin Mary, "Raped by an angel... fucked by God."  Actually, the musical is really about loving each other and harks back to Larkin's "What survives of us is love" and Jerry's tag-line, "Take care of yourselves... and each other."  Quite Christian messages really.  Certainly much more so than the death threats the producers received from Christian Voice.  Hey ho, I'm off the topic.

The point is that every time something hits the headlines for being offensive, literally thousands of people will jump on the bandwagon and complain about something they've never seen (like the Russell Brand furore a couple of years back).  The BBC, being a publicly-funded institution, must consider every single complaint.  The Songs of Praise campaign is a reaction to the Daily Mail-reading, "disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" types who complain about offensive material without ever seeing it.

And what - to me at least - more offensive that prime-time indoctrination?

Hence my complaint below.


"I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the scheduling of Songs of Praise this week.

I do enjoy watching the show, both for the excellent presenter, Aled Jones, and the great karaoke-style hymns.  ("Lord of All Hopefulness is one of my all-time faves).

However, I was disappointed this week to see that you have taken NO consideration to those of other faiths.  You are undoubtedly aware that the first Sunday of November is the most important date in the Satanic calendar, and I was unfortunately sacrificing a goat at the time of broadcast, meaning I totally missed the verse where "Your trust ever childlike, no cares could destroy", which is totally the best part of that hymn.

By the time I'd finished mopping up the goat blood, that beardy twat Glen was banging on about something or other.

Yes, yes, I know the episode is available on iPlayer, but it's not the same as when I have it on HD on my 56 inch LCD TV.

I hope you will be more respectful to those of us who practise Satanism (but who also enjoy a good Sunday singalong) in the future.

With very best wishes, and may the Prince of Darkness be with you.

Laura"


I look forward to their response.

To join the record attempt, simply click here and complain your little socks off about anything you can think of.

Beaver hunt

Being a student of English literature, one could reasonably assume I've risen above the cheap jokes and guffaws of my teenage years.

One would be wrong.

I read this article on the BBC website today.  Ostensibly it's about how Canada would like to change their national animal from a beaver (dull and pestilent) to a cuddly, friendly polar bear.

However, as ever with these things, there's always a naysayer.  Step up Pat Martin, MP for the New Democratic Party:

"Polar bears are cool but the beaver played a pivotal role in the history of Canada.... It was the relentless pursuit of beaver that opened the great Northwest."

You heard it here first, folks.  Canada was founded on the pursuit of beaver.  Not just the pursuit of beaver, but the relentless pursuit of beaver.

Snigger.

Work it out

Those of you who know me in real life, or those of you who are long-time Ploggers will know of my aversion to any type of exercise.  It's not that I'm a massive fatty, I just don't enjoy any type of sport.  Partly this is owing to my total lack of competitiveness (well, lack of competitiveness at anything I've got no chance of winning.  I wouldn't test my competition commitment in a game of Scrabble, for example).  Partly though, it's a hangover from how much I hated PE at secondary school.

As every school in England, by law, has to have masochistic PE staff who enjoy nothing more than seeing a group of fourteen year-old girls shivering in a tiny little skirt, gym knickers and a sports bra, whilst they themselves bundle up in puffa jackets from The North Face, thermal gloves and an industrial whistle.  Our school was no different.  Mrs Bakerhurst and Miss Simpleton were our two torturers, and they loved absolutely nothing more than shouting, "Come on girls!  Go! Go! Go! Go!", whether you were on your way to the torture field (hockey pitch) or standing in the showers.

Autumn and winter I hated.  I have always hated the cold.  For some reason our winter sports kit was actually designed to be colder than our summer sports kit (which inexplicably allowed us to wear tracksuit bottoms for certain activities).  No such joy for winter.  An Aertex shirt (with initials embroidered in house colours), a tiny little skirt and grey, baggy gym knickers.  The skirt was entirely pointless, as it flapped open.  A pervert's dream.  With autumn and winter came netball and hockey.  I loathed netball.  I hated hockey even more.  Arming aggressive girls in puberty with wooden sticks didn't seem like the smartest tactic.  But then being smart isn't usually one of the required, or even desirable, skills on the job spec for a PE teacher.

Spring and Summer were just as bad - athletics (running in circles), hurdles (jumping over a series of small fences - there's a skill I'll need in later life), throwing spears, throwing cannonballs, jumping in sand.  Complete pissing waste of time.

The worst was cross-country.

Oh yes, we had a torture field (hockey pitch) but this wasn't enough for the PE teachers.  They decided it was time for us to do cross-country in the actual countryside.  One problem with this: our school was in the town centre.  Luckily this didn't stop Mrs Bakerhurst or Miss Simpleton.

Recap: we were fourteen.  We were all girls.  We were wearing white Aertex shirts and grey gym knickers, with a pair of trainers.  Literally nothing else.

And we were made to run through the town centre.  It was a circuit of about a mile, and within the scenic cross-country route we went by McDonalds, Argos, Dorothy Perkins, Next, the Post Office, Greggs, WH Smiths and Tesco.  It was also market day, so the town was especially busy.

We were fourteen.  Did the PE teachers supervise us on this trip, running alongside us, shouting out encouragement?  Did they buggery.  They were too busy smoking a fag behind the bike sheds, probably.

Now, I've never been any good at any sport, but my stamina has always been particularly bad.  Imagine this if you will - 25 teenage girls jogging through a busy town centre basically wearing underwear.  One of them is flagging and is well at the back of the crowd, ready to be picked off by the local paedo like a lion takes down the weakest gazelle.  It was surely only a matter of time before the Benny Hill music started playing.

Thankfully I made it back to the school un-raped. But if I ever have children, before they even enter the educational system, I will dedicate a large part of my time to writing a letter excusing them from every single PE lesson they may ever have to do.  In fourteen years of enforced PE, the only thing I learned was: Avoid PE - Avoid PaEdos.