FABE

Ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, literate squirrels (I know you're out there, you scheming rodenty bastards):

I apologise in advance for the weather on bank holiday Sunday. Of course it will rain. Of course it will, because I am holding the FABE (the Fourth Annual Barbecue Extravaganza). Our history of Annual Barbecue Extravaganzas ranges from lovely, lovely weather to "Oh fuck, the wind has blown out every single one of our matches, there's not a chance we can get this barbecue lit and it's bollocking freezing. Shall we go home and grill this lot?"

So, tomorrow it'll rain. Or possibly snow.

TheBloke (TM) has already decided to start the weekend off well by managing to get a cricket ball in the face and is now in bed with a bleeding head and a black eye. (Don't worry, he's fine. Though I am currently working on a special effects machine that'll make him think he's seeing double. Oh, come on, it'll be a laugh.)

There will be burgers. There will be sausages. There will - of course - be plastic cheese. There may even be ketchup and Pimms*.

And there will probably also be rain. Or possibly snow.

*Ketchup and Pimms is not, I repeat not a cocktail. Do not try this at home.

Second sight

After a while you think you know someone, don't you? You think, "I know Laura quite well. I read her Plog regularly. I know all about the escapades of Monty Cat. I am fully aware of the minutae of her life that she insists on publishing on the Interweb."

But I bet sometimes you think to yourself, "But I bet I don't know the REAL Laura. She could be hiding deep dark secrets from me. In fact, now you mention it, I don't think I've EVER seen the insides of her eyeballs. What sort of person is cagey about their own eyeballs? Yes, that Laura is a shady character indeed."

I am aware that I have indeed been keeping the insides of my eyeballs from you. And for that I apologise. And, courtesy of the slightly mad people at Vision Express (who assume that naturally everyone wants to be able to log onto their website to see inside their own eyeballs), please see my left and my right eyeball below. I am assured that the funny marks and the fact that the image is skewed is dust on the lens and a dodgy processor, not a fractured eyeball.

Light debate

Well, my lovely Ploggers, well, well, well.

What a very busy few days. In the last three days I have filled every unforgiving minute with at least sixty seconds' worth of distance run. In fact, some minutes I ran a good hour's worth of distance. That's how busy I've been.

I've had a few lovely days off work and I have achieved so far since Saturday:

- Dropped TheBloke (TM) off to play cricket

- Driven to the Midlands

- Had a hair cut

- Experimented with home hair dye

- Visited my friend Abi with a new baby (her own new baby, not one that she'd just happened to pick up)

- Went out for dinner with my parents

- Went on a horse-riding hack

- Had a primary school reunion

- Saw The Time Traveler's Wife

- Went to Chatsworth

- Did a pub quiz - and didn't get banned

- Saw my friend Elinor

- Drove back to London

Busy, busy, busy.

On the way home to London, as ever, I had Radio 2 on in the Mini. It was Jeremy Vine. I hate Jeremy Vine, but I couldn't be bothered to change channels.

Still, it was unbelievable. The "debate" show today featured members of the public getting genuinely furious about:

a) Roadworks in Manchester

b) Lightbulbs (I kid you not)

c) Whether or not British people behaved badly abroad.

Furious these people were. Angry, angry people. The lightbulbs were my favourite bit. The government is apparently banning 100 Watt lightbulbs in favour of energy efficient ones. Fine. A bit nannying perhaps, and personally I like bright lights, but if you get enough of those halogen ones, there's no real problem.

Or so I thought.

These people were - on more than one occasion - incandescent with rage. They made that joke (incandescent apparently being some sort of lightbulb) at least three times.

My favourite quotations:

"I'm bulk buying them. I bought twenty today." Since when is twenty bulk-buying?

"I'd like to bulk-buy them whilst they're still in stock, but I can't afford it." Christ, if you can't afford a few lightbulbs, I'd forget your rubbish lightbulb crusade and start lobbying the government for a better pension, or Mad Person Allowance or whatever it is you get.

"Will the government pay for a new light fitting for me?" No, Nigel. Now fuck off.

The last time I listened to Jeremy Vine it was about three years ago and an extremely lively (yet dull) debate was raging about wheely bins. I wonder if he goes home at night and cries himself to sleep about the futility of his existence.

Cat food

The vet told me that Monty Cat was overweight, and we should put him on a bit of a diet. I did.

Monty Cat then put on even more weight. Then I realised that we'd been measuring his dried food wrongly and giving him twice as much as he should have had. We corrected this.

We weighed Monty Cat. He is 4.2kg - the best part of a stone. I can barely lift him.

In the last six months I have also put on the best part of a stone.

TheBloke (TM), always sensitive, said to me, "Do you realise you've put on more weight than an entire Monty Cat in the last year?"

Fucker.

Comedying on my arse

Ploggers, it has been a while since I trod the boards of stand-up. When I did my last stand-up gigs, smoking had very recently been banned in pubs, and everyone was a bit befuddled by the atmosphere.

Having said that, I prided myself in thinking that I still know my routines pretty well. So that if anyone should ever say, "Perform me ten minutes of very average comedy or I'll shoot you in the face," I could have come up trumps. Sorry for anyone who thinks stand-ups ad-lib the whole thing. They don't. None of them. Some make a decent pass at 'faking the moment' and some are genuinely gifted with audience interaction, but by and large, most of it is a carefully-honed routine, where, like a poem, even the word order of every sentence has been tweaked and pulled for maximum comic effect.

So I am tidying the flat at the moment. The flat will soon be Very Tidy. In so doing, I came across a lot of old papers. In my early days of stand-up, I used to make notes about what I was planning to talk about; I didn't take the notes onto the stage (though I sometimes wrote key words on my hand just in case), but I'd use it as a memory jog before I left home.

I found one of these notes today, definitely from the early days and in my own handwriting. It looks like notes for a ten-minute set. I am ashamed to say that I recognise practically none of this as my material. So a challenge for you, Ploggers. From the below, please create your own jokes. I have typed this up exactly as the note reads.

• (Teachers)
• Knackered - tosser - sticky
• Sky
• Mum
• (Grandma)
• Back to work - does it really matter?
• Single - hair - religously - Sunday school project
• Name - number - dirty bitch - blow jobs - pick a pencil up - Dad - are you proud of me?
• Speed dating. Apparently he's a regular at Liverpool Street
• Drawback - sharing a flat. Petty
• Stranger
• Lost my security money. All worked out fine though - I kept her boyf's deposit.

I'm beginning to see why I gave it up...

Catalogue of disasters

TheBloke (TM) is of the South African persuasion, and therefore a little bit overexcited about Argos. Not the place in Greece. I can understand being excited about a Mediterranean holiday. He is excited about Argos the shop. Those of you born and bred in England can possibly guess from this how exciting your average South African shopping experience is.

I have tried - on numerous occasions - to explain to him that Argos is a little bit rubbish. Everything I have ever bought from Argos is either a little bit broken or else needs to be taken back because it's completely broken.

For further Argos frustrations see http://laurasplog.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-good-to-talk.html

I have explained Argos' rubbishness to him many times. I have pointed out that whenever we go, we end up waiting at least 45 minutes for our goods, which are then invariable slightly broken, or broken so completely we have to come again next week. This does not deter him. TheBloke (TM) loves Argos.

He thinks it's a magic, magic store where three thousand pages-worth of furniture, jewellery, toys, tools, nasal hair clippers, foot spas, games systems and sleeping bags nestle in a magic fairyland, ready to be called down at a moment's notice. Well, 45 minutes' notice anyway. He buys everything from Argos. Everything. Despite the fact that it inevitably breaks, usually one day after the warranty has expired. He loves it.

I will realise I need a new hairdryer, and I will propose popping into Argos on my way home.

"No!" cries TheBloke (TM) plaintively, "Not without me!"

"But TheBloke (TM)," I say, "you don't need anything from Argos. It will just be queues and frustrations, and there's really no need for you to come."

"But I LIKE it," says TheBloke (TM), and whimpers until I promise to take him after all.

When we get there, he presses his little wet nose into the (thankfully) laminated pages of the Argos catalogue, and starts stroking the page with Xboxes on, until someone (usually me) asks him to stop. Then he catches sight of the Spider-Man Ceiling Projection Alarm Clock, and the conveyor belt on which the goodies are delivered, and it's all I can do to wrestle his debit card off him.

He then has to sit in the car until he's calmed down. This usually takes about 45 minutes. Luckily this ties in nicely with the amount of time I have to wait for my slightly-broken hairdryer to arrive.

I hate Argos.

Plate tectonics

Last night was an early night. I was more tired than a worn-out ferret after a day of extra-busy ferreting.

I was asleep by 11 p.m. And then - very suddenly - I was awake. A crash had awoken me. Not the kind of little crash that indicates maybe a glass has been knocked over, but the sort of crash that tells you there is almost certainly death and very possibly dismemberment. I considered briefly if it was worth getting up to see the extent of the devastation, decided I needed a wee anyway, so got up.

In the kitchen sat a smug-looking Monty Cat. His smug look clearly said, "This is actually very much your fault, Laura."

On the slate floor was a plate smashed into at least twenty different bits. The remains of my evening's jacket potato sat amongst them.

Monty Cat's look couldn't have been plainer to read: "Laura, what have I told you about remembering to do the washing up? Hmm? Well, this is what happens when you don't. And from now on I shall be breaking a plate and waking you up every night at 12.30 a.m. until you learn your lesson. Now you are awake you may also stroke me and feed me as a reward for reminding you about the dishes. Thank you."

If anyone would like to adopt an overweight, ginger bastard*, please apply to the usual address.

* The cat, not TheBloke (TM) who may have ginger eyebrows but is reasonably slimline

Sweet sixteen

Ploggers, at the request of my good friend Hazel, please find below an excerpt from my 1995 diary. I was just sixteen, so you can imagine my life was full of all sorts of naughtiness - bunking off school, smoking, drugs and all types of illicit relations.

Or not.

I literally just opened my diary randomly and this is what greeted me:

11.12.95

I had a ton of work again at the weekend - I had to produce a six-sided poetry appreciation. Mine's nearly nine sides but it's not very good and I still have to copy it into neat before Thursday.

Otherwise, I've had a really good day today. These are all the good things that happened:

- I got 92% on a Maths practice exam paper

- I got English coursework back. I got an A(-) for my charity piece and my first straight A for my newspaper piece

- I got two things in the school magazine - my childhood memory and an article about 'Carmina Burana'

- The carol service I was reading in went well

So all in all I've had a pretty good day. The only thing now is all the work I have to do. I have to copy nine sides of English into neat before Thursday, revise for a Biology test before Wednesday (now is 10.15 p.m. Tuesday night) and enter my music composition into the school computer. Plus I have Mocks after Christmas. Argh!

I am the only person in the world whose mother did not read her diary. Not because she respected my privacy, but because it was just far, far too dull.

Several things here - 92% in Maths? I have no recollection of this. Perhaps I meant 29%. I've never been good with numbers.

Copying into neat? What a waste of time! Even though we had a PC at home, and I did do some of my homework on it, I remember even right through to the Upper Sixth, insisting on writing my English out long-hand, because I cared about it enough to physically craft the letters. That all changed about two seconds after I arrived at uni.

You might notice an absence of sex, drugs and general rock 'n' roll. Unless 'Carmina Burana' counts as rock 'n' roll and I'm fairly sure that it doesn't. I would like to defend myself, but having flicked through the rest of this diary, I genuinely can't, as the most scandalous thing I do is snog some bloke at a disco who then tells me he's too busy to see me again because he's got a new job stacking trolleys at Sainsbury's. I also had four friends over for a sleepover on New Year's Eve. We didn't drink, didn't do drugs and didn't even have one of those "all-girl pillow fights" that you see on the internet, just before the clothes start coming off.

I like the implication that the school only had one computer.

So yes. I was a gimpy geek. Official. Even geekier? I can remember which poem that particular appreciation was about. Remembrance - Emily Bronte. "Cold in the earth and the deep snow piled upon thee".

I guess I haven't changed that much.

Good sport

I have never been a natural at sports. That one sentence would likely win me an understatement trophy. I am impressively rubbish at anything involving hand-eye co-ordination, stamina or speed. Actually, that's not quite true. I can speed-read with the best of them. But anything that involves moving quickly is beyond me.

So you can imagine, Physical Education lessons at my traditional, sporty all-girls' school were not my favourites. I hated almost every single sport uniformly. In the winter, hockey and netball were a special type of torture, as we trooped out in our tiny little gym skirts and matching grey knickers, whilst the evil PE teachers huddled in fleecy tracksuits and a coat, and blew whistles at our sporting transgressions. If it rained, we played hockey. If it was windy, we played hockey. If it was rainy and windy and looked like it might snow a bit later on... we played netball. I
maintain there is no greater physical pain than stubbing frozen fingers on a powerfully-thrown netball.

When it came to picking teams, I was always chosen last, some point after the girl with both legs in a cast, and the one with chronic asthma.

Athletics was just as bad. Yes, sometimes the weather was nicer, but the activities were entirely pointless.

1500 meters - running in circles. If you did that without 'sport' as a notion behind it, you'd be institutionalised
Long jump - jumping into a pit of sand and getting your trainers all gritty. No. If you're going to do it, wear flip flops
High jump - psychologically I found this one difficult. I'd run up to the bar but (after seeing my friend Helen's head crack open on said bar the previous lesson), instead of flinging myself backwards over the bar, I tended to refuse it at the last moment like a naughty pony
Shot put / discus - throwing something I could barely lift. No. Just no.
Javelin - would have been OK if they'd allowed us to aim it at the PE teacher
Hurdles - jumping over a series of small fences? Yes, there's a skill I'll need in later life.

Tennis in the summer was OK - if only because you could use the excuse of "accidentally" hitting the tennis ball over the wall to take a long walk round the campus to the park on the other side of the school, thus experiencing freedom for about five minutes. The downside was you were still wearing your gym knickers, so actually it was a prime opportunity for humiliation. The local paedophiles also seemed to think all their Christmases had come at once.

In 1993 the entire class - apparently as a joke - voted me Games Captain for a term. I haven't forgiven them yet and one day I will wreak my horrible revenge.

In 1995, a shivering, freezing cold Laura was delighted that her team had one too many netball players in a games lesson, and valiantly volunteered to sit this match out. Which she did. I spotted some of the sporty girls talking to the evil PE teacher, Mrs Bengleton, who then approached me. She had a look of genuine concern in her eyes.

"Laura," she said. "I've just been told something and... I can't believe it's true." She looked at me with the pleading eyes of a child who's just been told there's no Father Christmas.

"Go on," I said.

"I've just been told... you don't like," she paused for effect, "netball. It's not true, is it?"

I reassured her. "Not true at all," I said.

"Thank goodness," she replied, a childish grin lighting her evil little PE face.

"I don't dislike it. I absolutely hate it."

Which may explain why - three years later - when she caught me skiving badminton (skiving in the library of course - where else would I go?), she didn't readily accept my explanation that I'd 'forgotten' we had Games...

So you'll be as suprised as I was to learn I'd passed the fitness test for the Metropolitan Police last week. Even if I still didn't quite have my breath back three hours later. Next question: will they give me a horse?

'N'-y way

I have had my faithful laptop for about three years. It's a bit slow these days and is rapidly running out of hard disk space. I shall have to delete some of my porn stash. But it serves me well for the most part. The vast majority of my Plogs have been composed upon its keys, and an inumerable number of emails have been drafted.

I touch type. I can do about 70 words per minute. More if they're all really short words like "the" or "and". "Discombobulate" takes a little bit longer, as does "ambidextrous". I don't think I could type "discombobulate" 70 times in one minute. Perhaps I will try at the weekend. Christ, my life is empty.

Anyway, although the laptop is a bit creaky at the seams, it's generally still operational, with only one real flaw... the 'N' key is worn away. Well, not quite. The 'N' key still works, it's just that the little white letter 'N' is worn away. This isn't a major problem. As I said, I touch type anyway, so I rarely look at the keys themselves. But I wondered how this happened.

Then I realised. It's my surname. Never in the history of surnames has a surname had such an imbalance of letters. THREE (count 'em) 'N' letters, and only one other letter at all. No wonder the 'N' lettering is worn away. I'm surprised the whole laptop isn't lopsided. A lopsided laptop. Or a lapsided loptop.

Hmm. An early night, I think.

Procrastinate later

Saturdays are always paved with good intentions. Summer Saturdays, TheBloke (TM) goes off to play cricket all day, and I have the best part of twelve hours to tick things off my to-do list. The to-do list currently looks like this:

- Buy house

- Sew button onto cardigan

- Write novel

- Ring vets

- Tidy shelving

- Reply to my backlog of email

OK, perhaps exchange and completion of a house in one weekend might be a bit too much to ask for. Additionally, the novel is perhaps a tall-ish order with a mere twelve hours to spare. But the rest should be achievable, surely?

Well, in case you're interested, here is roughly what the last ten Saturdays have looked like:

- 12 noon, consider getting out of pyjamas

- 1 p.m. watch SkyPlus rubbish, mostly Ugly Betty. Don't even concentrate on this, because I'm Facebooking in the background and - unusually for a girl - can't concentrate on more than one thing at once

- 3 p.m. consider going into town

- 4 p.m. put clothes on, go to Oxford Street

- 4.32 p.m. realise Oxford Street on a Saturday is where they hold the weekly Cunt Convention. I am - as ever - in attendance

- 5 p.m. come home and irritate the cat

- 6 p.m. call everyone I can think of in an attempt to avoid sewing the button on my cardigan. Or writing the novel.

- 6.40 p.m. try and find a really stupid addictive game on the internet I can waste my life with. If you want one, try http://fantasticcontraption.com/ or http://www.ig.ns.ac.yu/fun.html but you won't get your life back and don't say I didn't warn you.

- 9.00 p.m. realise TheBloke (TM) is home soon, and start preparing his dinner (otherwise he beats me, but only because I deserve it).

- 10.00 p.m. make a list of everything I need to do next Saturday.