Clubbed over the head

This time last Saturday, TheBloke (TM) and I headed out for a date night. And - I have to break the news to you gently... I was mugged.

Not in a traditional, "Give me your stupid-doggy Radley wallet and any piece of jewellery that isn't made by Claire's Accessories" way (besides which, they would be going away with very little jewellery...), but in a slightly more genteel way.

TheBloke (TM) and I had paid £20 between us to get into a West End club. More about this later, for those of you who know me well enough to know that the last time I went to a nightclub was on my 22nd birthday to go to School Disco. (After which a strange story involving the clocks going back, an illegal, farting minicab driver and an ill-advised kebab featured. But that's perhaps a story for another time.) So we'd paid up our £20 and went to take a seat at the bar. TheBloke (TM) having paid for entry, it was the least I could do to buy a round of drinks.

"What are you having?" I asked TheBloke (TM).

"A manly, manly beer, please," he replied. He only ever drinks manly beer when we're out. At home it's mostly cider or girly cocktails, ideally from a martini glass with a pink umbrella.

I ordered myself a single vodka and coke. Why not? This was a night out at a West End club. Knowing London drinks were on the pricey side, I got myself a tenner ready, not expecting a huge amount of change.

It was at this point, dear Ploggers, I was mugged.

"That'll be £14.50," the barmaid said. Stupefied, I handed over £15. She kept the change, but did present me with a receipt. The receipt showed my vodka and coke cost... wait for it... £9.50. Nine pounds and fifty earth pence for a fricking vodka and coke? Not knowing much about London's drug scene, but I wouldn't mind betting you could buy actual coke, as in cocaine for less.

Staying a little bit later, we thought we'd economise on the drinks and conservatively ordered a coke each. At £4.50 per coke, after we drunk up, we decided it was time to leave. Mostly because if we'd wanted another drink, we'd have had to have remortgaged Monty Cat.

And the name of the club? Stringfellows. The strip bar. Well, why not? We didn't get to see any clunge but there were plenty of boobs on show. I wouldn't recommend it though. With the amount of cash they squeezed out of us (even without the legendary private dances), I felt like I'd been repeatedly raped by Peter Stringfellow himself.

Braaaaiiins

Let's talk about the big ashy cloud of doom which is currently preventing UK flights and may continue to do so for a while to come. The big volcanic ashy blackness which is blighting our very skies as we speak. The thing is, the sky here today looks a little bit like this. No ash. No cloud. Definitely no ashy cloud. Weird, huh?

"Oh well," the experts say, "that's to be expected. The ashy doom is high, high above you. Far too high for you to see it."

But I can see the sun. And I'm guessing the ashy cloud is not higher than the sun. So I reject their hypothesis. There we go. It has been rejected.

So what's my theory? It's a conspiracy theory. I believe there's another reason all UK airports have been closed down. It's one of two things.

1. Heathrow estate agents. They can't shift any of the properties near the runways, so they've agreed a one-week amnesty in which they're going to try to flog as many of the properties as possible whilst there is no air-traffic noise.

2. (And this one's the more likely) Zombies. The UK has had a zombie outbreak, and rather than panic the population, the government has decided to seal the borders. The Eurostar doesn't count because let's face it, it breaks down more often than it goes.

So zombies it is. Luckily, TheBloke (TM) and I are almost certain to be OK, because a) we have not one but two tins of Tesco Value chopped tomatoes, and everyone knows you need tinned food in an emergency and b) we bought a hoe today in B&Q so are fully armed against a zombie invasion. Also c) we can eat Monty Cat if things get really bad. The little bastard just threw up on my new hosepipe, so I'm already considering it just out of spite.

Zombies. You heard it here first...

Luck of the draw

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Playing with fire

As I may have mentioned before, TheBloke (TM) is not allowed to do unsupervised Argos shopping. Having grown up in South Africa, despite living in the UK for over five years now, he still regards Argos as some kind of fairie magic - "They sell everything! In a tiny little space! It's witchcraft!". This can lead to over-excitement and purchasing of absolute rubbish. Mainly because this is all that Argos actually sells.

But on Saturday, we had a legitimate reason to go Argos shopping. And as he is not allowed to go unsupervised, I had to go too. As mentioned, the South African-ness of TheBloke (TM) means that as soon as the weather turns anything warmer than Arctic, he is genetically programmed to need to braai. For the uninitiated, or for those who prefer a greater number of consonants in their words (such as the Welsh), that would be a barbecue. Or for those who really can't get enough consonants, a BBQ.

Well, we always managed to rein this in previously, what with living in a one-bedroom flat with no garden. He was satisfied by the annual barbecue extravaganza, which takes place each summer with Erica and Dean, and we left it at that. But now we have a garden.

So off to Argos we went. A giant, expensive barbecue was bought. I suggested if we were spending that much on a barbecue, we could consider getting one with gas burners. He looked at me with derision and stated simply, "That's cheating."

Now, for me, and very likely you if you're British, a barbecue goes like this: spend an hour or so faffing with the thing trying to get it lit. Make lots of smoke, and ruin your neighbour's laundry. Slap on a couple of still-slightly-frozen burgers and a few sausages. Wait until it's charred on the outside and still raw inside. Eat quickly because it's just started to rain. Go inside again and wonder why there's more washing up than when you cook a normal meal. Take the next three days off with food poisoning.

Not for South Africans. Oh no. Meat had already been purchased and had been marinating since the evening before. "Could you get up at 2 a.m. and turn it over in the marinade?" TheBloke (TM) half joked to me. I didn't. But it was the first thing he did prior to the Argos visit. There was steak, there was chicken, there was marinade, there were curly sausages that looked a bit like dog poo. There may have been Pimms and lemonade, I can't possibly comment.

And you know what? It was pretty good. In fact, the steak was the best I've ever had in the UK. In fact, the cooking was such a success, we had a second one today. Well, we have to get our money's worth out of the braai, don't we?

As Mrs Nunn said to us yesterday, "Enjoy your brie!" Mmm. Cheesy.

Let's do the time warp...

Six months ago we moved from a central London flat to the suburbs. Don't get me wrong, we're still firmly in civilisation (we even have a tube station and everything) but the longer we have been here, the more I'm beginning to think we've been conned.

At first I thought we'd just been conned into thinking we'd moved to a London suburb. Sure, approach our house from the tube station and it's a built-up, suburban, terraced-house row of streets. Nothing unusual there. But turn the other way (as we only did - crucially once we'd moved in) and we're in the middle of Epping Forest. We accidentally moved to the country! A fox sleeps on the top of our shed and there's a sign for deer crossing at the bottom of the road. Conned!

But hey ho, a little bit of countryside never killed anyone. But a few things have been clicking into place recently and I've realised something. It's not the country we've moved to, but the 1920s.

"Now Laura," I can hear you say, "that doesn't make sense. We understand you're under a lot of stress what with the stupid cat and everything, and that you're watching Dr Who avidly since they put God* in charge but surely you don't believe in time travel."

Let me tell you this. For the last few Sunday mornings at about 10 a.m. I've heard a bell ringing outside the door. It goes up and down the street like a shit ice cream van where the chimes have been replaced by a hand bell. Today I finally got round to investigate it. It's a rag and bone man. Let me just say that again. On Sundays our street is visited by a rag and bone man. OK, he has a van rather than a horse-drawn carriage, but really. Rag and bone? Weird.

"OK Laura," you say, "we'll give you that it's a bit strange and definitely old fashioned. But one weirdy thing on a street does not a wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing make. Try again."

Fine. So today, being a Bank Holiday meant that at 10 a.m. I was cooking a health-giving breakfast of sausages, bacon and scrambled eggs. At which point the doorbell rang. I unlocked the door and a twelve year-old boy was standing there looking sheepish. I half-suspected he was playing a practical joke and had forgotten to run away quickly enough.

"Sharpening?" he asked.

"Sorry?" my befuddled morning brain replied.

An older man on the other side of the street, meanwhile, wielded a leather strop and a small grinder. "Sharpening!" he bellowed.

So there you have it Ploggers. I am residing in the 1920s when a rag and bone man calls weekly and the knife sharpener calls door to door. I was half expecting a chorus of "Who Will Buy" to break out. The other possibility is we've moved slap bang into a musical of "Oliver!". If anyone comes to the door selling sweet red roses, two blooms for a penny, I'll let you know.

* Steven Moffat

Medium at large

Ploggers, I am disappointed in you. For several years now, I have been Plogging away, hoping to bring a smile to your sad old faces from time to time. Feeling that maybe, just maybe, I was beginning to build a bit of a brand for myself.

Today I looked at the statistics on how people are accessing the site. Look at this. Just look at it.

I hope you can read that. If not, it shows quite clearly that "Monty Cat Nunn" is the top- by far - search term in Google to find my page. "Laura's Plog" gets fewer than half as many hits. So not only do I have a stupid, ginger, expensive cat who's too thick to learn the use of a cat flap (hint Monty: the clue's in the word "flap"), but he's now taking credit for my Plog. Well, someone isn't getting his meaty nibbles tomorrow. (I've just told TheBloke (TM) this and he's now upset and worried I'll take his meaty nibbles away. That's South Africans for you.)

You'll be pleased to know that people are still looking forward to seeing Tamsin Greig naked on this Plog. I'm beginning to wonder what the fuss is about and beginning to think I'd quite like to see her naked too, so I'll keep you posted on that. Also an honourable mention for Erica, whose Wanking Club, apparently is still - erm - up and coming?

Bizarrely, the most emails I get from fans (oh, OK, people who ended up on the wrong website accidentally) are about Madam Tamar, a medium I went to see when I was about 17. I say a medium, in so much as she was a fortune teller, not just a lady who was of average size. I remain a healthy sceptic (as healthy as I can be with the amount of chocolate I pour down my throat on a daily basis) about all things otherworldly... and generally prefer my life without a spoiler alert. However, my cousin Nicky does regular medium work. As in spiritual stuff, not as in she works moderately hard. I think I already did that joke.

So... (clears throat). Once and for all. Everyone looking for Madam Tamar of Weston Super Mare (or Weston Super Mud as we always called it). We are fairly sure that the lady in question has - in spiritual language, "passed" or in Laura language, "kicked the bucket". She was at least 312 so I guess that's a good innings.

So, why not give my cousin Nicky a try? Her website is at http://www.nicolajefferies.co.uk/ and I can vouch for her being a lovely human being and a good laugh. She lives in Bristol, so I reckon she's probably got Madam Tamar's patch covered. (I wonder if I've accidentally started some sort of spiritualist war where each medium owns a patch like a drug dealer. That would be very funny. But of course they'd see it coming.)