Cold reception

For those of you who were in any doubt, I'm not a particularly girly girl. I'm by no means a tomboy, but I have not yet seen any compelling evidence why I should cleanse, tone and moisturise every night (nor even one of the three - how dirty is my face supposed to get between daily showers?). In that category, you can also add putting make-up on before work; that's precious sleep time I'd be wasting. And finally, I do not believe I have ever "touched up" my lipstick after leaving the house.

I am at peace with all this.

So, it's with some difficulty I am reconciling myself to wedding planning. There are so many frilly little details I'm just not interested in. So over the next few days, I'm going to treat you to my top three wedding related gripes to date. Because I might hate girly stuff, but I sure as hell love to complain.

So, Thing number one: The Venue

I hoped this would be fairly easy; our plans are to get married out in South Africa, and I hoped to do it all by email, to cut down on having to go somewhere and squeal about how exciting it all was. The following exchange is a genuine one between a lovely elephant sanctuary and myself that we visited when we were in South Africa last where I thought it would be a bit different to hold the ceremony.

Laura:

Hi

My partner and I are considering getting married in South Africa.

We are not expecting many guests (max 30). We are considering holding it in April next year and are flexible about date.

Can you please let me know what wedding packages you have available and at what cost?

Thanks

Knysna Elephant Park:

Hi Laura

May I asked where you heard of the wedding venue at Knysna Elephant Park?

Kind regards

Marlize

Laura:

Hi

From this site:

http://www.sa-venues.com/gardenroute/weddings/knysna.php

Thanks

Knynsa:

Thanks Laura

That’s strange, because we aren’t listed on that site.

Keep well

Marlize

Laura:

Are you not interested in giving me a quotation for the day? We visited Knysna a few years ago and thought it would be a lovely venue for a wedding - but you seem unwilling to help out!

Thanks

This went on - believe it or not - for two months, with Marlize eventually giving us a quotation higher than the prices on the website... and when asked if she could negotiate, she promised a response a couple of days later... which took three weeks. When I finally got assertive by email, saying this wasn't good enough and that I needed a revised quotation and someone else to liaise with by the end of the week, she eventually sent through the same estimate (rand for rand) that she'd sent through two months earlier. Genius.

So, what have I learned from this experience? 1) I will not, sadly, be having baby elephants at my wedding. 2) I would not recommend Knysna Elephant Sanctuary as a wedding venue, nor Marlize as an effective employee.

Tomorrow... Number 2. (I really ought to eat more fibre.)

Powerful point

Where have I been? Where have I been? Mind your own business! Not really, Ploggers. I have been doing lots of very exciting things, like having an engagement braai (BBQ) where all guests had to wear a gay cowboy hat. The same gay cowboy hat though. Not one each. That would be opulent and decadent.

So, what I am I going to talk to you about today? Today, being a bank holiday Monday, I am going to talk to you about work.

Like many people who work in London, I have colleagues of all nationalities. There are South Africans, Australians, Canadians, Americans, Indians, and - my absolute favourite - New Zealanders. I can see you're puzzled. Why do I like the Kiwis the most? Well, for one very good reason.

PowerPoint presentations.

As anyone in the world of work will tell you, a few years ago, consultants from Accenture decided they needed to make themselves sound even wankier than they already were. They decided that the phrase "PowerPoint presentation" was too wordy, and, as they were incapable of asking for a cup of tea without gathering stakeholders to present some PowerPoint slides and do some blue-sky, top-down thinking, they needed a shortcut. Time is money, of course. So, instead of the perfectly adequate phrase "PowerPoint slides", they came up with the wanky wank phrase "deck".

This allowed them to sound even more pompous as they shout across the office, "Steve, I need you to do me a one-pager. Actually, no, make it a deck. I need a deck to show ExCo in the morning. Looks like we're going to have to pull an all-nighter." If this phrase alone isn't enough to make you want to knee them in their hairy balls (because, of course, they are all male), I suggest you go to Accenture's website and see if they're recruiting.

So the phrase "deck", to mean PowerPoint slides, has slowly filtered its way into the everyday business prattle of colleagues from South Africa to New Zealand and everywhere in between.

"But Laura," you say, "you haven't answered the question of why you like the Kiwis the most. I don't see how this works at all."

Well, Ploggers, listen up. As everybody knows, everyone who isn't from England talks funny. Scottish people are particularly good at saying, "there's been a murder!" (just sounds better with the accent), Americans say "I could care less," when they mean they couldn't. South Africans say "wun wun" instead of "win win", and Kiwis... well... they smush their vowels together. Fish are "fush". "Min" means men. And deck... Deck becomes "dick".

So on any given Thursday afternoon, you can hear the following up and down any given London office:

"Can you give me five minutes? I want to show you my dick?"

"I really like your dick. Do you think it could be even longer?"

"We're going to discuss Simon's dick in the ExCo meeting."

And my absolute favourite:

"David's put his dick on the agenda, but it should only take a minute."

Ah, Kiwis, you do make me laugh.

Tea time

I have been lent a book called “Three Cups of Tea” – the by-line reads “One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time”. It’s apparently a multi-million US bestseller, which goes someway to explain the ridiculous way they’ve chosen to capitalise every word in their by-line. Americans love capitals. I think they secretly want to be German. And even Germans wouldn’t capitalise the verbs. Americans are uber-Germans. You heard it here first.

Anyway, turning the book over and judging it from its back cover, the basic premise is a traveller (or if we’re American, a “traveler”) in trouble is moved by the kindness of people he finds in Pakistan. And he builds them a school. And then another school. And so on, until he has built lots of schools.

This all sounds very inspiring. I think this sounds like a remarkable thing to do. If you have a bit of time and want to do something nice for a community, why not build a school? The part that bothers me is this quotation:

“Here we drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die.” – Haji Ali, Korphe Village Chief, Karakoram Mountains, Pakistan.

Woah. Hang on a second. You’ve lost me. We don’t know each other, so we have a couple of cups of tea and become friends, I can get on board with. That sounds fine, and I like nothing better than a strong cup of tea with a chocolate hobnob. It is a fine way of bonding.

But if we’re still a bit thirsty and reach for the teapot a third time… suddenly I have to lay my life down for you? We only met an hour ago.

Going by their rules, this also means that I have to sacrifice my life for the three dodgy workmen who removed the rowan tree (and my three remaining sunflowers) yesterday. This seems a bit harsh, because whilst they did their job effectively and reasonably tidily, I don’t really value them as I do my family, if I’m honest. And I’d be a bit irritated if one of them phoned tomorrow and asked for both my kidneys, citing the three cups of tea rule.

This also means though that Mrs Nunn is definitely immortal, as she has drunk so many cups of tea (averaging 7 per hour) that pretty much everyone in Western Europe is honour-bound to lay their life down for her. Perhaps this book is onto something after all.

Anyone fancy a cuppa?

Stick it where the sun doesn't shine

Ploggers, it's no shock to any of you who have either followed the sunflower saga, or else have ever purchased a houseplant for me, to learn I do not have green fingers. Lilies lay listless, crocuses croak and pansies pass away.

And the sunflowers. Oh the sunflowers.

So, excited to have a new garden this year, in February I bought some sunflower seeds. The main reason I chose sunflowers for my foray into gardening was it said on the packet they were suitable for small children and very easy to grow. This suited me perfectly. We'd had a cold winter, and the packet said they needed to be planted in warm soil, so I waited like an overexcited child waits for Christmas. Except, I was waiting for spring. Not Christmas. Even I know that's a bad time to plant sunflowers.

By April I could contain myself no longer and planted the seeds indoors in pots. It was a miracle! Within two or three days they began to sprout. I propped them up, firstly with lollipop seeds, and later, Mrs Nunn brought some canes for me. I was so excited.

Then in May I was due to go away on holiday for a week. This posed a problem. Did I a) plant the sunflowers outside or b) leave them indoors? I dithered. And dithered some more. And eventually decided to plant half of them outdoors and leave half inside.

When I came back from my hols, all of the indoor sunflowers had died. I may have cried a little bit. Worse still, most of the outdoor plants had disappeared entirely. The work of slugs, apparently, as the three surviving plants also had large nibbles from their leaves.

So I worked hard on my three remaining plants. I nursed them. I loved them. I put eggshells around their bases to ward off the slugs. I gave TheBloke (TM) strict instructions to water them if it was dry when I was in New York. And finally, finally this week, the tallest (OK, only two feet, but still) finally looked like it was almost ready to bloom.

Today - coincidentally - we paid a man some money to come and chop down a tree that was too close to our house. He did a good job. Very thorough.

He didn't even charge us extra for the three weedy-looking sunflower plants he felled whilst carrying out his duties.

I will not be defeated. I'm already planning next year's sunflower crop. I think the secret is to plant more. 200 should give at least five of them a fighting chance of blossoming.

Magic of childhood

I spent a very nice few hours with my friend Kath yesterday, and with her daughter Lily who's about 18 months old. I have come to the conclusion that this is a Very Good Age. Mostly because they can't yet ask you incessant questions, but they can giggle at all the hilarious things you do to amuse them. It's positive feedback all the way.

Any regular Plogger will know that I'm not that great with kids. Usually I have no idea what to say to them ("Have you read Ian McEwan's latest?" doesn't normally go down that well). Alternatively, I try too hard to enter their world ("What's your doll called? Jasper? That's a lovely name. Oh, you mustn't pull her round by her hair like that. Yes. OK, I did know she was a doll. I was just trying to... never mind. Stop looking at me so scathingly. Leave me alone.".)

Other recent successes: comparing a much-beloved newborn to a scene out of Carrie, banging a baby's head on the table, and causing a full-scale tantrum when I offered constructive feedback on a (let's face it) off-key version of The Hills Are Alive.

But yesterday was like all my best comedy gigs rolled into one. I developed a brilliant trick of hiding a toy ladybird (not hiding it very well, mind you) and then making it appear from Lily's ear. When I do this with adults, they tend to get bored with it in about twelve seconds. Lily was still finding it hysterically funny (especially when I mixed things up a bit and made it come out of her tummy button) a good half hour later. She laughed. She clapped. She didn't even heckle (apart from one stomach-churning moment when she glimpsed the ladybird between my clasped hands. Luckily she forgot about this about two seconds later).

So I'm announcing my triumphant return to stand-up. New rules: no audience members over the age of two.

Uplifted

I put my heavy bag down in the hotel lift (elevator) and let out a long sigh. The gentleman who stepped into the lift (elevator) with me said, "It looks like it's been a long day."

It had. It had been a long day. I got up at 6.30 a.m. and was in the office by 7.15. I then took the subway over to New Jersey, and ran a training session. During the workshop, at the stage when I ask the group to give me an expectation they'd like to meet in the training session, one participant said, "My expectation is to find out why I've been sent on this training course and if it's going to be as much of a waste of time as I think it's going to be." He didn't improve throughout the session.

I then got the train back to Manhattan (it's 95 Fahrenheit today but not really sunny - just very humid so utterly unpleasant underground), then tried to get the subway back to Midtown.... and ended up in Brooklyn. I still fucking hate the subway system.

I eventually got back to the hotel at about 6.30 p.m., exhausted. So when the lift (elevator) companion said that it looked like it had been a long day, I agreed. And said, "I hate your subway system." (I thought it was a fairly safe bet he hadn't designed it.)

He said, "You look knackered. Ha! How many New Yorkers would say 'knackered'? None! Just me!" At which point he thankfully got out of the lift (elevator), otherwise, I think I might have punched him.

I've had a great time out here, but I'm ready to come home to London, the drizzle, the tube system (I never thought I'd miss the tube), Monty Cat and TheBloke (TM). Possibly in that order.

Fishing for compliments

As mentioned in an earlier Plog, you see some unusual things in New York City. None more so than the sign I spotted a few days ago (at this point I should tell you where the sign was, but I was lost as usual at the time, so I'm going to go with "somewhere around Park Avenue and Midtown").

I feel it is my civic duty to make people aware that beta fish and African dwarf frogs have arrived! I do not know what this means, but I'm guessing it's some sort of alien invasion, or at the very least, a plague, as visited upon us last by our Lord in the form of locusts and shit.

"But Laura," I hear you say, "this isn't so odd. It's just a pet shop sign telling people that they have new stock in..."

Yes Ploggers, that was my first thought too... until I realised that (sinister voice) it wasn't a pet shop.

Additionally, the fact that the active verb is used, suggests that said fish and frogs made their own way to the shop. Like they've just caught a plane or shipped themselves over.

Also, I have no idea what a beta fish is. Is it the early version of a fish that's still in test mode? Is it a thick fish that didn't get in the top stream (stream, geddit?) at school (school, geddit?)?

Worryingly, I've only just noticed the Zagat sign on the door too... for those not in the know, Zagat is a restaurant reviewer... Another plate of beta fish, my chums? Or would you rather wait for the African dwarf frogs legs? Do bear in mind though, if they're only dwarf frogs, their stubby little legs probably won't be too filling...

Fort tooth and claw

So, whilst the mouse is away, the Monty Cat plays. As does TheBloke (TM), apparently.

I'm in New York for almost another full week yet, and TheBloke (TM), has made good on his promise/threat to build a fort.

The worrying emailed updates from him started the day after I arrived in Manhattan.

Day 1

Some of the cardboard boxes I've collected are very flimsy and struggle to support any sizeable weight.

The cement under the grass limits my support beams.

The ladder will need thicker wood.

To be continued...

Day 2

The timber supplies arrived today. I forgot exactly how much I ordered. The back garden now looks like a lumberjack's dream. Was finally able to break through the layer of cement under the grass and the central support structures are in place. The rain today meant that I wasn't able to run the electrical cables. On the plus side, the rain has helped with the moat. To be continued...

Day 3

There's not much I can do while I wait for the cement to dry.

Day 4

Stupid cat has left paw prints all over my cement foundation. Problems encountered with the plumbing. On the plus side, we have more fertilizer for our lawn now. There's plenty of lawn left. It's between the fort and the moat. *** Finally a photo was sent. And hilariously, Monty Cat won't let TheBloke (TM) anywhere near it. He has built a fort for our cat. How manly.