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Feel free to drop me a line at laura.nunn@gmail.com

Sunday, November 27, 2011

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.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

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.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

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)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

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

Sunday, November 06, 2011

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.

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

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.