Warning: irritant

Some things irritate me.  Some of them are understandable, like mosquito bites and the Essex accent.  Others are a bit more... weird.  But for some reason the "weird" ones irritate me a lot more than the normal ones.  Perhaps because I can't get anyone to agree with me.

Things that irritate me (and probably no-one else):

1.   Couples who call each other "babes".  "Babe" is bad enough and makes me want to vom.  TheBloke (TM) tried it once, and that's why he only has one testicle.  But "babes", especially in public or via Facebook makes me want to legalise handguns, buy said handgun and then shoot "babes" in the ear.

2.  People who squeeze toothpaste from the bottom of the tube.  Why?  You're going to have to use the bottom half of the toothpaste at some point.  Why make life harder for yourself (and for those who share a toothpaste tube with you).

3.  Anyone who reads chick lit shit in a public place.  Basically anything with a pastel-coloured cover, italic embossed writing in pink and featuring any of the following words: "shopping", "wedding", "kiss", "cupcake", "goodbye".

4.  Same goes for man shit.  Lee Child, Dean Koontz, anything where the hero can punch someone dead or stop a bullet with his rippling chest muscles.  It's just not enough for me to avoid these books myself.  I feel I have to kick anyone I see reading them.  Repeatedly.  Until they understand.

5.  Chigwell Medical Centre.  The only medical centre in the world with a premium-rate phone number, who refuse to take blood, and will only make an appointment grudgingly.  The doctors use Google to look up symptoms. It would be hilarious if they weren't the thing standing between you and potential death.

Discuss.  What irritates you but no-one else?

Rev-view

So, sadly the time has come to replace the Mini.  We have had some good times together, but its teeny tiny boot space (barely large enough for one weekend bag) is beginning to grate, and I think it's time for a Grown Up Car.

This has - of course - involved test driving.  So far we have test driven:

• Volkswagen Golf
• Ford Focus
• Vauxhall Astra
• Toyota Auris

For each of these appointments I have rung ahead - or where possible - booked online.  For every single one of these appointments, the car dealers have been in complete shock when we've turned up; literally none of them were expecting us.

That is the first thing I graded cars on.  How efficient their booking systems were.  So far, they're all level at a big fat 0, with the exception of Toyota who actually lost an additional point, when I said, "I booked with Jamie", I got the reply, "Oh yeah, he's a complete nightmare.  Never writes anything down."  So current scores, -1 for the Auris, and a fat zero for everything else.

Next up, quality of the toilets in each establishment.  All have been pretty poor, so again, awarding no points for this.  

Refreshments offered: the Volkswagen garage not only had tea and coffee, but also fridges full of Cokes.  However, they miss out on a potential high score here for keeping their Cokes from us and only offering the tea and coffee.  The Toyota garage had no Cokes, but did have a chill-out area with a Playstation.  Unfortunately the Playstation didn't work.  The Ford garage offered us tea or coffee, but "We ain't got no milk."

Scores so far:

Volkswagen: 1

Ford: 0

Vauxhall: 0

Toyota: 1

Last but not least, arguably the most important category - the dickishness of the car salesman.  I say "salesman" because the only woman we saw throughout the entire process was the receptionist at the Toyota garage.

Volkswagen: Surprised we'd turned up (despite me speaking to the very man we saw for the test drive).  Seemed somewhat stunned when I said I'd test drive first (before TheBloke (TM)) and never called back with a valuation for the Mini.  -3

Ford: Could not quite understand his accent.  Again seemed a) shocked to see us and this time b) shocked I was allowed to drive.  Insinuated that every car salesman apart from him was a charlatan.  Refused to answer any question straight.  Refused to give a warranty on any car he sold.  However, was surprisingly unbothered when it turned out I'd driven the Focus for three full miles with the handbrake on.  Perhaps he was right about me not being allowed to drive.  -5

Vauxhall:  Kept us waiting for ages to get a valuation, and then valued the Mini at about £4k under market value.  American.  Could not understand my pronunciation of the word "bear".  I had to do actions.  This doesn't normally come up in a test drive.  -3

Toyota:  Clearly a salesman, but didn't treat us as though we were quite as stupid as other salesmen had.  However, failed to phone back with a valuation for the Mini.  0

Total scores:

Volkswagen: -2

Ford: -5

Vauxhall: -3

Toyota: 1

In terms of driveability of the cars, meh, they're all much of a muchness.

I have no idea why Which haven't approached me to do reviews yet.

Charity case

I get rid of clothes fairly frequently.  Don't get me wrong, I'm no super shopper, but as soon as I realise I've not worn something for a year - perhaps it looks a bit old, or has a small fault, or - very often - (ahem) that it no longer fits me, I'm pretty good about filling one of the charity bags that comes through the door.

I mean, yes, I think everyone has a nightie left over from their university days, or a t-shirt bought when in the sixth form, but generally, I'd say the average age of an item in my wardrobe is about two years old.  Maybe three.  I think that sounds reasonable.

TheBloke (TM) on the other hand... well.  We've known each other for nearly five years... and in all that time I've never seen him throw away a single pair of pants.  Or socks.  He buys more, for sure, but I've never seen him throw away the old ones.  Worse still, he has hideous pairs of grey Woolworths boxers (he tells me Woolworths is upmarket in his native South Africa).  And he wears them.  I know for a fact these pants are getting on for ten years old.

Shoes, on the other hand, he goes through like nobody's business.  Find a cheap shoe shop, reeking of plastic and glue, and TheBloke (TM) will be in there, handing over his £10.  "But they're so cheap!" he says.  Fast forward to two weeks later and he's donating them to charity ("They hurt my feet" - who would have thought?  "I did wear them twice!" he adds.) and browsing yet more shoes on the Internet.  He's such a girl.

STOP PRESS: TheBloke (TM) has just come downstairs after rustling charity sacks conspicuously, and is reading over my shoulder.  "I just threw out some pants!" he says.  Too little, too late.

Coaching lesson

Ploggers, I have been on holiday.  But I have returned with tales of Ploggy goodness, with which to keep you entertained.

So Mr and Mrs Nunn, TheBloke (TM) and I went off to Portugal for a week.  It was lovely.  Sunny, good food, good company (apart from the people I travelled with), and generally nice to have a break away from work.

Now, many people seem to enjoy boasting about their holidays, but I find that rather dull.  Holidays are supposed to be good; that's why you go on them.  Surely it's much more interesting to hear about the bits that went wrong.  Like the time in Hong Kong where I had to do a mime for toilet roll, or the time in New Zealand where I was so spaced out on a sleeping pill I watched my own suitcase go round the carousel for about 20 minutes.  Or the time in Hong Kong where I accidentally spent an hour with a prostitute.

So...  introducing the Portugal half day tour from hell:

Now, I’m never a fan of organised tours at the best of times.  I don’t really like coach travel, I’m not (brace yourself) really that interested in history and I don’t like being frogmarched from “interesting” site to site.  To be honest, I’m happier in a nice restaurant or sitting in the sun with a book.

But, Mr and Mrs Nunn fancied doing a coach tour, and as they’d treated us to the holiday, we felt it was the least we could do.  So up we got at 8 am. and joined “Paradise Tours” for their half-day excursion to Crud-on-Mountain and Shitty-Old-Castle.  Still, only half a day, how bad could it be?

The first hour of the tour was probably the best.  This involved going to all the other hotels in the area to pick up more passengers.  I can honestly say this was the highlight of the tour.  And once this had finished, the tour guide got on board.

"Welcome to Purgatory - I mean Paradise Tours," he said.  We laughed politely, thinking it was a joke.  Little did we know.  "My name is JC.  Like Jesus but better.  Excuse me, madam, excuse me?"

A befuddled tourist looked up from a text message she was composing.  "Please to be turning off your mobile phone.  People have paid to listen to me, not to you.  And that goes for everybody.  Please to be turning off all of your mobile phones.  Not allowed today."

I thought he was joking.  He wasn't.

Our first stop was Shitty-Old-Castle.  He didn't tell us anything about the site, so I can't relay any historical nuggets.  We were allowed one hour at Shitty-Old-Castle, which did not include the entrance fee to the castle.  I spent twenty minutes of my hour's allowance queuing at Shitty-Old-Castle public toilets, which did not have toilet roll.  Here is a picture of me with Mr Nunn, enjoying the coach tour.

Back on the coach we got, for our onward journey to Crud-on-Mountain.  The next twenty minutes were taken up by JC explaining how lunch worked.

"You see, lunch is not included in tour price, but for very good price, I can get you meal in restaurant here."  He pointed at a shack, perched in the middle of nowhere.  "I need to know who want chicken and who want fish, and we go here at 1 p.m. after we have been up mountain."

"Isn't this supposed to be a half-day tour?" someone asked.

"Half day mean anytime so you back in hotel before dinner.  Who want chicken?  Those of you who aren't to be wanting lunch must wait for us outside for one hour."

We looked at the outside of the restaurant.  There was a petrol station and a goat.  This would keep TheBloke (TM) entertained for 30 minutes at the most.  But we had brought our own sandwiches so there was nothing we could do.

Onwards we went up the mountain.  We got to the top.  "OK, so we take hour for lunch but not yet.  Be back on coach in 20 minutes."

Unfortunately the non-English speakers didn't understand him, and some were still wandering around Crud-on-Mountain 30 minutes later (Christ only knows what they were doing, as the gift shop sold only things that a mental person would want, and it was cold as buggery outside).  As the straggling tourists were rounded up one by one, JC shouted at them, "You are disrespectful!  I don't give a crap!  I leave you behind!"

Finally, with everyone on board, we pulled away.  Or would have done if the coach hadn't chosen that exact moment to break down.

"New coach is on its way.  Nobody is allowed to get off coach!"

It was hot on the coach, and JC was eventually persuaded to open the doors.  "The doors are now open on the coach but you  may NOT get off!  Stay on coach!"

After an hour, he relented and allowed us to go to the snack bar.  After five minutes at the snack bar (which sold hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, nothing you could call a meal), he came into said snack bar and started shouting at us again.  "Coach arriving in half an hour!  Do not order a meal!  You have enough time for a sandwich but no-one is allowed to order a meal."

We did make it back to the hotel, eventually.  I, for one, am not looking forward to any Second Coming by JC.

Orange you glad I met you?

As a non-traditional woman, working in a man's industry, and - to boot - as an atheist, people often ask me why I bothered getting married.  It was certainly never at the top of my to-do list, or of the things I desperately wanted to do with my life.

But I was asked, and, for better or for worse, I decided that yes, I guess I could do worse than spending the rest of my life with TheBloke (TM), besides which, he told me he had a diamond mine, and all South Africans do.  I haven't seen it yet, but I definitely believe him.  And so off to South Africa we toddled and had ourselves a wedding.

Lovely.

And sometimes, let's be honest, we all think, "Oh God, what have I done?"  These moments are usually limited to:

• Him kicking me in the night (he claims I'm on his side of the bed, and actually that I was kicking him, but he should have known my foot wanted to go there and got out of my way)
• Him stealing my shower gel, because he likes the way the tea tree and mint tingles his man parts
• Actually, that's about it.

And other moments, I just know I made the right decision.  Like today.  I got home from work.

"Guess what?" asked TheBloke (TM).

"What?" I - let's face it - predictably reply.

"At Liverpool Street today, I saw Belinda McOrange!"

"Hmm," I said.  I was fully aware that TheBloke (TM) had never met Belinda McOrange, so was unsure how he had identified her.  "How did you know it was her?"

"I recognised her from those school reunion photos," he said.  "I thought, 'Do I know that girl?' - then I realised I only knew her from those orange photos."

"Oh," I said.  "That's very impressive.  I find it hard even to recognise people I know quite well when I see them out of context.  Well done you.  How did she look?"

"Short," he said.  "Orange.  A bit chunky.  Not bad at blow jobs though."

I made the right decision.

Public Service Announcement

I probably shouldn't do this, as it runs the risk of sending my hit counter plummeting, and my little (OK, medium-sized) ego plummeting right along with it, but draw close and I'll share a secret with you...

If you click on "Follow" for this Plog, every time I write a new nugget of gold (or a wad of shit), it'll be emailed directly to your inbox, so you don't have to bother checking to see what's new.

Shhh... don't tell anyone.

Mind games

My friend Abi, clearly not satisfied with this character assassination a few years ago, has foolishly requested that she becomes the topic of another Plog.

Well, far be it from me to disappoint my readership.  In fact, if you would like a Plog about you in the near future, let me know.  Not that I'm suffering from writers' block or anything.  Oh no.  Of course, if I don't know you, it might make it trickier, but I'm willing to give it a go.

So, Abi and I have been friends since birth.  Well, since my birth; she's a few months older than me.  Despite the history of domestic violence that has dogged our friendship (see link above), we've remained friends for the last thirty-odd years.

When Abi and I were little, we'd often spend the night at each other's houses.  As a child, I thought this was tremendous fun.  As an adult, I realise it was probably because my parents couldn't stand me any longer.  We would do all manner of exciting things.  Well, it was generally limited to five exciting things, if I'm honest:

1. Swimming at Beaumont Leys leisure centre.  They had a water slide AND a wave machine.  It was practically Wet 'N' Wild.  But with more chlorine and kiddy piss.  They also had fake palm trees, planted in some sort of wood chip, which would inevitably find its way into the pool, and look like floating turds.  At least, that's what I liked to tell myself.
2. Off to Bosworth Battlefield.  Again.  I can trace my hatred of the War of the Roses through enforced visits to this local attraction what seemed like weekly.  For anyone thinking of going, it's basically a field.  There is a gift shop though, and if you're good, you might be allowed to get some Tic-Tacs.
3. Off to Beacon Hill.  A hill.  With a beacon.  Honestly, it's not as good as it sounds.
4. Midnight feasts.  This usually involved a Sherbet Dib-Dab eaten at about 8.30 p.m. before brushing our teeth and lights out.
5. Playing the Medallion Game.

Now, the medallion game was a game we kind of made up ourselves, and had the sort of mad narrative only eight year-olds can invent.  Basically it paid homage (some would say plagiarised) to Narnia, and a long (deservedly) forgotten Spanish cartoon called The Mysterious Cities of Gold.

The basic idea was that Abi and I were twins (or something) who'd managed to find each other, and both Abi and I had half a medallion.  We had to put both halves of the medallion together into a magic wardrobe and we'd go through the wardrobe to a magic land, which we may have got to by helter-skelter (please see Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree).  I have no idea what was in this magic land.  I'm not sure we ever got that far.  Most of it revolved around putting the (imaginary) medallions together into the (imaginary) wardrobe and going down the (imaginary) helter-skelter.

And this stunning imaginative example, dear readers, is why I have never written a novel: my ideas are generally derivative, plotless, characterless and without resolution.

Still, makes a Plog, eh?  Anyone want to buy a second-hand imaginary half-medallion?

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?