I spy

"Shall I tell her, Dan?" my friend Jennie giggled to her boyfriend whilst on the phone to me.

"What?" asked I.

"Well, Dan thinks you work for MI5," Jennie said.

This is fascinating. I do not work for MI5, although I do like shiny gadgets. My main reason for not working for them is that they have never asked me to, and also I would be rubbish at running in heels.

Of course Jennie continued, "Even if you did work for them, you wouldn't be able to tell us. But you live in Central London, and we think the whole 'working for a bank' thing is a bit of a cover."

"But I do work for a bank," I protested. "In fact, I've worked for the same bank for nearly five years."

"Well, you would say that," said Jen.

"Why do you think I work for MI5?" I asked.

"Well, you're very good at keeping secrets," (this would only be true so long as hostile spies didn't employ Juliet) continued Jennie. "Also, you live in London."

"Right. So I live in London and can keep secrets... So I'm a spy?"

"Pretty much, yes. If you lived nearer Waterloo, then it would be definite." (I never got to the bottom of this slightly more baffling conclusion.)

Plog-lovers, I have made it. I think I may now be officially cool. Someone thinks I'm a spy! Sadly, it's not my employer.

Antiplog

Some days the anecdote comes easily to the Plog. Something utterly ridiculous happens on the way to work, at a gig or in a shop. Or something really irritates me or makes me giggle. Those are easy Plogging days.

Some days are more difficult. Perhaps something funny or annoying has indeed happened, but for work reasons, or personal friendship reasons (and occasionally because my parents read this), sadly I'm unable to reveal everything to the Plog.

And some days it really, truly seems that nothing very important has happened. Today I ran a training course. It went well. I had a bacon sandwich for breakfast, a chocolate bread and butter pudding for lunch (unusual, but hardly Plogworthy) and an asparagus omelette for dinner. And some Pringles and a smoothie.

My cab driver this morning was on time, pleasant and for once didn't lecture me about the East End. It's rained a lot. I was supposed to be going out this evening, but it didn't happen for a not very interesting reason. I have nearly finished my book.

Plog-free day. Sorry.

Tits up

Yesterday Jessica and I toddled off to a wedding in Bedfordshire. Jessica flipped out a little bit as some of the roads had changed since her little GPS memory was programmed, but with a relatively small amount of hassle, we found our way there and back again.

It was a lovely wedding, and really nice to see my uni friends. Corinne, the bride, looked resplendent (even if she hadn't I'd have probably still used that word. It's a good word.) and Elinor's boyfriend, Jean-Marc entertained the crowds by exhibiting his classically-trained ballet skills on the dancefloor. Never before has Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" been so effectively enhanced by the addition of a pirouette.

Today has been a much-coveted day of annual leave. There has been pottering, a certain amount of shopping, and an amusing debate on Radio 2. It was all about women's right to breast-feed in public. There were two unpleasant people using amazing adjectives to describe women breastfeeding as: "dirty", "unhygienic", "unladylike" and "disgusting".

It made me really, really angry. Now, as you all know, I'm not a massive fan of the small stupid people (babies) but can you really argue that a woman feeding her child is something dirty? When TV and film and practically all of the media is so sexualised, how can you possibly argue that seeing women's breasts for the purpose for which they were designed is wrong? As for "unladylike", I can't think of many activities more likely to prove you're a lady.

It made me angry enough to consider getting pregnant for the sole purpose of arguing with protesters when I got my knockers out on the tube to breast feed.

Hakuna matata

Last night I saw The Lion King in the West End. I was initially sceptical about the show - as Disney and puppets are not usually two of my favourite things. However, various friends' reviews convinced me it was worth a shot. And indeed it was. The costumes and animal choreography were amazing, and I really love African vocal music, of which there was a-plenty.

However, probably my favourite part involved a small child. Now, I'm generally not a fan of small children - especially at the theatre. The whiny little bastards tend to kick my seat, rustle sweets and wait for the most moving part of the show to say something totally arbitrary and very loudly in the silence like, "Mummy, why does that man have no hair?" and generally irritate the crap out of me.

However The Lion King is hardly sparkling dialogue - and most of the enjoyment is visual, so I didn't mind yesterday evening's diversion... For this small child, clearly the best thing about going to the theatre was being allowed to clap. Clapping was a lot of fun to this little chap or chappess.

So every time anything happened - and I mean anything - the small child would give its own ovation. The elephant got clapped. Simba got a clap. The really quiet bit where Simba's dad is killed and is laying solemnly on the ground... got a big clap.

It made me giggle. Is there any more amusing sound than the inappropriate clapping of one small child?

Fully booked

I go through phases with reading. Sometimes I read voraciously, like a big voracious thing (similes have always been my forte). I open my book at any given minute - grabbing a few pages between two measly stops on the tube, when waiting a minute or two for a friend to meet me for lunch, sometimes even whilst brushing my teeth.

Other times, I just can't be arsed. I'll aimlessly read some shit free London paper or stare at fellow passengers or watch TV all evening.

A lot of it depends on what I'm reading at the moment. Hence Kafka = didn't do much reading at all. Lark Rise to Candleford involved equal amounts of sleeping and reading (sometimes it seemed simultaneously, or as one witty Book Club member put it: "Long Read to Boringford"). Whereas The Time Traveler's Wife and Cloud Atlas and Rebecca had me longing for tube delays, eagerly making appointments with friends who are always late... just to squeeze out a little more reading time.

At the moment I'm in one of these phases. I'm reading We Need to Talk About Kevin. I am mostly reading this because about nineteen of my friends have said, "We need to talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin," and to be honest, the linguistic trickery is getting a little thin.

So I'm reading it. And it's fab. And I think a lot of the "bad mother" thoughts myself. I'm not a mother, but I already dislike other people's children sometimes, which I think is probably a good start.

So I have to go now, because I need to tidy my flat for my cleaner and then go to bed with a very good book.

Plugging on the Plog for a while. If you enjoy reading my ramblings, would you be so kind as to make a donation to CRY? I deliberately keep my Plog advertisement free, so make no money from it at all... but if you think my near-daily stutterings are worth the price of a pint of beer or a glossy magazine, your donation would be massively appreciated by me and my family. Donation site up at www.justgiving.com/laurasplogforhannah. Thank you.

Charity shop

It was Christmas last year, and I was wearing my very favourite green top. My personal shopper had made me buy it. It was stupidly expensive, but I really liked it. Now all I needed was for other people to like it too. These situations are tricky because you're not really supposed to go up to people and say, "Do you like my very expensive top?" Sometimes I do anyway, but ideally other people are supposed to tell you without prompting.

So it was Christmas and we were at a pantomime.

"Laura, I really like your top," said Hannah, my brother Jack's girlfriend.

"Thank you," said I, beamingly. A note of worry crept in. "Did Jack put you up to that?"

"Not at all," said Hannah, truthfully. For Hannah was one of impeccable taste. She was an art student.

Hannah was one of impeccable taste.

She was an art student.

Sadly, Hannah died in her sleep a few weeks later- a massive shock to my whole family - not to mention hers.

Hannah was fit and healthy, as you can see from the photo. Other than having slightly dodgy taste in men, she had no real indication of anything being wrong. One day she was fine - and then she just wasn't anymore. The cause of her death? A heart defect, that could possibly have been detected much earlier.

Shocking? Undoubtedly. And you know what, apparently eight apparently healthy young people die unexpectedly from heart defects every week.

Every week, eight families go through the (and there is no other word) horrific situation that Hannah's family, Jack and my family have been through. Every week. And most of these conditions, if diagnosed, are treatable.

One thing that's kept everyone going a bit has been the possibility of raising awareness of the conditions, with the aim of preventing further unnecessary deaths. There's a charity that helps out with this, called CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young).

Those of you who know me know that I'm not a sporty person. I won't ever ask you for money to go scrambling up a mountain or walk across a desert. The thought of anything involving tents petrifies me. But I am keen to help out where I can.

If you enjoy reading my Plog, if you're a friend, or a regular lurker and think you've had a few quids' worth of entertainment out of my humorous mishaps (don't forget the time I "lost" my car; that's got to be worth at least a couple of quid), it would be really appreciated if you could donate whatever you can at http://www.justgiving.com/laurasplogforhannah

The company I work for will double-match any contribution you make, so if you donate £10, the charity will get £30. You can donate anonymously if you wish. Bargain.

In the meantime, whenever I wear my green top, I will smile and remember Hannah approved. Even if her taste in men was a bit dodgy.

Probably the worst airline in the world

If Carlsberg made airlines... they'd be a hell of a lot better than British Airways.

Certainly, if Carlsberg did make airlines, chances are the staff might be a bit drunk, the pilot could be a lager lout, and the flight itself might be a tad on the unsafe side. But even with drunk obnoxious staff, pilots on the piss and copious vomiting into aisles, I would be willing to bet that this would still be better than BA (Big Arseholes).

First of all, Big Arseholes don't fly from Glasgow to London City, so I had to come back to Heathrow. Fine. So the flight was delayed by about 40 minutes. This was a bit annoying, especially as they wouldn't transfer me to the earlier flight, even though it wasn't full and I had a flexible ticket. Then the air conditioning on the plane wasn't working so the "slightly stuffy, sorry folks" was actually somewhere between lethal and very lethal. And to add insult to injury, when we finally did land, nearly an hour late, we had to wait a further forty-five minutes for the luggage to arrive. This was apparently owing to "not enough baggage handlers".

Top tip, tossbags, if you don't have enough staff to run an airline, you shouldn't try to run a fucking airline. Wankers.

OK, that's the Tourette's over with. Other than airline incompetence, it's been a lovely weekend with Nice Kate and her brood. We saw Holyrood and went bowling. I actually won at bowling. This must mean Nice Kate is very, very, very bad at bowling, because I haven't won a sporting event since the 1988 egg and spoon race.

I should have come first in that race, but owing to circumstances beyond my control (Dad with his camera. Not that I'm bearing grudges), I got put off and only came third.

Still, that egg and spoon race certificate is the only sporting certificate I have to this day. Apart from the glory of beating Nice Kate and her 12 year-old daughter at ten-pin bowling. With the aid of lane buddies. Shut up.

Streetwise

I had to drive to Bluewater this evening. For the uninitiated, it's a big shopping centre, a bit like Lakeside, but with all the chavs filtered out through a special chavlimination system. It's very high-tech.

The downside was I needed to be at Lakeside for 7 p.m., meaning I had to set off during rush hour. Worse still, something had fucked up somewhere (these might not have been the exact words of the travel news announcer on the BBC) and it took me almost an hour to get to the Blackwall Tunnel. It would have been quicker to walk. But less fun as I'd not get the chance to hoot my horn so much at London's many idiots.

My favourite road idiots today:

- Angry black woman who'd drive up on kerbs and in between two lanes of traffic to ensure she was one more car ahead than you were.

- Middle aged middle managers sitting in the middle lane doing a middling 50.

- A multitude of white van men who use the world as their ashtray. Sometimes I wish lung cancer was faster acting.

- People who break down in French cars. If you're going to break down, do it on your own time.

Isn't "middle" a funny word when you think about it for too long?

Secret Service

I spoke to my friend Juliet today. Juliet has recently started reading the Plog, and has commented a couple of times that despite me having spent time with her that day, she has never yet been included in a Plog.

"Why is this?" you ask, and rightly so. "Is she really horrible like Ned at the wedding that time?"

"No," I would reply. "Juliet is lovely, and is a very, very funny stand-up comic. But there is a dark secret about Juliet."

"You have our interest now," you would reply. All of you. In unison. "What is this dark secret about Juliet? Does she bite her toenails?"

"Well, she might," I would say. "She looks like she probably does. But that's not it. In fact, the dark secret about Juliet is more my issue than hers."

You would press me to continue.

Until this point I have feared to write about Juliet because of the worry that her real life talent might spill into writing.

For, no matter how secrety I want to keep my special secrets, all Juliet has to say to me is, "Hi Laura," and out they gush. It is extraordinary and unpleasant, all that gushing. Within the space of three hours last Wednesday she extracted no fewer than three names from me pertaining to Gossip of the Secretest Sort (GSS).

Luckily I don't seem to have been tricked into revealing anything in writing just yet.

What were Juliet's special tactics? It is a mystery. To be honest, I'm not even sure she was that interested in my GSS. Maybe she just has one of those faces.

Pulling

I have been a terrible blogger. Well, the blogs themselves are pretty good (even if I do say so myself), but I've been very lax about it recently.

This is owing to (deep breath): work, auditions, drinks, driving (not at the same time), visiting family, going to see a play, driving again, hosting a guest, more auditions and more work.

Let me tell you about the play. This weekend I drove to an unspecified town (believe me, it's kinder this way) to see an amateur dramatics play with my friend Erica. Why would I drive a 300-mile round trip to see amdram? Well, the play was Daisy Pulls it Off, which was the first play I ever directed, about ten years ago. Erica played the part of Mr Thompson back in 1997 and also assistant directed (meaning she had to do all the shit jobs that I was far too important for. She still reminds me how she nearly gassed herself spray-painting a load of two-pence coins gold in an enclosed garage. I maintain that this was her fault, and if anything then it was natural selection.)

The play's a thrilling schoolgirl romp, hammy as anything, and ideal to do for a girls' school play. Which was exactly what we did. Admittedly though, the first act was a bit alien to me, as we only had 45 minutes for our play, so I adapted it and we only actually produced the second act.

So, Erica and I trotted off to see a play in an unspecified town. It was about three minutes into the play that we realised that the mean age of the theatre company was about 60. And that the most likely thing Daisy would pull off would be her colostomy bag.

That's not to say we didn't have a rip-roaring evening, full of spiffingness and top-hole entertainment, because we did. But sometimes we were laughing for the wrong reasons.

And our production did well to cut the tedious hockey matches, plus our assembly scenes were better. Possibly because we dressed up a sixth former to look exactly like our own real-life headmistress at that time. Disturbingly, the real-life headmistress looked exactly like Andrew Lloyd Webber, who worryingly wrote the music for the West End revival of Daisy a few years back.

Coincidence? I think not.*

* Actually, I think it probably is a coincidence, but ending an entry with "Coincidence? I think so" is less strong.

Tired jokes

I am the sort of tired that almost physically hurts. The sort of tired that means you've had less than six hours' sleep for the past seven days; the sort of tired that follows an action-packed weekend, six hours of driving, plus two 12-hour days in the office.

The sort of tired when you realise that work-wise you've barely even started and the next couple of weeks are just going to present you with more of the same. The sort of tired when you're almost grateful that there's no light at the end of the tunnel, as it might be easier to sleep if it's a bit darker.

If you should wish to witness the very real prospect of me actually falling asleep on stage, I shall be at the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green doing a ten-minute set tomorrow.

Clucking ridiculous

It was the morning of the hen weekend. I'd risen early for a weekend - there was driving to be done, and a hen party to attend.

I was just about ready, when entering my living room I realised that Julie's sister was staring at me. Despite me leaving the window open for her, she'd instead exited the bedroom, crossed the hallway, and was now pleased-as-punch sitting on the lovely yellow wall of my living room. I had to be brave. I donned rubber gloves (I'm not sure why, but there are very few situations in the world in which I don't feel braver once wearing rubber gloves), grabbed a glass and the comedy flyer. This was war.

Eventually Julie's sister went on a short-haul flight from my living room window to the ground floor... and scampered off into some bushes. I am all that and a bag of crisps. Don't mess with me (if you're a spider).

So, the hen weekend... well, thereby hangs a tale. Quite a tail.

Now, I could tell you how beautiful the city was in the sunlight, how nice it was to be surrounded by my uni friends, and how amazing the horse-riding was that afternoon. But I won't. Instead I'll tell you about the stripper.

So we were all gathered in a little room in a Travelodge. For it is nothing but luxury for me and my glamorous celebrity-filled life. A few of us had partaken of a few glasses of wine... but nowhere near enough.

A knock came at the door. Corinne (the hen) opened the door. In came "The Stud" (this was what he called himself), dressed in full police uniform.

"All roight moi luvver?" he asked, full-blown Bristolian. Well, that might not have been his exact phrase, but it gets my point across.

He started dancing. It was like watching a sixteen year-old try to pull in a club. He took his jacket off. Then his shirt. Then his trousers. Then he blindfolded Corinne and made her hold a fake willy (please see picture). We all giggled, mostly through horror. Each of us had a "forfeit" for the evening (mine was "Get a man to buy you a drink"). We all thought Cezza should have used hers with the stripper: "Chat up a minger".

He took all his clothes of and wobbled himself around for a bit. It was horrid.

After "the big finish" (I've seen bigger), we experienced the most Pinter-esque part of the evening, where, as we all were sitting around awkwardly, he clumsily struggled to put his pants and trousers back on.

I was a little bit sick into the back of my mouth. If only I'd had my rubber gloves with me. Maybe not.

Noted

My life looks so busy for the next fortnight that just looking at my diary makes me exhausted.

I can't write much at the moment but please stay tuned for the latest spider escapades, plus I am almost certain that this weekend will generate at least one anecdote.

Surfing the web

Three years ago I lived in a place called Sunlight Square with my friend Erica. It was a lovely flat, but its most distinguishing feature was that it got practically no sunlight at all, and was in fact rather dark after about ten every morning. That's not really important.

Anyway, one evening I came home from work, expecting Erica to be in the flat. She wasn't, but bizarrely the PC was still on, the lights were on and - perplexingly - the window was open. I didn't think much of it, and settled down to check my emails.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Julie. Julie was the biggest house spider I have ever seen. Now I'm not that scared of spiders (though am terrified of moths), but I'll admit I don't really like the big ones. Anything up to an inch or so in diameter I'm OK with. Beyond that it's a struggle.

Julie was the reason for Erica's quick flat exit, I quickly surmised.

Erica and I soon settled into a pattern: Julie had the the living room - Erica and I stayed in our bedrooms. This seemed a tad unfair as Julie wasn't actually paying any rent, and the Sky TV was in the living room. Still, she had squatters' rights and we didn't want to argue with her.

Sometimes she'd go missing, and we'd think we were free of her reign. And then, always when Erica was out, I'd do some hoovering or wash the floor, and suddenly Julie would be there, literally chasing me around the living room.

Until one day I saw her run under a lamp whilst I was vacuuming. Erica was out at a self-defence class, but I watched the lamp carefully, trying to pluck up courage to lift it and capture and release Julie. I won't kill things. Not even mosquitoes. I am a wuss.

Soon Erica returned, pumped full of adrenalin from her class. We were brave, we were warriors. Besides which, Erica now knew how to defend herself... She tipped the lamp up... and promptly accidentally squashed Julie. I swear she made a crunching noise.

This morning, just before I left the flat to go to work, Julie's slightly smaller sister was sitting on my bedroom curtains. Had she been on a wooden floor or hard surface I might have been brave enough to go for the old "glass and a piece of card" routine, but this was impractical on a curtain surface. I left the door open, the window open and didn't draw the curtains.

When I got home this evening, Julie's sister was gone from her curtain spot. It will be a lovely surprise to find out where she is hiding. Perhaps under my duvet or on top of my milk in the fridge.

I have a nasty suspicion that when I get back from a weekend away, she may have filled the flat with squatting arachnids, and I'll have to get an eviciton order from the Council.

It is hard being me.

Try-pod

Yesterday was a day of three things I don't normally do.

Thing One

Instead of office work, I went and did some training with The Prince's Trust. Really valuable stuff, and hope to put it into practice in the near future. Did you know that Prince Charles doesn't give any money at all to the Trust? He gave £8k to it many moons ago to set it up, but beyond that all the work he does is PR. Good job I'm here to tell you these things. The charity's excellent though, and I'm looking forward to working with them.


Thing Two

I'm not allowed to talk about in detail, but it was an audition for a TV show that's not yet launched - nothing hugely exciting, more audience member/comedy foil than Proper Comedy Work. Having said that, I got to poke around the offices at Hattrick and confirm my suspicions that a) TV life is grotty and the offices are much nastier than corporate offices b) TV people are full of themselves and c) generally dress well to cover up their intellectual inadequacies. Not really my thing; the more comedy I do, the more I feel that writing rather than performing is my forte. And even that's a mezzo-forte.


Thing Three

I went to a concert. I told this to my friend Nice Kate and she said that I sound really uncool by calling it a concert. She said I should call it a gig. But when I say gig, I always mean comedy gig, so that could get confusing. I told her it was Travis and she said that was more of a concert anyway. She then accused me of being square and middle aged. Until I reminded her that she'd just had a birthday and is very nearly a full decade older than I am. After that the sobbing kind of drowned out the rest of the conversation.

I went to the concert with my friend dave with a little "d". The evening started badly when he told me that he already had a Laura in his phone. This is fine - it's not an uncommon name. But she was in his phone as "Funny Laura". I was in there as "Grammar Laura". Grammar Laura is a good name, but it's not as good as Funny Laura. I sulked. He defended himself by saying he knew her before he met me, but I think that's unacceptable, and phone books are easily edited. I made more and more weaker and weaker jokes as the evening progressed, desperately trying to nudge myself up into "Funny Laura's" place. Instead, I think I probably just earned the moniker "Tries too hard Laura". Snappy.

A busy day, a good day, and a day of three unusual things.

Tea-total

Age has descended on me, like a flock of crows perching at the corners of my eyes.

How do I know this for sure? Well, I went to Sainsbury's earlier and when I returned, these were my thoughts:

- "Oooh, I am parched."

- "Eeh, I could murder a cup of tea."

And I did. I have often desired a cup of tea before. Very often I have enjoyed a cup of tea. But never before, with so much gusto, have I actually murdered a cup of tea. I think the accidental usage of regional accents might also relate to age.

I think I might be turning into Mrs Nunn, who (and this is true) now makes herself two cups of tea in one go, and drinks one straight after the other. And has even been known to start the kettle boiling again before she's at the end of her second cup.

Having said that, Mrs Nunn's tea is weaker than some water that's been diluted with more water, whereas mine is strong enough to trot a mouse on.

Organic chocolate on The Green

I am worried. Very, very worried.

When I first moved to Bethnal Green, I thought it was a bit rough. I'd lived in Dalston previously, mind, so I was no stranger to London's East End. However, Bethnal Green seemed excitingly full of police, rough-around-the-edge Cockneys and a lot of tatooed teenagers.

I liked it.

However, there is a worrying development. I have a nasty feeling that the area in which I live is "up and coming".

Let's look at the evidence: a Thai restauant. "Hmm," you might say. "A Thai restaurant is all well and good, but in this day and age, it's hardly unusual." Well, what if I told you it was a vegetarian Thai restaurant? Can't get much more middle class than that, can you?

Or can you? What if I told you that it was next door not only to an organic cafe... but to an organic lesbian cafe filled with dull academics talking about pretentious things?

Or even worse, that the lesbian cafe was next door to a Buddhist Centre and opposite a Southeast Asian art gallery?

The final nail in the coffin was when I went to a (non-lesbian) cafe earlier today to do some writing, and a family walked in. I could identify them from the moment they came through the door by the smell of wet dog... They were all dressed in organic fibres, the father had a beard and the mother had knitted everyone's clothes from ethically-sourced wool. They were hippies. I hoped this was a one-off, but on the short trot back to my flat, I saw no fewer than four other people of the hippy persuasion, carrying root veg and smelling of wet animal, smiling benignly at the world.

A health food shop in Bethnal Green has just started selling the Mooncup*. I rest my case. It is only a matter of time before estate agents start referring to this area as "The Green".

* This is so horrible I don't want to talk about it, but have a look here if you're not easily grossed out. http://www.mooncup.co.uk/

The whole thing makes me want to go and eat bacon and prance up and down in leather shoes. I have to go now. There is bacon to be eaten and prancing to be done.

Not a leg to stand on

So I work in a basement all day long. This is a relatively new development and whilst not happy about it, there's not a lot I can do.

The basement has no natural light, and this week has been glorious. May's my favourite month, so it sucks not to see the sunlight through the window.

"Never mind," thought I. "For it is a Bank Holiday weekend. I shall dawdle upon the grass, reading my boring book for Book Club and soak up my vitamin D requirements." Not so. It's freezing outside, and looks like it will tip it down any moment.

I shall have to read my boring book indoors.

On hearing about the fire incident earlier this week, Mrs Nunn said, "Was your neighbour abusive to you?"

"Well, a bit," I said. "I think he was just shocked."

"Are you worried about him coming up and harassing you?" she asked.

Once I reminded her that he only had one leg and was confined to a wheelchair, Mrs Nunn finally realised that all I had to do to be safe was to go up the stairs. He is like a Dalek in his ineffectiveness. The old Daleks that is, not the new flying ones. I hope.

However, if you do see an 80 year-old man with one leg levitating in a wheelchair, could you please check to see if he has singed eyebrows? If he does, let me know. Ta.

Sweet talker

The second kitchen story.

Terry ran out of kitchen tiles. Now, I don't want to point fingers as a lot of people were involved in the calculation. Terry originally told me how many 12x12 inch tiles I would need. The man in Homebase then calculated these into square meterage, and then I had to work out how many rectangular tiles I'd need. Somewhere along the line things went a bit pear-shaped.

So Terry had almost finished the kitchen but there were a few tiles missing, and duly, like the grown-up I was, I drove back to Loughborough (don't ask) to pick up some more tiles and bring them back home. Terry said I should call him once I'd got the tiles and he'd come round the next day and fit them. But if I didn't get them this week it would be a month, as he was off on holiday. How nice.

So, bombing (by which I mean driving at the appropriate speed limit) back down the M1, I called Terry as soon as I got home. It rang a few times, and then answered. But I was saying, "Hello, hello?" and there was no reply.

Then Terry came on the line, "I really do not want to talk to this woman at all," he joked to me. I laughed and said, "Hello Terry."

Then the line went dead. a) He hadn't realised he'd answered it and b) had then dropped my call. He didn't answer when I called back.

And I had already paid him for the work.

Who knew that one box of half-empty chocolates could cause so much trouble? Luckily, he did call back later (I didn't mention the earlier incident), did come over on Monday and did (finally!) finish the job. Although I've still no receipt for the hefty amount (of cash) I handed over to him.

Why didn't he want to speak to me? Was he ashamed of his chocolate antics? Were the chocolates not of sufficient quality? Was he aware that my flat was now a chocolate-free zone?

On Monday he did ask, "Is this cake on the counter for me?" "Of course, Terry," I replied. "I wouldn't want you to go hungry."

He didn't eat it. Which is a shame as it was injected with laxative.

Chocs away

It is time to reveal Kitchen Story: Part One.

As you will know, from the tedious and drawn-out process over the last few weeks, I have had a new kitchen fitted. And very shiny it is too.

As with almost everything in my life, it comes with some in-built ridiculousness. The process that is, not the kitchen itself. "Hello, I'd like one of those fitted kitchens with an inbuilt dishwasher. Oh, and it must have some built-in ridiculousness too. Thanks." Sorry, I digress.

So, whilst emptying my kitchen cupboards so that the kitchen fitter - let's call him Terry - could take them out, I managed to knock over a packet of Galaxy Mini Eggs that my brother had bought me for Easter. I picked them up again, popped them back in their box and relocated them to the living room.

A few days later, when the cupboards were fitted, I started putting food back in my cupboards. But this time I noticed that there was only one Mini Egg rattling around in its box. I'll be honest - I didn't really think about it. It crossed my mind that maybe they'd been eaten, but I think I probably assumed I'd eaten them myself and forgotten.

A day later I decided to have that last lonely Mini Egg. It was rattling round in its box all alone, so it was a kindness really. I went to the shelf... and an empty packet greeted me.

There was no way I could pass this off as forgetful eating on my part. It was clear that my kitchen fitter was - look away now if you're easily shocked - a Chocolate Thief.

I'll admit it, I was a bit annoyed, but I though to myself, "The packet was already open. You didn't leave any biscuits or anything out for him. He was probably hungry. It's not a big deal." I almost convinced myself. As a consolation I allowed myself to reach for the box of Thorntons I'd been saving for an Extra Special Chocolate occasion.

I carefully eased the ribbon from the box. I lifted the snug-fitting lid. I removed the packing on the top... and FOUR chocolates were missing from the box. They had been snaffled. I have never felt such anger. I am Laura Nunn. You do not mess with my chocolate.

The worst part was the deception - the fact he'd put the ribbon back over the lid, probably hoping I wouldn't notice. I was really, really angry. How did he know that the chocolates weren't intended for a friend's birthday?

And so a plan hatched itself, as plans are wont to do.

On his last day, I wrote Terry a note, thanking him for all his hard work... and left for him a box of Thorntons chocolates - the packing put back onto the top, the lid replaced and the ribbon carefully eased back onto the box.

Revenge, quite literally, is sweet.