Blag Lady became quite cross yesterday. Not only was she fined £20 for forgetting to buy a train ticket to go one stop (Oyster prepay makes you think you have a travel card) but she also had the misfortune of spending good money in a specious little patisserie near Borough Market. I say little: they had two floors and no toilet. It should have been obvious that Lila’s Patisserie on Bedale Street SE1 was not up to the job when I enquired about what was inside a very attractive chocolate parcel in the cabinet: a monosyllabic ‘cream’ was the reply. (Ironic isn’t it how the word which describes a word with one syllable actually has five?) Anyway, I digress… Actually on further probing said cake had dark chocolate mousse within but by that time my will to buy it had dwindled and I made do with tea and a small truffle. When I went upstairs, erroneously, to use the (non-existent) loo I was promptly ordered down first by the monosyllabic assistant who had suddenly acquired a larger vocabulary (English was not her first language) and then by a gargoylesque proprietor. As I exited the establishment I noticed a sign for a new pastry chef in the window. So even people paid to be there were leaving.

I nearly took a picture of the wilted brown lilac on the table before the no loo stand off which would have illustrated this post quite nicely. But wanting to be positive and upbeat and all that I didn’t. The lady at the next table had said it was illegal not to provide a loo and was very sympathetic. Anyway after too much time obsessively twitching and clicking in a really GOOD cafe with excellent customer service called The Old Clapham I finally found the Southwark Council Environmental Health website and was downcast to see the word ‘recommended’ in relation to this pressing issue. So (after nipping to the loo) I whizzed off a quick enquiry using the free wi-fi as provided in the Old Clapham and tucked into the complementary tea cake the charming Venezuelan waitress had popped onto my plate (note that English was not her first language either: despite this I know that the most popular soft beverage in Caracas is a drink called ‘malta’ or malt, which they drink cold with milk). Then I went home on the bus, managing somehow to avoid any further altercation.

This morning I picked up my mobile wondering who was calling from a private number. To my surprise it was not a representative from the Poetry Death Squad – a harder, tougher version of the Bad Cop Mentor division – who I am due to meet today in yet another cafe, but a personable and efficient man from Southwark Environmental Health. We had a 12 minute chat about toilet provision and I can now claim if not to be an expert, to at least be fully informed.

So, I regret to report that it is NOT a legal obligation to provide a loo unless you are a pub or have a licence to sell alcohol. It is down to the discretion of the owner. Each council may have different bylaws, but this is the case for Southwark. If it were a ‘public inconvenience – no pun intended’ that led to hoards of staggering men urinating in alleys and causing a right stink, then that would be a different matter. So there you have it! This impolite establishment is not about to be busted by the powers that be for ignoring the council’s recommendations and I have had to make do with slagging (see New Name Game for the euphonic potency of the word ’slagging’) them off on the blag.

I am feeling philosophical today. Already posted a daily haiku that mentions God. God is a bit like dolphins in the poetry world. I think I am somewhere between an agnostic and a theist but definitely not an atheist: I believe in a higher power but not in the personification of God. Although personification is handy when it comes to poetry.

My haiku this morning was:

God does not believe
in rain when he cracks the sky
like a fresh laid egg.

I thought about de-personalising it, but 1) it’s always easier to tell a story with a lead character; and 2) one syllable words with BIG resonant meanings are like gold dust in the world of haiku. The kigo (seasonal reference required to make it a classical haiku), with rain in April, just about has some tenancy in the poem, but here I was more keen to see how breaking a taboo – ie name checking God with a capital G and then calling it he would fare in the star machine (the star machine is where other people on the forum vote on how good they reckon your haiku is; although I’d like to think I don’t give a toss, of course I do. The challenge is to carry on regardless, almost.) The fear is that La Blag is seen as a clippety clappety born-again type. We shall see.

So signs: I took this yesterday because I Iike signs and I thought these looked quite scientific. Also, they were near the house and I did not stray far from the front door. I reckon science is the human map of the universal design. Joining up the dots. As we join the dots we learn to do things with science and this can be useful. Or not. Anyway – more talk about anyway in due course – I bought this book the other day on euphonics. Euphonics is half science, half art, half majic. How bizarre, I momentarily completely forgot how to spell magic. It is probably a book of at least three halves. The idea is that the sound behind each letter, or phonic letter grouping casts a spell of emotional meaning. So slippery serpents are sly and when we get cross we might add SCH and the hard g or k sound and end up with words like schmuck, schlepp or schlock. That Sue’s a silly slag. Euphonics is the science of naming – not name calling though. According to my book: the primary text in Euphonics is Plato’s Cratylus: On the Correctness of Names which is a Socratic dialogue where they all have a pow wow about whether there is a correct ’science’ of naming. Socrates says yes. Hermogenes says no ‘whatever name you choose to give anything is its right name’. Socrates listens and decides that Cratylus is right. Checking my book I see that the hard C ‘pertains to the core, coeur or centrum, it is the world of the cave, the crucible, chasm, cranny, crevice, crater, the world of concealed chambers, and then to cunnus, the Basque kuna, the Norse kunta and the Old English cunt. On the other hand, the ‘aspirant H gives a spiritual uplift to words even when it is barely heard’.

Now take my sister Lucy who was originally named Laura. She lay in her crib for two weeks, slowly shrugging off the name Laura. It did not suit. Although there are Lauras who’d say she’s not nearly prim enough to be a Lucy. True, but Lucy means light, whereas Laura, as in laurel, is the victor and wearer of the crown. So perhaps if Lucy had been named Laura she’d be Prime Minister. Although it’s Zed Bed who shares her birthday with Margaret Thatcher. On the other hand, I was nearly named Willow, which might not have done at all. Maybe I would be softer, more bending and compliant if I had been a Willow. I did use it once when Bad Cop Mentor made me change my name for a group. She regretted it though as she hated Willow with a vengeance. As it happens Blag Lady has always been slightly obsessed with naming. So what about Blag Lady a name Dr Blog kindly coined. Well! B as in bum, boobs and buttocks, G as in gum, glue, bog, soggy, glob and blog. Hmm. Lucky it is balanced by the ‘gliding, liquid, clear and loose, laid back and langorous’ Lady. Phew.

Wanna look up stuff about Euphonics? Check out www.woodenbooks.com.

Hey! Having just named this entry I note that N is the sign of negation – no – and of the inwardly denying. How does that work with two such proactive words, name and new then?

No, not an 8ft plastic swan, but one of these commemorative gold coins . Are you a descendant of a slave? Do you know someone who is? I think one gold coin for anyone whose grandma or grandma’s mother or uncle’s great uncle worked a whole lifetime to line someone else’s pockets as an unwilling participant in the Atlantic slave trade should get one of these. It’s a limited edition, so hurry hurry. Those that get there first get the gold and those that come in second get the silver. That leads me nicely to the Olympics. As soon as I heard about the Olympic bid, I prayed at night ‘let it be Paris, let it be Paris, let it be Paris’. But I had a sinking feeling that sod’s law would prevail. Now we get to foot the 5 billion quid bill to watch people on steroids run from one end of a track to the other. Or possibly round it! Or maybe even jump over a very very high bar. Or perhaps they will row down the river. Or kick a ball. Okay. I won’t resort to bitter sarcasm. But even though I like sport – honest – and will be taking part as a contestant in the ladies’ badminton with my partner Lady Bling – I can’t believe there isn’t something a little more intellectually complex we could spend that money on. Arts perhaps?!! Olympic Philosophy Championships. Eco Gladiators. Sumo Wrestlers on Formaldehyde. I Can Do the Splits on the Beam – The Opera! Oh no, people would rather watch one vey fast runner overtake another very fast runner by a nanosecond. Never mind: writers and artists alike will get to love the Olympics. They’ll have to if they want a scrap of public funding. Actually, it’s official. From now on I Heart the Olympics. Bring me the torch! Let me raze the allotments on Hackney Marshes to the ground myself! Regeneration! Let’s have a huge, disorganised fair on the marshes, without a car park or a coach tent or a stadium hotdog stand. Mayhem and anarchy galore. It will be a cross between Bartholomew Fair and Real Proper Carnival That Doesn’t Get Shut Down at 7pm. There will be dancing bears that eat ravers with glowsticks and take off for a luminous dump in the woods. Reintroduce lions into the forest and have a media feeding frenzy! Give the police and troops the day off. That will save us a pretty penny. Mint some more I HEART THE OLYMPICS gold, silver and bronze coins and give everyone a medal. See how fast we run to find them. We won’t even need steroids. Or sponsorship by Nike. Go on Gordon, it’ll be a laugh.