An attempt to barter for wisdom from the moon is prevented by an opinion on Renaissance nudes

It's been a tough week for me on the scratchcards. Twelve quid I'm out with not a single penny return to show for it. I'm not too concerned yet, I've just got to be patient and study the form a bit more. Enacting my next ingenious plan I went into the local library to see I could acquire a tome on Astrology and Divination.
Way I figure it is if I can crack numerology and future prediction and ascertain from the positions of the stars in the heavens a set of numbers pertinent and sacred for that day then translate those numbers into an hour and minute of the clock and a grid reference then I should be able to deduce the exact geographical location and window of opportunity to pick up a winner and cash out. Easy, but not so, well it never is.
I call into the library, being phase one of the caper when an alarm bell rings and a wee old lady from behind the counter comes around and asks me to leave. For once unjustly I must say since I was stone cold sober this time. Anyway she remembers the last time I was in there and claims I defaced some books, some collections of Renaissance Art nude studies.
Defaced! Defaced!? Look I pointed out to her If them artist boys were to be alive today and doing those paintings out again they would definitely give those women bigger tits. I was helping them out, I mean Michelangelo and his mates are all dead can't keep making all the changes they'd want to. So I just got my biro out and did them justice.
But she's no art lover and then quite erroneously claims that the pages were left all 'sticky.' The cheek of the woman. I may well have had a cold the day in question, granted. But to take advantage of my infirmity to level crude, unfounded, scurrilous, nasty, downright lying, allegations of acts of self pollution and sexual depravity in a local library reading room I simply will not stand for.
She then says that we can call the police in on the matter and take the samples down the lab to find out exactly what went on the day in question. I mean I ask you, C.S.I Cornwall. I refuse to play any part in wasting police time and money on such a pointless experiment to prove my innocence. Just between you and me now, I've always amazed how willing the police are to waste time and money anywhere where I'm concerned.
I won't tell you my full legal affairs for reasons of pending investigations and decent taste but I've got a few previous convictions that I'm not proud of. This has lead to an unjust culture of prejudice from the boys in blue. The bastards.
So all this considered I beat a hasty yet dignified retreat to spare this old lady the humiliation of a police enquiry. But as soon as I get outside I realise I've not managed to take any books on lunar and astral divination. Another failure in the pursuit of scratchcard glory. Funds are running thin but I can bankroll another few days of bets.
Til next time folks,
Norman Plum

A unfortunate encounter in Tesco's

Okay, so the scratchcard bet rich quick scheme has not been wildly successful so far. Actually that's an understatement. So far the scratchcard scheme has returned negative five pounds. It's alright but, it's early days. After all I didn't get my first win on the horses until...? Hang on a second... Let me think a bit... Okay so I never actually won on the horses, but then I could never resist putting that extra stretch on the accumulator. At least twice in the yankees I can actually remember placing I got all five winners on the horses but lost out because I'd stuck it on with an accumulator bet on the official number one single of the week. Them Westlife boy's have lost me a fortune potentially, and that Crazy Frog song? I'd all the winners at Epsom that week but like a fool tried to double up on Coldplay's 'Speed of Sound' being number one. Honestly, who saw that coming? Not Coldplay anyway.
So anyway, after four scratchers and nothing to show for it I went looking for Whispering Jimmy to ask him where I was going wrong. 'Gotta take the rough with the smooth Normie, that's the game innit?' Tight bastard is Jimmy. Fair play he'll buy you a drink when he's had a win but he'll never share a tip with anyone. Like it would even affect his odds anyway. I decide that it's high time to employ one of my many failsafe gambling systems that will pay off any day now.
The first system I chose to employ was the fruit machine system. As any conniseur of the 'hold em nudgers' will tell you the trick is the count. All fruit machines are preset to pay out when the tumblers are full, all any smart man with time on his hands has to do is count the number of pound coins put into any machine and strike with thirty pence at the right time to guarantee the jackpot every time. This system has two drawbacks. Firstly it'll normally take at least four full days of hanging around a pub from opening to closing to work out the timing of the jackpot, and if you can afford to drink twelve hours a day for four straight days why would you need a six quid jackpot win on a 'nugget bandit' anyway? Secondly, once you figure the number of pound coins out the landlord'll notice and change the machine. Well they will if you become a bit, well... insistent about putting your thirty pence in at the appropriate time.
Anyway if you have the time this system will work on fruit machines. But in a Tesco's? On the scratchcards? No. I was in one on Monday afternoon, just watching who bought one, mainly young mothers and the elderly, and watching over their shoulder as they scratched to see if they'd won or not. After only twenty minutes I was approached by a rather uncouth store security guard. As it transpired he had had several complaints from other customers and if I wasn't going to buy anything could I please leave the store. Needless to say I was mortified. I informed him that I was indeed a customer and fully intended to pay for the half bottle of Tesco's finest scotch whisky in my hand. The guard became quite unnecessarily aggressive and insisted that I could not openly consume an alcoholic beverage in the store. 'Firstly,' I pointed out to this fool, 'My mother has always been of the custom of sampling Bourbon Creams on her supermarket travails and presenting a one third empty packet at the till upon checkout. In all her fifteen years of custom this has never been remarked upon. Secondly I have a nasty cold and this whisky I take only for health reasons.' Did he care about my invalided stated? I may have as well have told it to a trolley wheel
The worst part of this debacle is that I am now, quite unreasonably, banned from every Tesco's in Cornwall. As this was only one of four possible avenues to obtain scratchcards in Falmouth I have had my chances of a big win unjustly reduced by twenty-five percent. Worst of all I have no way of telling whether the fruit machine system would actually work and cannot try it again as I cannot take the chance of halving my total possible outcomes.
I'll have to think of something else, but fear not fellow punter, as soon as I do you'll be the first to know.
Yours Faithfully
Norman Plum

Win £££'s with Norman Plum's revolutionary new gambling system (system under development)

Hello to you blogospherians, I am the Norman Plum and I have come among you not to navel-gaze, not to preach, not to entertain nor titillate. Information and education shall be my goals as I keep my account of my newest, speculative, financial enterprise.

These bloggy writings will not be a simple diary of late night, sleepless musings, for I am too fine and accomplished a man for such unwon vanity. In my magnanimity I have decided to share with you the methods and results of my ingenious new money-making experiment enabling you, hopefully, to put the selfsame practices into effect and cash, cash, cash in. As I surely, undoubtedly, shall.

I will now recount how this amazing idea came to me and show, to you, the proof and massive wealth of it's potential success. It was a brisk Tuesday morning in Cornwall and as usual I was taking a quiet brunch libation in the Hedgehog and Bucket. It has become a regular custom of mine to unfold myself into the day in this manner with a pint and a paper so as I can brace myself with the affairs of state, the dealings of government, the machinations and plots of our foreign cousins and soforth and soforth. It also gives me time to check the horse racing form before the betting shop opens and my days labours begin.

While I was was deep in my studies and strategies Whispering Jimmy came into the bar in a state of great excitement, 'Drinks all round.' he shouted. I didn't hear him because he talks very quietly which is why of course he's called Whispering Jimmy. Anyway Ethel behind the bar shouted across to me, 'Oi! Norman, Jimmy's buying you a pint.' accustomed as she was to acting as a loudhailer for Jimmy and all other sundry gossip of the town.

'Thanks Jimmy, that's very kind of you. Special occasion is it?'

'I should say Normie, I should say. Had a bit a luck.'

As something of a gambler myself this pricked my ears, 'Horse come in has it?'

'Not a horse mate, just won £250 on a scratchcard didn't I.'

£250!? This was serious money certainly a very great deal more than my arduous efforts in studying the form and the track had ever garnered me. Why with £250 I could finally afford a cocaine problem. And to think that the whole time all this bounty was just sitting there in newsagents waiting for the taking. Immediately the mote was lifted from mine eyes and I saw the light and the way.

So now I have decided to devote my gambling energies to scratchcards. I invite you to keep track of my efforts as I begin this undertaking bringing my vast knowledge of hazardry to bear upon these magic tickets and you will be the first to learn the key to unlocking the vast profits held secret in your local corner shop. Admittedly this experiment is not without a degree of pecuniary risk, but I will break open the twenty pee jar so I've got the stake money covered. The winnings will be mine but the wisdom of experience will be yours for free.

Until next time stay lucky,

Yours fondly,

Norman Plum

P.S I'll publish the results of each and every scratchcard with analysis on Twitter so be sure to

follow me. Not sure what the address for that is but I think just looking for Norman Plum will do.

If there's more than one I'll be the one that looks like me and talks about scratchcards.