Plonking: my kind of craze

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

It’s hard to keep up with all the latest fads being adopted by all those crazy kids out there but I think I’ll pass on the planking and go straight to the plonking.

“Plonking” I hear you say … ”what’s that?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. Plonking is much safer than planking (also known as the lying down game or extreme lying down) and a whole lot less messy than coning (the art of eating an ice cream cone upside down. The ice cream cone, that is, not the person eating it).

The art of plonking (or the extreme sitting down game) involves plonking yourself down on the couch, opening a bottle of plonk and enjoying the contents.

If you really want to show your talent, you could have a crack at synchronised plonking with a friend.

And then there’s the other craze that’s got everyone talking online at the moment. You know, the one that involves dodgy people claiming to be from legitimate security companies, phoning to say ”ooooh, your poor computer is at risk. It’s under attack. The sky is falling down. Let me have remote access to your computer so I can fix it (translation: so I can plant a virus on said machine) and please give me your credit card number so I can process your payment for this wonderful service (translation: so I can steal your identity and buy dodgy porn involving women with moustaches and possibly an assortment of livestock)”.

I had yet another call from one of these ”technicians” just the other day and it’s good to see that when they’re not busy trying to violate my poor computer and steal my money, they are taking the time to keep up to date on the new trends because when I used a particular term to explain what I thought of him, the bloke on the other end of the phone misheard me and thought I was talking about planking.

He told me that no, he wasn’t a planker because it was dangerous.

But back to the coning fad, which is the subject of this week’s video. Just in case you need either instruction or inspiration:

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