diff --git a/IkiWiki/Plugin/prettydate.pm b/IkiWiki/Plugin/prettydate.pm
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..1fa5e9144
--- /dev/null
+++ b/IkiWiki/Plugin/prettydate.pm
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+#!/usr/bin/perl
+package IkiWiki::Plugin::prettydate;
+use IkiWiki;
+use warnings;
+use strict;
+
+# Blanks duplicate the time before.
+my $default_timetable=[
+	"late at night on",	# 12
+	"",			# 1
+	"in the wee hours of",	# 2
+	"",			# 3
+	"",			# 4
+	"terribly early in the morning of", # 5
+	"",			# 6
+	"in early morning on",	# 7
+	"",			# 8
+	"",			# 9
+	"in mid-morning of",	# 10
+	"in late morning of",	# 11
+	"at lunch time on",	# 12
+	"",			# 1
+	"in the afternoon of",	# 2
+	"",			# 3
+	"",			# 4
+	"in late afternoon of",	# 5
+	"in the evening of",	# 6
+	"",			# 7
+	"in late evening on",	# 8
+	"",			# 9
+	"at night on",		# 10
+	"",			# 11
+];
+
+sub import { #{{{
+	hook(type => "checkconfig", id => "skeleton", call => \&checkconfig);
+} # }}}
+
+sub checkconfig () { #{{{
+	if (! defined $config{prettydateformat} ||
+	    $config{prettydateformat} eq '%c') {
+	    	$config{prettydateformat}='%X %B %o, %Y';
+	}
+
+	if (! ref $config{timetable}) {
+		$config{timetable}=$default_timetable;
+	}
+
+	# Fill in the blanks.
+	for (my $h=0; $h < 24; $h++) {
+		if (! length $config{timetable}[$h]) {
+			$config{timetable}[$h] = $config{timetable}[$h - 1];
+		}
+	}
+} #}}}
+
+sub IkiWiki::displaytime ($) { #{{{
+	my $time=shift;
+
+	my @t=localtime($time);
+	my ($h, $m)=@t[2, 1];
+	if ($h == 16 && $m < 30) {
+		$time = "at teatime on";
+	}
+	elsif (($h == 0 && $m < 30) || ($h == 23 && $m > 50)) {
+		# well, at 40 minutes it's more like the martian timeslip..
+		$time = "at midnight on";
+	}
+	elsif (($h == 12 && $m < 15) || ($h == 11 && $m > 50)) {
+		$time = "at noon on";
+	}
+	# TODO: sunrise and sunset, but to be right I need to do it based on
+	# lat and long, and calculate the appropriate one for the actual
+	# time of year using Astro::Sunrise. Not tonight, it's wee hours
+	# already..
+	else {
+		$time = $config{timetable}[$h];
+		if (! length $time) {
+			$time = "sometime";
+		}
+	}
+
+	eval q{use Date::Format};
+	error($@) if $@;
+	my $format=$config{prettydateformat};
+	$format=~s/\%X/$time/g;
+	return strftime($format, \@t);
+} #}}}
+
+1
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 9a58ab437..9d71980e5 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -23,6 +23,8 @@ ikiwiki (1.43) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
     Inspired by the many ways Moin Moin destroys itself when out of disk. :-)
   * Fix syslogging of errors.
   * Patch from Ethan to allow using meta tags to set creation dates of pages.
+  * Add a prettydate plugin that formats dates in a more readable fashion.
+    (I had to get a pretty date somehow today..)
 
  -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:44:29 -0500
 
diff --git a/doc/plugins/prettydate.mdwn b/doc/plugins/prettydate.mdwn
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..59fa96d6a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/plugins/prettydate.mdwn
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+[[template id=plugin name=prettydate author="[[Joey]]"]]
+[[tag type/format]]
+
+Enabling this plugin changes the dates displayed on pages in the wiki to
+a format that is nice and easy to read.
+
+The names given to each of the hours in the day can be customised by
+setting the `timetable` configuration variable in ikiwiki's setup file.
+The default value of this configuration value can be seen near the top of
+`prettydate.pm`. Note that hours can be left blank, to make it display the
+same as the hour before. Midnight, noon, and teatime are all hardcoded,
+since they do not occupy the whole hour.
+
+The format used for the date can be customised using the `prettydateformat`
+configuration variable in the setup file. `%X` will be expanded to the
+prettified time value. The default prettydateformat is `"%X %B %o, %Y"`.
+
+This plugin uses the [[cpan TimeDate]] perl module.
diff --git a/po/ikiwiki.pot b/po/ikiwiki.pot
index 972319eb8..ae31b366b 100644
--- a/po/ikiwiki.pot
+++ b/po/ikiwiki.pot
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ msgid ""
 msgstr ""
 "Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n"
 "Report-Msgid-Bugs-To: \n"
-"POT-Creation-Date: 2007-02-15 00:47-0500\n"
+"POT-Creation-Date: 2007-02-15 02:44-0500\n"
 "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
 "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
 "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"