meemalee

I was going to make a video like this myself, but then someone did all the hard work for me. Thanks CopeandDalton ! A source claims to me that the worst/best innuendo actually gets edited out, but I'm not sure I believe them ... At any rate, MasterChef seems to be haunting me - I was browsing Facebook yesterday and I suddenly noticed a certain advert appearing on every page. Can you tell what it is yet? Look a little closer: I'm also being thoroughly tantalised by this: I am this close to placing an order. This close. Facebook knows me too well.

When I was 19, my college held a Charity Slave Auction and I foolishly offered myself up as a Maid for a Day. I got up in front of all my fellow students wearing a pinny and rubber gloves (as well as my normal clothes, I hasten to add) and was delighted to go for a respectable sum. Then I found out that sixteen of the b*stards had banded together to bid on me and as a result I was beholden to the lot of them. There's only so many shirts you can iron in one day. My very last chore was to make supper for all sixteen of them, so I decided to cook up an enormous vat of spaghetti, told the buggers to bring a bowl each to my unfeasibly small room and then dished up - half pleased that I was getting to feed so many people, and half wanting them all to choke on the stuff. The point of this is I've always like cooking Italian food. But I've never really known too much about it other than what I've gleaned from the odd cookbook or TV programme. So when I was invited with some oth...

I have no words. None.

My favourite restaurant in the whole wide world was a curious beast. It wasn't beautiful - the tables uneven, the wallpaper flaking. The service was shambolic - dishes were sometimes forgotten or mixed up, one time a guy appeared with a soapy washing-up bowl and chucked everything in, including our tip. We were almost always the only customers in the place, the other occupants being friends or family intent on playing poker. But the food was glorious, proper Vietnamese grub including the usual suspects like pho and bun bo hue and goi cuon but also slightly more unusual dishes like bánh bèo and bun oc and fried "fat ends" (crunchy intestines - like posh pork scratchings). The juices, in most joints a Tetrapakked afterthought, were all blended to order from fresh fruit (the apple juice being particularly good), and the whole thing was almost embarrassingly cheap. Best of all was that, though the service wasn't professional, it was marvellously charming. Whenever we walk...

I am not paying £17.50 for one cinema ticket. However, though I may not get round to seeing the Alice in Wonderland film, I did pay a visit to the Alice in Wonderland Pop-Up Shop. I'd been to Claire's Accessories where they stocked a range of Alice gifts, and had bought myself a cute little White Rabbit brooch and a Cheshire Cat satchel. When I'd paid, the girl gave me a key and told me to go to their pop-up Alice's shop for a special surprise. So the next day, I trotted off to Maddox Street and this is what I found ... Meemalee in Wonderland Alice herself ... I swapped my key for the real thing ... A wall of locked doors greeted me - my key fit one of them and I claimed my special surprise ... And then I joined the Mad Hatter's Tea Party for a lovely cake and a nice cup of tea ... But soon it grew late and it was time to go ... My magical prize ... The Alice in Wonderland Pop-Up Shop "Alice's" was a temporary installation set up by Claire's Ac...