meemalee

In my second year at university, I entered the ballot for college accommodation and ended up moving into a house with a female friend and four unknown male entities. By then, said friend and I were drifting apart, which was a bit unfortunate, and the unknown male entities turned out to be a tad over-excitable, which was even more unfortunate as it manifested itself in the oddest manner. In short, they seemed to spend their days yelling, and giggling, and throwing wads of moistened toilet tissue at each other and around the house. One day I even woke up to a football being thrown repeatedly - and hard - against the wall by one of them in a travesty of the ghettoblaster scene in " Say Anything ". John Cusack he was not - if he was, I might have forgiven him. I would have preferred this To be honest, for the most part it was fine - I wasn't indoors much by then anyway, as it was around this time I got together with my husband. But meal-times were still often a battle-scene -...

A fortnight ago, my husband was looking up Noel's House Party on the internet (don't ask). This in turn led to him doing an image search for " Mr Blobby " (really don't ask). In amongst the pictures of the yellow-spotted pink abomination nestled an even greater insult to nature - the feller above, Latin name Psychrolutes marcidus , common name "Blobfish". No, seriously. Slightly over-excited at this discovery and wanting to share the love, I immediately went on Twitter and posted a link. It got retweeted a couple of times by the Twitterverse. And then I thought nothing more of it. Until a couple of days ago, I opened up my copy of Metro and found this staring back up at me: Coincidence, much? I went back on Twitter to share my concerns. And got this response: And indeed the Mirror had also written about our friend, the blobfish. This was getting ridiculous. I think the height of newfound blobfish hysteria was finally reached when Mr Blobfish featured...

Maguro (tuna) carpaccio A good man is hard to find. Good sushi is even harder. At least that seems the case in this fair land of Albion. Supermarket and takeaway interpretations are the rankest imagineable ( just ask Richard Vines and Jun Tanaka ) and restaurant versions are often no better. But Japan invented sushi, so you'd expect that their stuff would knock the socks of anything we'd come up with. Surprisingly though, the sushi I had for breakfast at Tsukiji market , the sushi world's El Dorado , was a bit of a let-down and also left me feeling a tad ropey. In the end, the best sushi I've ever had was at a tiny kaiten-zushi bar in Ueno, Tokyo. I've no idea what it was called, but as every plate cost 126 yen, to me it's the 126 Yen Sushi Bar ( edited on July 2014: apparently it's called Oedo and it's now 130 Yen! ). The first time we ate there the exchange rate was 220 yen to the pound, meaning each plate cost a measly 57p, but even with the ec...

I do not approve Tsukiji ! We made it! On our first two trips to Japan, hubby and I totally failed to visit Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market , partly due to sheer laziness (come on, you had to get there for 5 am for chrissakes) and partly due to contrariness because everyone said we ABSO. LUTELY. HAD. TO. GO. But when folk we knew began to make out like we were some kind of losers who didn't really like food, something finally snapped inside me and we went. At half-six that is - a girl needs her beauty sleep. Soooo we missed the famous tuna auctions , but I didn't care to watch anyway (and no, Greta Scacchi did not influence me in anyway ), and there was still plenty to see. Mainly six foot tall gaijin with big hair and freaking enormous SLRs . I jest, there was also a lot of fish. I want to drive one of these things I guess it was kind of cool looking at all the different creatures, and it was really cool that my cousin acted as a guide for us (he speaks fluent Japanese and u...

Gilliam at least looks embarrassed I've been incommunicado for various reasons , but something has finally roused me from my blogging torpor. I was flicking through this month's copy of delicious. when I read that actress Greta Scacchi has teamed up with Japanese restaurant Soseki and various other celebs to save the bluefin tuna as well as other piscine beasties. The main focus of the campaign is to encourage us to boycott restaurants which don't serve fish from sustainable sources . That's all well and good, but how will the lovely Greta achieve her laudable aims? Answer? By posing naked with a fish. It's all right though, apparently the cod isn't dead - though it's probably gasping however quickly the photographer Rankin claims to work . ( Bellaphon assures me the cod is an ex-fish and I believe him) Yep, I bet Nobu are quivering in their boots . Now this poster campaign has been knocking around for a good while, but I've never really looked at...