Bernadette Strachan

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MAVIS  Mavis is famous! Sort of! My latest book, WHY DO WE HAVE TO LIVE WITH MEN?, was published last week (stampede forthwith to your nearest bookshop) and I spent a happy day being interviewed by various local radio stations from a cosy little booth at the Beeb's London HQ (very bad tea, from a machine. You'd expect decent tea at the BBC, wouldn't you?) One presenter, Russell Walker of Radio York reads this blog – hello Russell! - and, to my amazement, he mentioned Mavis. You can listen to our chat here.

Last night I was a guest on Jo Good's late night BBC London show and she, too, asked after my hairy dependent.

As a result, Mavis is intolerably big headed, demanding a limo to the park, asking next door's cat “Don't you know who I am?”, and insisting on sirloin steak instead of Value Meety Bitz.

Not really. She's still the lovely unspoilt girl she's always been, eating snotty tissues and dragging her bum on the carpet.

FUDE  Nibbles – they're not easy, are they? I never serve three courses (too much hassle) so the nibbles have to be special. They're fuel for that nice bit at the beginning of a 'do' when folk are arriving and being introduced and aiming their coats at the sofa and handing you bottles and flowers and a jar of home made quince jelly (well, that's what I got last weekend). I have a few tried and trusted nibbly things that make people go 'Ooh mmm' and pull a happy face. One of these is marinated parmesan. This might sound sickly, but it's very savoury and highly moreish, but rather filling, so people tend not to eat too much of it and spoil their appetite for that chicken thing you've been slaving over all afternoon. It's a Jamie Oliver recipe – he really is very reliable.

Here's what you do: take a wodge of parmesan appropriate to your purse/appetite and attack it with a knife. Or a crescent shaped herb chopper does the job very well. You need to reduce the cheese to nubbly rubble. Not dust. And not boulders. We're talking nuggets. Then tip it in to a plastic food bag (or a bowl – I use bags because I can mix the ingredients vigorously without getting my hands dirty). Add the following to your cheesy fragments – a clove of crushed garlic, a couple of finely chopped spring onions, a teaspoon (or more or less, depending on your whim) of chilli flakes and a goodly glug of oil. That nice oil you're scared to use because it's so expensive –its time has come. When the doorbell goes, tip the whole lot in to a pretty bowl and sprinkle with finely chopped oregano, and some black pepper.

Some people won't like it – there's no pleasing everybody – but the ones who like it will LOVE it.

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FAMOUS  At a party, in 1997, Eddie Izzard asked me where I bought my dress.

TRAMP ETIQUETTE  I once eavesdropped on the conversation of two tramps. It was hard not to, they were shouting with that lack of self consciousness that comes with drinking your own weight in supermarket schnapps before lunch. These were proper, old fashioned tramps, gentlemen of the road in obscenely filthy overcoats tied with string. 'So,' said one in a rather grand voice, 'she hands me a plate and she says Circulate. I says me? Circulate? F**k off'.

Now you know. Don't expect the tramps you invite to your party to circulate.

CAKE RELATED AMAZEMENT  My friend Riona is very funny and very talented but we found an alarming gap in her knowledge recently. She ate a slice of an excellent banana loaf and, smacking her lips, said quizzically, 'Why on Earth do they call it banana loaf?'

'Because,' I said slowly, 'it's made with bananas …'

'NO!' she gasped, eyes wide, mouth agape. 'But,' she stuttered, 'you can't cook with bananas!'

I suspect somewhere out there she's still muttering to herself Bananas! Bananas?