This guide should not be read as glamourising dangerous drinking, and I am including it on my site because I think if you are going to drink to excess anyway, you might as well have access to some tips for damage-limitation. You should never feel pressurised into drinking too much, and you must always be careful not to damage your health. Remember: it’s fun up to the point where someone gets alcohol poisoning.

by Jez

One thing you may decide to do when you start uni is to sign up with various societies. You may also decide to go on socials with these groups. If you do, and this applies particularly to sports teams, it is highly likely that drinking games will be played, and while these can prove thoroughly entertaining they can also lead to you drinking more than you want. What follows is a list of common practices designed to help you, should you wish, avoid drinking too much on these occasions. My advice is straightforward and can be summed up in three simple words: Know The Rules.

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N.B. Each society or sports team will have different rules. I do not profess to know every rule that every society or sports team will use, but this guide should give you a bit of a head start at least. Throughout this article, the word “fine” means a drinking fine (usually two fingers of your drink).

Rule 1.

Do not be late, for we start early, before the evening has begun. Almost every social I went to at uni had fines for lateness. The standard fine was a pint/whatever you were drinking if you were a girl; it could be less or more (generally by adding a shot to your pint). The definition of lateness also varies, the most common being by a set time (either the start time or within 5-10 minutes).

Beware the more severe establishments: sports clubs (particularly rugby clubs) often employ stricter rules, such as if more than x number of people have sat down before you are stood at the bar then you are late. Find out how lateness is defined and ensure you are not late: having a pint head start on everyone else is not a good way to start the evening.

Rule 2.

Coaching. Learning the rules can be made more difficult by the coaching rule. What this means is that no one can explain the rules without incurring a fine. This will mean that people are unwilling to explain to you what you are doing wrong and why you are having to drink so much. If there is a explanation of the rules before a game starts, pay attention and remember the rules, as they will probably not be explained again.

Rule 3.

Left/wrong hand drinking. This is a very common one. Clubs will often have a rule that you have to drink with your left/wrong hand. If you are left handed you can use this to your advantage by not telling anyone and drinking left handed without fear of incurring fines.

I would advise against claiming to be left handed if you are not, as it’s not unheard of for handwriting tests to be used to determine if the claim is legitimate. Instead, I would advise always drinking left handed so that it becomes natural.

Rule 4.

Thumb/finger rule. This is another common one: the rule is that your drink must be further than a thumb/finger from the edge of the table. If someone else (and it is their thumb/finger length that counts) can move your drink with their finger/thumb (from the edge of the table) then you incur a fine. The safest thing to do here is to put your drink in the middle of the table.

Rule 5.

Double parking . This is also very common. You are only allowed to have one drink at a time. If you have more than one you must drink (quickly and immediately) all of your other drinks until you only have one left.

Rule 6.

No pointing. You cannot point with your finger and must instead point with your fist/elbow. This can be avoided by pointing with your fist/elbow at all times (you may look a little silly but you will not be fined).

Rule 7.

Double tap. Whenever you finish a drink you must double tap the empty glass/bottle. The tap can be anywhere (forehead/arm/hand/table/chair/someone else) but it must be done and in a noticeable way. However, do not be too enthusiastic; if you break anything you will probably be fined.

I know people who have this so ingrained that they still do this in restaurants with water glasses.

Rule 8.

Empty vessel: the counterpart to double tap. You cannot put an empty vessel directly on the table. Therefore you must either leave some drink in the glass or put the glass on something else on the table (such as a coaster).

Rule 9.

Acceptance. Obscure but tricky. You cannot accept anything that is offered to you. For instance, if someone has bought you a pint you cannot take it from their hand. Instead, ask them to put it on the table. Once they have let go of the glass you can then pick it up. This is a particularly effective rule when playing the Matchbox Game or Arrogance (see below).

Rule 10.

Forbidden words. Certain words may be forbidden. Common are “drink”, “glass”, “finger(s)”, and numbers (“one, two”, etc). Instead, you have to use synonyms: beverage, vessel, digit, couple, couple of couples, few etc.

Rule 11.

Moving drinks. You are not allowed to move anything on the table without taking a drink from it. Think of it as the touch rule from chess applied to drinking games.

TWO USEFUL GAMES TO KNOW

Matchbox game

This is a very common game. You have to throw a matchbox over your pint and get it to land on its ends or sides. If you land it on its side then two fingers go onto the matchbox, on its end (more difficult) four fingers. These accumulate until someone does not manage to land the matchbox on its sides or ends, at which point they have to drink the number of fingers on the matchbox.

If you have to play this game do not, under any circumstances, do any of the following:

1. Take the matchbox from someone else if the acceptance rule applies
2. Throw the matchbox off the table (pint fine)
3. Land the matchbox in a drink (finish that drink)
4. Sit next to someone who is good at matchbox game.

This last one will be difficult the first few times you play but you will quickly learn who is good and who is not. Sit next to people who are bad at the game and you should be fine.

Arrogance

An empty pint glass is passed around the table with a coin. You pour as much or as little into the glass as you like and then toss the coin, calling heads or tails. If your call is correct, the glass passes on. If your call is wrong, you drink what is in the glass. Again, do not accept the coin from someone, toss the coin off the table or into someone’s drink. Avoid playing this game if you can. If you can’t, hope for the best.

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This is not an exhaustive guide, but as I say, it should give you a bit of a head start. The best advice I can give for drinking games is know the rules and pay attention. Games such as 20 plus 1, yee-haa, one frog, tico-taco, bunnies, buzz and many more are very simple provided you pay attention to what is going on. Also, though I’ve never managed it, try to avoid doing stupid things that will stick in the memory.

Finally, never go out for your birthday with a sports club. They will club together and buy you half a pint of mixed shots which you are expected to drink. Go out with your friends, they will get you hammered but also look after you and ensure you survive.

Did Jez leave out any crucial rules? Let us know in the comments below!

This rarely ends well, and nor does it end soon,  because one of the defining features of the oxmoronic ‘serious crush’ is that it will run and run, often in the face of rejection and even cruelty. The whole thing will be very tedious and draining for the target and all your mutual friends, so here is some advice which might help you conduct yourself more nobly when fancying people.

1. Everyone is friendly and affectionate at uni. Just because someone is nice to you does not mean you must be in love with them.
2. If someone has a boy/girlfriend, you might want to protect your heart and not fancy them. Fancy someone available instead. And, if this person then becomes single and STILL doesn’t seek you out to go out with, take this as an indication that they aren’t interested in you.
3. If someone mothers you, they will never fancy you. You can help prevent this scenario from arising by being less needy in general.
4. If you are unrequitedly in love with someone, don’t go and complain about it to their friends, telling them not to tell your desired mutual friend. This puts them in an awkward position. Have some tact and find someone unrelated to complain to.
5. Be aware that some people have real problems. They will be sympathetic to your mild romantic problems because they are kind people, but there will come a point when it is incredibly inappropriate for you to be whispering damply about your infatuation while they have genuine troubles to deal with.
   
6. If someone isn’t interested in you, move on. Of course this won’t happen instantly, but you can help yourself by NOT hanging around them all the time, watching them with their boy/girlfriend and talking about them with your friends.
7. Never put all your feelings into a letter and then send it to them. You may feel like the victim in this tragic love affair, but you should remember that this is a passing crush and that it is your (sg.) problem, not your (pl.) problem. Also, though this may be hard to believe until you’ve experienced it for yourself, it is HARD being the rejector: you have to cope with feeling bad about being unable to reciprocate and create a happy ending as well as having to endure whatever exhausting chats you insist on having with them. Don’t compound their suffering by sharing your feelings further in a letter.

For some genuinely useful advice on avoiding romantic catastrophe before you even start, I would recommend reading Dr Nerdlove’s blog.

The Spit Network – a diagram charting the sexual relationships of people at your college/university halls (sponsored by Facebook)

At university, a kind of social Darwinism is in evidence. Very early on (we’re talking seconds, not weeks) people will rate each other on the basis of appearance. This is inevitable, but you are still allowed to find it depressing. Although people use different statistical models, the 1-10 rankings system is the most easily understood: if you’re ugly, you’re a 1, but if you’re catwalk material, you’re a 10.

Some people will be open about how they assess people and they’ll talk candidly about their preferences. Others are not even aware that they’re making judgements (but you can be sure they are).

However, there is one crucial principle in operation and it is as follows: individuals gravitate towards those of a similar rating. This is biology in action – you hang around with people who look like you or rate like you because there’s a competitive advantage. A group of attractive girls will draw in a cadre of hot guys; it’s more difficult if you’re on your own fighting for attention.

However, don’t despair if you think that you’re not an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the Beautiful People scale. There’s some consolation in the fact that one person’s 4 is another person’s 7 – if you’re in the middle, you’ll attract debate and we all know that any publicity is good publicity. Almost.

If you fear that you might be more like a 2 or 3, take heart from the fact that you probably have a winning personality. Because the thing about the 9s and the 10s is that they’re often incredibly dull people. They tend to think that they can earn their social keep on the basis of their appearance. Many of them rely on the unspeakably vain conceit that other people will be willing just to look at them and it doesn’t matter that they have nothing of any value to say.

These people will often subsist on the conversational scraps of talking about how many calories they’ve consumed today or how much they had to drink last night. Essentially, they’re competing with each other to be the leader of their groups, so you’re probably better off out of it.

Anyhow, things start to become really interesting when the 2s and 3s get off with the 9s and 10s. Some of these 2s and 3s will cynically eye their target before a big night out and then make sure that their prey’s consumption of alcohol means that there’s no chance they might be rejected. Many 7s and 8s will whore themselves out to whoever’s up for it, although some of them will bide their time waiting for a 9 or 10 to get with the programme and ask them out.

Regardless of anyone’s ratings, there will be particular people documenting her meaningful look or his wandering hands. These citizen journalists are tuned in to detect the static crackle of sexual tension. They’ll know which girl left the rugby captain’s room at 5am on the morning after the night before. They’ll know what guy is cheating on his girlfriend. In other words, they might know more about your relationships than you do. I was, and am, one of these people, those who make it their business to know yours. And we make sure, as far as we can, that our own lives stay private.

It follows that if you’re a dedicated citizen journalist you can create a Spit Network – a diagram charting the ‘interactions’ (read ‘sexual encounters’) between members of a community. Unsurprisingly, it can be a very useful source of information. Want to know who your ex-girlfriend was involved with in first year? Need to find out whether your new boyfriend is a player? It’s all there.

Remember, if you betray a source or you spread false allegations, you’ll be totally discredited. But, do it properly and you’ll be popular and (sort of) respected. In producing the graphic, you might even feel like you’ve performed some kind of public service. And there’s a measure of satisfaction in it, the kind that not even a 10 rating can provide.

The lexicon:

Do use phrases like ‘I think he works out’

Avoid comments along the lines of ‘She’s worth a few squirts’

The first essay’s tough but you reckon you just about scrape by. The weeks roll on and,  although you’re still just about keeping your head above water, you find you’re reading more and more but understanding less and less and you start to think everyone in your seminar must have been here at least a year longer than you to understand what’s going on. You say nothing in classes, dread the thought of the next essay title and are beginning to hate the subject you loved a few months ago. The problem is that everyone else is getting along fine and you don’t want to admit you’re struggling.

* * *

Sometimes people feel that problems with their subjects are part of general feelings of homesickness or being overwhelmed, and it’s easy to let things slip. When this happens, it’s important that you flag up concerns with your tutor early on as they may have some tips on how to approach the topic, suggest background reading or even give you extensions if it’s taking you a little longer to get your head round stuff. Once this is sorted, you’ll be back on track in no time.

Try not to be intimidated by others in your supervisions or classes – often they are equally worried and anxious to impress and can come across as supremely confident when actually they’re blagging. I spent my first few weeks being intimidated by someone else’s essays as I didn’t understand what they were saying until I found the tutor didn’t either – it was a lot of grand-sounding words but didn’t necessarily make sense!

If you’re doing joint courses, the two (or more) departments involved sometimes don’t co-ordinate their timetables very well which means you could actually be trying to do double the work of everyone else but in the same time frame. Your tutors might not realise the pressure you’re under in the other subject, so again it is so important to talk to tutors if you start feeling you can’t cope with your workload. Tutors genuinely have an interest in your welfare and don’t want you to get to a point where everything is becoming much too much. However, they don’t always pick up on the signals if you’re sitting in classes pretending all is fine and dandy, so you might need to approach them.

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In some cases, the best decision for you might be to change course and this is something that, again, should be discussed as early as possible so you don’t have to spend all your evenings, weekends and holidays catching up on the work you’ve missed in the other subject. Some things that might help if you’re planning to change course:

1.      The earlier you flag up concerns, the better – as mentioned above, there may be some very simple steps that can be taken to reshuffle your workload and help you with your time management.

2.      Do some research into other courses so that when you go in to have a discussion with your tutor about changing course, you have a plan of action. Maybe talk to friends already doing the course and find out what modules they have already done etc. This will make you feel you’re in a stronger position when having the discussion and will make the tutor realise you are serious about changing.

3.      Your tutor will obviously ask you why you want to change course and it might be worth having run through your response to this with a friend or housemate beforehand. I found it’s easy to get emotional in this discussion because you may have been quite stressed in the run up and you just want it all to be sorted. By practising beforehand, you will make sure you get your point across properly and don’t end up saying something negative you’ll regret or don’t really mean about the subject/tutor/department.

It can be difficult to keep perspective when you start to lose your confidence in your subject but the most important thing is not to struggle on in silence. Most academic problems have a solution and tutors will have been handling them for years. Talk to someone as early and as openly as you can and you will often find things aren’t as bad as they feel in the library surrounded by books at 3am!

It’s all very well scrambling around like an idiot trying to convince someone to fancy you, but, to be honest, it’s not my style. It almost always leads to disappointment, and if I’d spent the last four years doing that I wouldn’t be the cool, confident Tom Jones I am today. It’s far more rewarding to get good at working out who already fancies you or might otherwise be interested in a shag, and then squeezing every last drop of potential out of it.

The good news is that most of you will be pleasantly surprised at just how many people ARE interested on some level, without you needing to do anything except opening your doors up to possibility! However, I do concede that, out of everyone, ugly males have it particularly tough and they’re probably better off resorting to obnoxious tenacity and a well-advertised never-say-no policy, or perhaps becoming a stand-up comedian. But for everyone else, both men and women, I recommend you forget the ones who aren’t interested, and learn how to draw out and encourage the ones who are.

It’s all to do with one-on-one conversations. Your job is to give off that air of possibility, that odourless pheromone that says, “Who knows? We might just fall in love tonight.” From there, the trick is to mirror the equivalent level of interest and, with any luck, this will slowly intensify. To start with, appear as though the other person really intrigues you. Here are some basic tips:

1. Test the waters with some sustained eye contact

I do this all the time, with basically everyone I meet, and people always think it’s just my intimate conversational manner. That doesn’t mean it’s not a fast-track to total giveaway if the eye-contact is returned. Doing this also exudes an alluring sort of confidence that could take them by surprise.

2. Lean in and whisper something

If Point 1 seems to be going well, this is something of a step-up, and this really is a top tip. People go nuts for this. It’s an invitation to get close and it’s not done nearly enough. When in a big group, just think of something like, “I think X and Y really fancy each other”, and without everyone else noticing, lean in and whisper it. For extra points, brush their hair back over their ear, but seriously that is for pros only.

3. “I’m going to get a drink. Ah, damn it. I’ve left my wallet in my room.”

This one comes out of left field because it is effectively the opposite to the cliché of offering to buy a drink. It is a great indicator. If you’ve been chatting to someone for at least a few minutes and they are at all interested, they will see this as a great opportunity. Buying a drink for someone is an age-old signal of romantic intentions and they won’t do it for you if they are worried about giving you the wrong idea.

That said, I only ever tried this twice, and perhaps it didn’t count because I really had left my wallet at home on both occasions.

4. See if you can get them to do work for you

This one is just a bit of fun for when it’s already in the bag. Recently I jokingly asked a girl to make me a muffin out of two halves of different flavours of muffin, and she got up and did it despite my insistence it was just a joke! Amazing. And before I started dating my current girlfriend, I got her to carry a heavy box for me about half a mile across town while I walked alongside her and carried nothing, simply because I told her it was quite heavy. You can do this too.

* * *

So, those are just a few tips. Just remember to up the ante incrementally and give the other person more and more confidence in your interest as well. Make it clear that you won’t shoot them down. Soon enough they’ll be under your thumb and, if you play your cards right, you might even find yourself managing the affections of someone who previously had no idea they even fancied you at all.

Now what? Well from here, one thing should lead to another. Personally I like to string it out for weeks on end until my subject is positively quivering with sexual anticipation, and then do nothing about it. I’ve graduated now, but in my hey-day I had tricked so many people into fancying me I could have sold merchandise. Sure, I broke a few hearts along the way but when I consider the wonders it has done for my confidence, I know it’s been worth it. Four years ago I was a scrawny teenage virgin with a tiny penis. Now I feel like I can achieve anything, although perhaps that’s due to my First Class degree and not the fact I got a load of desperate mingers to fancy me.

As time goes by, you will be able to collect in your mind an assortment of these moments, and thus have about you the ingredients to a delicious soiree. Certain people are irreplaceable on a good night out, and without them, your puzzle will be left missing a vital organ. When planning a fantastic night out, you must at all costs make sure they are present!

Contrarily, the people that spell a perfect evening are often those who need the most persuasion to come. Perhaps it is this quality that makes them like a rare jewel whose presence reveals the crown of a good party. Either way, by bestowing on you these basic facts I hand you the quest of making sure they come out. 

Here are some techniques I have employed to make sure my funnest friends do not spell disaster for a potentially great club sessions:

• Flattery will get you everywhere. Highlight to the point of irritation how much their presence will make the night. And suggest none too subtly that you are a mere representative of the tens of people crying in the lodge at the thought of a night without them.

• Sometimes force may be necessary. Bring a strong friend with you for such tasks as dragging the target out of bed and wrestling them down the stairs.

• Use props! Make sure they realise this isn’t just like any other night. Give them something to remember it by. For example, a black shaggy wig or some neon war-paint, so everyone can look back in the future and say “Remember the night the pulling-wig was born / we were all mistaken for sci-fi bond villains?”, and one person can feel a shudder of narrowly-avoided guilt as they hear: “Yeah, So-And-So almost didn’t come with us!”

• Finally, make sure it is a good night out! Sure, this person is special, but they’re not the whole book. Make sure everyone is up for it in the face, and that they realise the most important thing is the good of the night, and the quality of the gossip, even if it may mean some people looking a bit silly, or doing something they may regret for a few years to come.

 
I have genuinely had to do all these things in the past, and it hasn’t always been easy, but I have been on some meteorically awesome nights out!

The best way to get with someone you like is through a many-pronged attack, detailed below:

1. Make sure they know who you are, then be seen doing cool things around college, and cultivate rumours (which show you in a favourable light!) so that they will reach the ears of your beloved.
2. Invite them round for tea. This will give you the opportunity to have an intimate yet civilized chat and also ascertain whether they drink tea. Which may or may not be a deal-breaker.
3. Invite them out dancing them. Under cover of doing some very literal lyric-based dancing, you can get closer to them. A good example of songs to request at this point include “I want to hold your hand” by the Beatles, “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes or “It’s Getting Hot In Here (so take off all your clothes)” by Nelly.
4. Go on and on about how much you love going on dates until they invite you on a date.
5. If the date goes well, I would consider this mission accomplished!

It may seem outrageous to say that the foundations of your freshers-week friendships are built in the murky waters of a teacup, but this warming and restorative drink will give you an excuse for extended discussions and intimacies which will outlive their simple beginnings.

The time it takes to devour a cup of Yorkshire’s finest is exactly the same time it takes to initiate a lifelong friendship, so it is worth thinking about your tea-making strategy quite seriously. Firstly, choose a respectable brand of tea:

Yorkshire – the most delicious and a point of pride for northerners

PG Tips - delicious, scientifically satisfying due to pyramid-shaped tea bags, AND an eco-friendly member of the rainforest alliance

Twinings – Quite posh and favoured by Stephen Fry if you believe the adverts

…and maybe a few bags of Sainsbury’s basics for those new acquaintances you are trying to shake off! As time progresses you may like to delve into such delights as loose-leaf tea, but only once you have a tea-strainer or at least a sieve – unstrained tea is EXTREMELY REVOLTING, and pouring the tea through a tissue does not count as straining.

Some people will try to muscle in on tea-drinking sessions by demanding hot chocolate, coffee or other such warm beverages. These drinks are not welcome at tea-time and should not have to be provided by the host. I would be very suspicious of these people, and possibly spike their non-caffeinated drinks with pesto sauce. They will thank you for it one day.

Tea-lovers, like drug-dealers, will find themselves in demand during freshers’ week. You will find yourself in possession of all the necessary paraphernalia for concocting a communal high, and I advise you to make the most of this. In years to come, when you are surrounded by brilliant friends, you will realise that not only was your romance with tea written in your tealeaves all along, but that most of your previously adverse-to-tea friends are now just as hooked as yourself!

Depending on where you go to uni, there may be college dining options which you should take advantage of, because they will provide you with a full meal at little effort and for cheaper than a restaurant. However, if your college food is notoriously strange or tastless, you will need to find other options so you can vary your diet and avoid getting chubby on stodge. Here are a few general tips on eating at uni:

• BREAKFAST. It is especially important that you have breakfast if you have classes in the morning, because otherwise you won’t be able to concentrate during them. I spent many a 9am philology lecture drawing a wishlist of foods as I shifted in my chair trying to disguise the sounds coming from my tummy. If you keep a stash of breakfast foodstuffs in a cupboard, you’ll get much more out of your lectures and also save money. 
  • Cereal.
  • Buy a pack of brioche from Sainsburys so you’re not forced to buy a single one for the same price at Nero after your first lecture of the day.
  • Buy sachets of porridge you can do in the microwave in a couple of minutes.
• LUNCH. If supper is going to be your main meal of the day, don’t spend too much money on lunch. Go to hall, bring a packed lunch and eat in someone’s room or outside, or get a Boots Meal Deal.
• SUPPER. Again, you could go to hall or formal dinner, or you could cook with your friends and eat in someone’s room while watching telly on their computer. Both are good options, but remember: you can’t play Wii Sports in hall.

For better or for worse, these are the main meals me and my friends used to cook at uni and still do now. They are relatively simple and probably not too bad for you, which is all you’re aiming for when you’re at uni and often have more pressing things to do than eat. If you cook them with 3-4 friends, they will end up being about £2 a head.

• Pesto pasta and meat

A bowlful of dried pasta shapes

Green pesto

Cheese

1 Tin of chopped tomatoes

1Onion

Meat (2 chicken breasts/some mince)

Worcestershire sauce

Oregano

Vegetables to boil, or salad

You can add anything to the meat and tomato sauce. For example, a tablespoon of tomato puree to make it stronger; chopped peppers; sweetcorn; other vegetables.

1. Put a tablespoon on oil in a frying pan or wok and turn the hob up to a medium setting.
2. Chop the onion finely and put it in the pan with the oil.
3. Chop up the chicken while stirring the onion, and then add it to the pan as well.
4. Meanwhile, boil up some water in the kettle (enough to cover the pasta in the saucepan), and put it in a saucepan on a hob turned up to full.
5. Add a pinch of salt to the water and, when the water is bubbling, pour in the pasta. Keep an eye on it.
6. When the chicken is cooked (cut a piece in half to check the centre is white), pour in the tin of tomatoes and add a teaspoon of oregano. Sprinkle in Worcestershire sauce to taste.
7. Keep checking the pasta to see if it is done. Take a piece out and eat it to make sure, and when you are satisfied pour it out over the sink into a colander. Boil up a little water in the kettle and pour it over the pasta in the colander to wash off the starch.
8. Return the pasta to the saucepan and stir in a few teaspoons of pesto.
9. Put the pasta on a plate and pour the chicken and tomato sauce on top.
10. Grate some cheese and sprinkle on top.
11. Either put salad and dressing on the side, or boil/stir-fry some vegetables while cooking the rest of the meal.

• Stir-fry

½ bag of ready prepared stir-fry vegetables from Sainsburys

1 or 2 chicken breasts, or another kind of meat

½ jar of black bean sauce, yellow bean sauce, or a sachet of oyster sauce

Rice, or Sharwoods 3 minute egg noodles

You can make the stir-fry vegetables yourself if you have time: just slice various vegetables finely. For example, some cabbage, onion, carrot, red pepper, beansprouts, roasted cashew nuts.

1. Heat up a couple of tablespoons of oil in the wok, on a hob turned up to full.
2. Chop up the chicken and, when the oil is hot enough, put it in the wok.
3. When the chicken has cooked, add the stir-fry vegetables.
4. When the vegetables are cooked too, pour in some of the black bean sauce. Mix well.
5. 5 minutes before the wok food is ready, put some water in the kettle to boil, then put it in a saucepan, and add the noodles. Or make some rice.
6. Drain the noodles or rice, put them on the plate, and pour the wok contents on top.

• Sausages and mash

 Good sausages

Big potatoes

milk

Dijon mustard

Butter

cheese

Peas, carrots, other vegetable.

Bisto

1. Peel about 3 or 4 big potatoes, and then chop them up into even-sized pieces, about 5cm across.
2. Boil up a big saucepan full of water, add a pinch of salt, and then boil the potatoes until they are cooked (if picked up by stabbing with a knife, they will slide off easily).
3. Put the sausages under the grill.
4. Drain the potatoes and mash them inside the saucepan or in a big bowl.
5. Add a bit of milk a butter/margarine to make the mashed potato creamier, and a spoon of mustard as well as some grated cheese if you like.
6. Boil some water in a small saucepan and cook the vegetables.
7. When the vegetables are cooked, pour the water out into a bowl. Use this water to make the gravy with Bisto granules.
8. When the sausages are done, put them on a plate with the mashed potato and vegetables. Pour the gravy over the top.

• Omelette

 2 large eggs

A splash of milk

Oregano

A packet of ham, or bacon. Honey roast ham is nice.

Cheese

2 handfuls of Mushrooms

1 onion

Worcestershire sauce

1. First, prepare the omelette mixture: mix the 2 eggs, milk and teaspoon of oregano in a bowl with a fork.
2. Then, heat some oil in a wok, then chop the onion finely and place in the oil. Cook over a low heat until soft.
3. Meanwhile, wash and slice up the mushrooms, cut the ham into squares, and add these to the wok. Season with Worcestershire sauce.
4. While the mushroom is cooking, heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Pour on the eggy mixture.
5. With a fork, pull the mixture out from the centre to the edges of the pan as the omelette cooks, to ensure even coverage.
6. Check the underside of the omelette by lifting up with a spatula. When this starts to brown, turn the heat down and sprinkle over the still-wet surface some grated cheese. Then place the contents of the wok on one side of the omelette.
7. Using the spatula, fold the omelette over.
8. Serve either with salad, or cooked vegetables. You can keep the omelette warm in the oven if you are preparing something else.

• Curry

 2 chicken breasts

Half a jar of korma/tikka/other curry sauce

1 onion

1 red pepper

1 courgette

Rice

Naan

Mango chutney

1. Finely chop the onion and cook in some oil in the wok or pan.
2. When the onion is soft, add the chopped chicken breasts.
3. When the chicken is white on the outside, add the chopped red pepper and courgette.
4. Once everything in the pan is cooked, stir in the sauce. At the same time, cook the rice and put the naan under the grill.

• The salmon meal

 1 or 2 pieces of salmon fillet (easier to eat than steak)

Balsamic vinegar

Soy sauce

Oregano

Lemon juice

New potatoes

Salad

1. Put the salmon skin-side down on a piece of foil and fold the outer part of the foil up, to form a container.
2. Sprinkle over the salmon all of the ingredients above, and rub in.
3. Put in the oven on a baking tray at a medium heat, until the salmon is cooked.
4. At the same time, boil or roast the potatoes and prepare the salad.

• Mexican Hotpot

 1 pack of mince, or cooked sausages

1 tin of baked beans

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

Tomato puree (this is only 25p for a tube)

1 stock cube

Dried pasta shapes

Paprika

Oregano

Worcester sauce

1 onion

You could make lots of this and eat it the next day as well. But only ever reheat meat once.

1. Finely slice and fry the onion in oil. Add the mince, and when it is cooked, spoon of all the excess oil.
2. Pour the tin of tomatoes into the pan, and stir in 2 tablespoons of tomato puree.
3. Make up half a pint of stock. Pour this into the pan too.
4. Add the pasta to the pan, and season with 1 teaspoon of paprika, oregano and Worcestershire sauce.
5. Bring the pan to the boil and let it simmer til the pasta is cooked. There should be enough water for the pasta to cook. If the contents of the pan boil down before the pasta is cooked, add more boiling water.
6. Add the baked beans.
7. Stir well, and serve.