The Real Housewives of Melbs were back on the telly last night so let’s get straight into it.

Chyka and Lydia are being all “ladies who lunch”, about which Lydia is inexplicably excited. Not as excited as I was though when I saw that the waiter’s shirt was deadset made out of the same hideous tartan as my high school uniform! However, if the cool waiter dude can’t make green & yellow tartan look good, imagine how spectacularly awful we looked in 1983, with our centre-parted ponytails and brown ribbed tights. I know, right?

Lydia is totes excited/nervous about heading to Florence for her son’s wedding. She’s shit-scared, however, of the possibility of being a grandmother. I would be too – imagine being a grandmother before Janet, who is 128, when you’re only 45.

Chyka blabbed to Lydia about the fact that Janet had blabbed to Gamble about the rumours about her. Sweet mother of God, that was confusing to write – I can imagine how confusing it must have been to read. I’ll give you a minute to re-read and get your head around it.

Right? Are you with me? Chyka goes all virtuous, and says she shouldn’t talk about it because she doesn’t want to feed the dragon. Hilariously Lydia responds with “you don’t have to talk about it”, by which she meant “OMG tell me everything”, obvs.

So Chyka totally forgets what she said A NANO-SECOND AGO, and spills about the stripper/call-girl rumours. Lydia can’t believe Chyka has blabbed, because it’s so not like her, but Chyks reckons it was only what she’d read in the paper, so no biggie.

But I call bullshit, because I have gone to, like, PAGE 25 of the Google results whilst stalking researching Gamble, and all that’s mentioned is her stoush with an ex over a car. Boring to the power of infinity. There is NOTHING, NADA about her being a stripper or a call-girl. I could totally be an investigative journalist.

Then Chyks tells Lydia about the *alleged* sex parties, which blows Lydia’s tiny mind. Just quietly, you know Lydia’s pissed off that she missed all the fun (the lunch, not the sex parties. Actually probably the sex parties too.). Chyka reckons it’s a good sign that Lydia didn’t know about it, because it means that the story is dead. Bahahahahaahaaaa. Has she never watched this show??

Meanwhile, Jackie & Ben are getting their glam on for a video shoot for La Mascara. Ohai Ben! I can’t believe it’s taken until Ep 3 for you to turn up! You were freaking omnipresent last season. One thing though: DO YA HAIR!

Jackie & Ben spend what felt like 18 hours having the world’s most inane convo about how to pronounce La Mascara. Pair of geniuses. Then Ben tells Jackie to stand “on the crack”. Then cacks himself, because he’s 12.

Jackie is getting the shits over Ben’s instructions, saying “I do believe I take direction well, but I don’t like people telling me what to do”. Good for you Jacks! Jackie’s next line is “Entry is easy”, and Ben pretty much self-combusts with giggles. Twelve. Years. Old.

Janet turns up at the shoot to stroke Jackie’s ego, but more importantly to find out what the angels are saying about the Gamble/Janet sitch. The angels think Gamble will be PISSED at Janet. No shit Sherlock! These must be the “B” team angels, because my Labrador Leo could figure that out. And he once ate his kennel.

Janet is all “but Chyka brought it up, not me! She gets away with everything!” Call the waahmbulance Janet.

Then out of nowhere (probs because she knew that dissing Chyka would get her exactly nowhere) Janet invites Jackie to a golf day. Jackie looks at her like she’s mental, and announces that she’s never played golf, and indeed has never set foot on a golf “court”. Me neither.

Jackie makes a joke about “balls in holes”, which she’ll probably repeat over dinner, making Ben snort La Mascara out his nose. They discuss whether to invite Gamble, and thank God Janet says she will, because otherwise that golf day will be a snooze.

The shoot is wrapped, and we do a quick fly across the Peninsula to Croatia-by-the-Sea. Gamble is getting tarted up for a fashion parade at Chadstone, like it’s the Chanel Spring/Summer 15 parade at Paris Fashion Week. She’s all “I’m ignoring those ladies, they’re all appalling.” You go Gamble.

Pettifleur, meanwhile, is having tea with her mate Charlotte. Charlotte’s a random. We haven’t met her. She gushes over P’s scarf, so she seems about as interesting as Lydia’s mum. She also does P’s eyebrows. Career ambitions right there.

Charlotte is co-writing P’s future best-seller (bahahahahaaaha) “Switch the Bitch”, and P is dismayed that Charlotte has only written 10 chapters, compared to her 20. WHAT THE FUCK COULD THEY POSSIBLY WRITE 30 CHAPTERS ABOUT??? It’ll almost be worth buying just to answer that question. Then again, they probably write using Arial Black, 48 point, double-spaced. So more like 7 chapters.

Charlotte’s contribution is an instructional guide to women “to do the ultimate dance of love”. So she’s writing the Karma Sutra.

P’s portion is “absolutely about how to switch the bitch, hence the title.” Somewhat problematically, Charlotte’s part of the book doesn’t blend with P’s message. BECAUSE NOTHING BLENDS WITH THAT MESSAGE.

Writing the book has healed P, apparently. Not from the insufferably-stupid strain of the up-yourself virus, but from the dull, defeated, tired woman she once was. So that’s nice. But because Charlotte completely ballsed up her part of the book, P cuts her loose. For which Charlotte is almost certainly thinking “thank fuck”.

Time for the fashion show at Chaddy, and Janet, Jackie, and Jackie’s boobs have arrived. Hurrah! Janet is a bit anxious about seeing Gamble, and the feeling is mutual. Big surprise. In contrast to Janet’s S&M-style rock (blergh) Gamble arrives looks almost demure in a red lace tea-length frock (which sounds vomitous as I write it, but it’s pretty so I’ll allow it.)

She walks over to Janet and Jackie and basically says “Hi Janet, aren’t you a big ol’ liar!” Poor Jackie wants to vaporise. Janet blames Chyka for the whole thing, but Gamble slaps her down (not literally, which is a shame) and goes on about how outrageous it is that Janet called her a pole dancer. To which Janet replies – “I didn’t call you a pole dancer. I called you a stripper!” GOLD. BUT IT GETS BETTER.

Gamble pulls out the double-barrelled big guns and announces that she’d heard Janet “fucked for heroin”. I did not see that coming. Hard to know what Janet thought because #botox, but Jackie looked like she was about to implode. In her words “I don’t know what happened, but she was fuckin’ fuming mate.” God I love Jackie. Anyway, Gamble comes clean (in one of the interview-y things) and says she’d made it up. Gotta say, I found that a bit disappointing.

Aside: Dear RHOMelbourne producers, please can we see less of the inside of Janet’s nose? I know it’s tricky, what with the general weirdness of her nose, but please? Kthxbai.

Gina’s arrived! Hurrah! Everyone was in a state after Gamble’s fake bombshell, and Gina didn’t know what the fuck was going on. Gamble gives her her version, with Janet rolling her eyes like a crazy person (at least as much as she can, because #botox).

Gina suggests that Gamble is more put out about Janet flirting with Wolfie at the Bitchy Witchy party. Because that’d be so much more annoying than being accused of fucking for heroin. So that was kind of stupid. It’s definitely all about the rumours.

Time for the fashion parade. Janet can’t focus because she is so deeply in the shit. Also probably because #botox. After the parade, she seeks advice from Jackie, and the angels tell her to take Janet aside and tell her she’s not upset for herself but for her family. Separately, Gina is taking Janet to task for “grooming people” to dislike her. Janet really should have stayed home with I’m A Celebrity and a lite-n-easy.

Lots of shouty housewives and waving arms (batwing alert!) later, and Janet apologises to Gamble. Gamble isn’t interested, and Gina is taking Gamble’s side over this whole episode (although probs not about the fucking for heroin thing), and then Janet storms out. OMG SHE HAS A TRAMP STAMP! So disturbing. Make it go away.

That was exhausting. But the best is yet to come because HI WARNIE!

Warnie on the Real Housewives – what a day to be alive!

He’s strolling around Crown Casino with Lydia and opens with a hot tip on how to tell if he’s bluffing (ta for that Warnie). Lydia has known him for more than 13 years. (Question: why not just say 14 years? I’ve never understood that phrase. Sorry. As you were.)

Shane has invited Lydia to be an ambassador to his Foundation – the Shane Warne Foundation, which helps seriously ill and underprivileged kiddies, so that’s nice. I can’t figure out what colour Warnie’s hair is. In some shots it looks red and in others it looks blonde. It’s #theDress of hair.

Lydia confesses to being a dirty rotten card-counter, and an ace Uno player. Both handy for poker. The boys introduce her to official, technical Poker terms like “the nuts”, “flop”, “back door” and “the riddler”. Can you even imagine how Ben would react to those terms? #twelveyearsold

Lydia and Warnie exchange some *ahem* interesting glances during the game. Imma guess Lydia was NOT Liz Hurley’s favourite person, back in the day.

Back across the Peninsula Gamble is moping about what happened at Chaddy. The Silver Fox comes in to comfort her and says that “to be called a prostitute, for her, strikes at the very heart of who she is” (as opposed anyone else being called a prostitute, which is probably a fair call). He’s deeply troubled by what is being said about his beloved. I personally am deeply troubled by Gamble’s increasingly two-toned hair. It’s a bit Cheryl from Puberty Blues.

Could Chyka’s house be any more glorious!? No it could not. Nor could her wardrobe be more beautifully curated, right down to matching bras & undies. Good job Bruce. It seems Bruce’s styling talent extends to Chyka’s daughter, Chessie. I already love her. She’s helping sort Chyka’s wardrobe, and uses one of my fave words – “cull”. She immediately applies that word to a pair of silky green & blue palazzo pants. Harsh.

Chyka tells us that she turned her son’s bedroom into her wardrobe, which I think we can all agree is a very sensible use of space. Assuming he’s moved out.

She confesses to hiding handbags from Bruce – SOLIDARITY SISTA – and that when she buys shoes she tells the shop assistant not to worry about the box, because the boxes are too hard to hide. Duh. *reminds self to make sure husband does not read this post*.

Then – SCANDAL! – we hear that Chessie had furiously denied wearing a leather dress of Chyka’s, until she was sprung on Facey wearing it at the polo. ROOKIE ERROR CHESSIE!

Over at Southbank – The Conservatory to be precise (*adds to itinerary for next pilgrimage research trip to Melbs*) – Janet is catching up with her friend Manuela, who apparently is one of “Melbourne’s elite”. If she’s so elite, WTF is she doing wearing that nasty yellow leopard print top? Janet is all boasty about the new hair she bought today (she actually said that), and Manuela does the kind thing and points out that it’s rubbish because it’s crooked. Patrick will have a total hissy fit when hears that.

Anyway, it turns out we have Manuela to blame thank for introducing us to Pettifleur. She wants to know how it’s going with P, to which Janet replies “the jury’s out on Pettifleur” by which she meant “Pettifleur’s a moll”.

Janet brings Manuela up to speed on the sex-party/stripper/call-girl rumours, and COMPLETELY THROWS CHYKA UNDER THE BUS by saying that it was Chyka who made all these claims. Who’s the moll now Janet?? When Manuela then mentions that she’d also heard rumours about Gamble, Janet rejoices (as much as she’s able to, because #botox).

Now that she has an ally, Janet proclaims everything is right with the world – “my favourite lunch – seafood, champagne, what more do you need?!” A medium Big Mac meal I reckon.

We finish the ep with dinner at Fitzrovia (*adds to itinerary*) with Gina and Gamble. Oh, and Gina’s boozzies, apparently. That’s some impressive engineering in that frock. It seems this is more of a professional appointment than a social event, with Gamble filling Gina in on the whole rumour thing. (I’m bored with this now, tbh.)

Gina is totes profesh and says she’s collecting the facts so she can “hopefully assist in resolving the situation”. She starts collecting the facts by asking Gamble “Have you ever been a call girl? Have you ever been a stripper? Have you ever been a pole dancer?” which was excellent. You could just tell she was DYING for Gamble to say “well, actually…”

Gina *reminds* Gamble that she’s been a psychotic maniac in the past (over the car stuff with her ex), so probs best that she doesn’t make up stories about Janet, no matter how tempting it might be. Then Gina offers to talk to Janet, which you just KNOW will be Gina going full prosecuting attorney (sorry, I watch a lot of SVU) on Janet’s arse. Hurrah!

That is a meeting I don’t want to miss.