In a storeroom at Ready, Steady, Chuck! headquarters, behind a pile of boxes full of Tupperware and empty whisky bottles, stands a slightly rusty metal cabinet that once held important documents. Today, all it contains is a single, thin, slightly Miracle Whip-smeared manila folder with, on its cover, a white sticky label written with the legend "X". Within this folder, its mysterious content is hidden from the world, securely fastened with a perished rubber band and two of those sticky things used to tie up plastic bags of sliced bread. We now know that this folder conceals a terrible, dark secret - a secret that, if it were true, would shake the foundations of the Ready, Steady, Chuck! world - a secret that, if it were true, hints at a wider, darker, conspiracy that implicates powers and individuals that would doubtless wish to remain incognito - a secret that, if it were true, would reveal as-yet unidentified organisations whose agendas are so dark and secret that even when revealed are likely to remain unfathomable to those that live everyday lives in the normal world.
The label on that file has been stuck on so as to conceal a simple phrase, the implications of which are alone a revelation: "Ready, Steady, Chuck! Challenge, 2001".
It remains a mystery to all the celebrity chefs at Ready, Steady, Chuck! headquarters as to how it could have been possible that their collective memory of the 2001 Challenge has been wiped clean. Unaided, none are able to recall a single detail of that year's event, of the shopping, cooking and judging, even of the recipes that they would have surely created and prepared themselves. And all of this would have remained hidden from their minds were it not for the hint of recall of a dish that lives in Ready, Steady, Chuck! legend as but a memory of a rumour, and which is known by the name of Deep-Fried Cabbage in Margarine.
When the memories of the Ready, Steady, Chuck! chefs are nudged by the mention of this dish, only then do they begin to remember. After they have finished shuddering, they ponder further, because it is not clear when this recipe first came about, and even then, they have no memory of the challenge during which that dish was created. Chef Andrew was certainly responsible - on this all chefs agree. And so, it was assumed that the cabbage necessary to prepare Deep-Fried Cabbage in Margarine was part of another year's event. Thus Chef Andrew was disqualified from the 2005 Challenge. However, close examination of photographs dating from 2005 reveal an obvious absence of cabbage amongst Chef Andrew's ingredients. Did he edit the photographs? There is no evidence of that. Or did he originally choose to pose without the cabbage? But why would he have done so? No, the investigation sparked by Chef Andrew's appeal is drawing ever closer towards its inevitable and inescapable conclusion: there's something funny going on.
As the investigation proceeds, more evidence is coming to light. Chef Andrew, who has always maintained his innocence (though, in fairness, he does this when he knows he's guilty too), recalls suggestions of an accompaniment of other, less cabbagey ingredients. Chef Al has flashbacks of suppressed memory hinting that he cooked something very bland that same year. And in the depths of sleep, Chef Andy has recurring nightmares of Miracle Whip amongst his ingredients again - but that has nothing to do with this story. More significant is the suggestion that a photographic record of the creation of Deep-Fried Cabbage in Margarine exists, in the form of video tapes from a bygone, analogue, age.
At the time of writing, and with so little to go on, the investigation is concentrating on merely searching for evidence of rumours of the existence of The Lost Tapes, or evidence of rumours of their suppression. But reader, be assured, as and when any such evidence is uncovered, news of it will be posted here.
As to who, or what, is responsible for these mysterious goings on, senior staff at Ready, Steady, Chuck! headquarters remain baffled. However, of the many theories that have arisen, the following are considered the ten most likely: