LAST week, I went to the kind of party you only see in films. A down-to-earth friend invited me to her Bollywood themed party.

'Don't bring any wine, just bring yourself', she said. Because she works in wine marketing, I guessed that meant that free booze was a perk of her job.

There was something about her trendy North London postcode that made me slightly suspicious but I only understood the magnitude of her wealth when the taxi driver pulled up outside the electronic gates and gasped. He turned to me and said: 'Are you sure you've got the right address?' looking at me and the house.

My friend's home turned out to be a castle on a street popularly dubbed 'millionaires' avenue'. The stink of money hit me as I entered the lobby. Swinging before me was the kind of chandelier which would cost you your life if it fell on you. It dangled like a shimmering 20ft disco ball from the ornate ceiling.

Beyond an imposing staircase hung a gigantic family oil painting on the first floor landing. It turned out her parents - who were either diamond tycoons or bank robbers - lived in Kenya so this house had effectively become her very own girl-pad.

This friend, for whom I had rustled up an Asda pasta bake when she came round to mine for dinner, needed servants to run her bath every night. She categorically did not do budget supermarkets. The kitchen table - which was the size of a double bed - was covered with food on delicate silver trays that she had ordered in. To my shame, I began quaffing like a wild buffalo, shovelling the delicacies into my handbag when my jaw began to tire. I admit it, an impoverished background of free school lunches and microwave meals has turned me into a greedy adult.

By this time, the party was thumping and happy people who had never done a hard day's work in their lives were behaving like it was just another Saturday night. I stalked the house, marvelling at how the sitting room resembled an 18th century French court and deciding which bathroom I liked best. So this was how the other half lived, and good job I could be gracious about it.

But that was before the thieving tyke in me began to rear its ugly head. What memento could I take to remember the night by? It's not like the Kenyan shipping magnates would ever miss it.

But what would my conscience let me get away with? Fighting the urge to nick one of the silk dressing gowns, I am ashamed to admit that I lunged at a trendy shower cap and a few fruit-shaped bath oils, spraying some Chanel perfume along the front of my dress as I careered out of the room.

The gleaming loot sits in my bathroom now, representing both the guilt and the delight I feel from laying claim to a small piece of my friend's filthy rich lifestyle. You can take the girl out the council estate but you can't take the council estate out of the girl.