Great British Bake Off is back on our screens. The new series. In which a dozen hapless amateurs make food which goes wrong. Compelling viewing. Wouldn’t want to miss a limp biscuit, a cake that’s gone flat, an undercooked pie.

And its true. I wouldn’t want to miss it. Any of it. I want to know precisely how much yeast Kevin puts in his dough. I need to see how Olivia made such a perfect pain au chocolate whilst her croissant looked like a turd. I hold my breath as Nigel takes his Victoria sponge from the oven, in case it sinks. (names have been changed to protect… someone)

And I ask myself: WHY? Why do I care? Why do I watch? Why bother?? Ok, I bake, like a really little bit, and I go to Waitrose and buy their pastry dough. All different types. Who needs all that kneading? Open the packet, roll it out and you’re off. I wouldn’t know what to do with yeast, nor bicarbonate of soda, other than leave it in the cupboard. Used in bomb-making, I think.

But I suppose what I’m hooked on is the format of the show, the formula. Which of course, they’ve also done with painting pictures, probably origami, possibly yoga, maybe car repairs. I don’t know; don’t watch any of them. Love Island passed me by as does anything with the word ‘Shore’ in the title. But Bake Off compels me. Yet the format is old now, I should be bored with it. Like… errrr… football… but I’m not. I don’t like Paul Hollywood, he’s a humourless Brummy who looks like Damian from The Omen, just before he ripped his mother’s spleen out with a soup ladle. Though if Paul H had done that, the spleen would have been cooked to perfection, with a scalloped edge and no soggy bottom. Pru Leith is a pretentious, pompous cook with aspirations to aristocracy. Yeah, they make you a Princess for cooking a cake. And the ‘other two’ are corny, cheesy and stupid.

So what’s to like?

But its on series record, along with Match of the Day, and there it shall stay.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx