Sweet sorrow
With the end of the BBC’s Bake Off, something
indefinably wonderful has been lost from British lifeYSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAMS
o, is that it? The end of sweetness, and
the end of taste?
Physically speaking, those things will
no doubt carry on, when The Great British
Bake Off moves to Channel 4 next year. We’ll
still take vicarious pleasure in the mouth-
watering sweetness of someone’s ‘crème pat’.
The taste of lavender will still ‘come through’
in a contestant’s 12 identical puff pastry min-
iatures. But I’m referring to the abstracts:
the sweetness, and the taste. I fear that those
might have gone for ever.
With Britain tearing itself apart this sum-
mer and autumn, one half being sarcastic
and nasty about the other half all the time,
the weekly hour-long patch of sweetness and
taste that is the BBC’s Great British Bake
OffOff has become something to treasure, and
indeed to live for. It’s not only the perpetu-
ally intriguing chemistry of the baking, it’s
also, crucially, the life-enhancing chemis-
try between the four hosts that holds our
attention and makes us crave and love the
programme. Not just a few of us, either: 11
million of us each week; and not just National
Trust old dears in flowery armchairs, but high-
flyers and cynics of all ages, all of whom are
disarmed, relaxed and somehow made nicer
by the programme’s innocence and charm.
Telling us that the GBBO might be just
as good with new hosts is like telling a child
that the Christmas holidays will be just as nice
when Mummy and Daddy get divorced. We
know it’s not true. And, like those children,
we ask ourselves, ‘Why do grown-ups always
have to mess things up?’ The programme
was trundling along perfectly well until adult
greed gripped the souls of the people at Love
Productions, who refused to accept the BBC’s
offer of £15 million and went for Channel 4’s
offer of £25 million. It’s depressing that the
delicate edifice of the GBBO should crum-
ble due to money. So utterly out of charac-
ter! One of the Bake Off’s blissful aspects
was that it seemed to have nothing to do with
money. No prizes: just flour, butter, caster
sugar, a trophy and lashings of honour.
That age of innocence is now over. Never
again will we hear Sue Perkins make a joke so
unfunny that it’s funny. (Eg, in ‘Tudor week’,
‘As Anne of Cleves said: you’re two-thirds of
the way through.’) Never again will we hear
Mel Giedroyc pronouncing a French cake
name in an exceedingly French accent, or see
the look of compassion and alarm on her faceon watching a contestant’s pastry case crack
apart on exit from the tin. Never again will we
savour the affectionate, teasing relationship
between Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry,
who are as different from each other, but as
strangely compatible as the Queen and Har-
old Wilson. A country longing for old certain-
ties to cling to has now lost those ones.
Only the BBC could have got such an
unpromising programme off the ground. The
corniness of assembling ‘a baker’s dozen’
of homely contestants in a bunting-hung
marquee in the grounds of a country house
complete with bleating lambs; the Reithian
quaintness of including a short educational
‘historical interlude’ in the middle of each
episode; the very idea that watching otherpeople bake could be remotely interesting in
the first place: you can see why it began as
minority BBC2 entertainment aimed at the
elderly. The first newspaper reviews of series
one in 2010 were mocking and scathing.
But word of mouth, that infinitely more
powerful arbiter than any television critic,
worked its gradual magic. One by one, reluc-
tant family members were dragged to the
television to discover the addictiveness and
the sheer small-scale drama of it all. The tiny
downward twitch of a contestant’s eyebrow
on being told that his or her creation is ‘spot
on in terms of flavour, but...’ speaks volumes
about human striving and disappointment.
None of us would want our creation to be the
butt of Paul Hollywood’s devastating ‘but’.
He is the brutal judge, and the programme
needs his ruthless frankness. He’s off to Chan-
nel 4. But Mary, Mel and Sue (who declined
to go with him) provided the necessary gentle,
lightening touch. You only need to hear about
what Bake Off is like in some of the 196 ter-
ritories that have imported it to dread what
Channel 4 might do. In France each episode
goes on for two dismal, humourless hours.
In Australia a judge once stalked the tent
to the theme tune from Jaws, making coarse
remarks like ‘I am too old to waste calories on
a lacklustre bake.’
Mary would never have said a thing like
that. Sweetness and taste: please don’t leave
us for ever.High-fl yers and cynics of all ages
are somehow made nicer by the
programme’s innocence and charmFolio societyA new collection of Shakespeare’s work
credits Christopher Marlowe as co-author
of the three Henry VI plays. Some other
candidates claimed to have written
Shakespeare plays:
francis bacon (1561-1626). His poems are
said to share a similar structure. But lacks
motive to use Shakespeare as a pen name.
william stanley, 6 th earl of derby
(1561-1642): A Jesuit spy claimed he was
secretly writing plays.
edward de vere, 17 th earl of oxford
(1550-1604): Theatre patron said to have
used pen name because an aristocrat could
not take credit for public plays. Dead for
the last 12 years of Shakespeare’s life.
roger manners, 5th earl of rutland. Said
to have corroborated with the Earl of
Southampton — although the last three
plays were produced after Rutland’s death.
Duty callsWhich industries would pay the most in
tariffs if Britain and remaining EU states
were to trade under WTO rules (assuming
the amount of goods stayed the same)?
EU exporters UK exporters
£3.9bn Vehicles £1.3bn
£1bn Meat £378m
£956m Dairy £331m
£563m Fish £154m
£498m Plastics £286m
Source: Civitas
Cleared for take-offThe government made a third runway at
Heathrow its preferred option. Compare
Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport, built
from scratch on a reclaimed island:
heathrow third runway
First proposed 1949
First plans 1990 , detailed plans 2003
Government decision 2016
Construction begins 2019?
Opens 2025?
chek lap kok
First proposed 1974
Masterplan prepared 1982
Decision made 1989
Construction began 1991
Opened 1998
Tooth testThe Home Offi ce declined to use dental
checks to verify the ages of asylum-seekers
claiming to be children. Saint Jerome
would have agreed. His Letter to the
Ephesians, from around 400 AD, contains a
phrase that evolved into the English
proverb ‘never look a gift horse in the
mouth’. To do so, he implied, would be
rude — studying a horse’s front teeth was
a way of judging the age of the animal.
BAROMETER