Terrorists could never make 'Bake off' - their video's are shit!

Back when the world was black and white, people knew how to behave in front of the camera.  They stared into the lens as if hypnotised and spoke either in a sort of strangulated RP, or with a regional accent, usually northern.  Headscarves featured.

The popularisation of the family cine camera did little to lessen the public’s respect for film, which was finite and had to be processed by the chemist.  The early days of video cameras started to erode the mystique of moving images, when anyone could appear on their own telly and mistakes could be taped over, or sent to television shows so that you could appear on other peoples’ tellies with your skirt ticked into your knickers or something equally hilarious.

It took Yoohootube to make us realise that the democratisation of broadcasting proved that talent is not democratic, but the lack of it certainly is.

‘The Great British Bake Off’ is beyond Event Television, it is Phenomenon Television that has made stars of its presenters (a bloke apparently made of mahogany and a woman who is a cross between an Aunt Sally and Zelda from ‘Terrahawks’) and of the contestants.  How?  Two words: Peril!

Women directors like Jerry Bruckheimer strive to introduce peril into their movies, and usually do so by Blowing Shit Up while all the time threatening something that will make those explosions look like atom farts.  This can be a meteor, or a bomb, or a bomb strapped to a meteor.

But fuck that.  You want to know what peril is?  Peril is having your bake judged.  Anyone who has every put a plate of home baked biscuits down in front of a bunch of unsuspecting friends knows the moment of peril just after one of them takes the first bite.  The next thing out of their mouth had better be ‘that’s delicious’ and not ‘as I was saying…’ or ‘fuck, that’s atrocious’, because you can go from friend to cunt in one chew if you don’t praise the bake.  That’s what it means to bakers.  They all know this.  Anyone who has ever had their cooking criticised will know that there is only one reaction, a cocktail of shame and psychosis.

That’s why the audience are on the edge of their seats.

That, and the British fucking LOVE cake.  National game is cricket, yea?  Right, name me one other game, IN THE WORLD, that stops for lunch, and then for afternoon tea.  Test matches last for five days.  That’s ten opportunities to get some cake down you.  Think I’m kidding?  Google images of Mike Gatting and tell me that there’s a man who refuses carbs.

People look forward to Bake Off before it starts, enjoy it when it’s one and talk about it when it’s finished.  Know why?  Because it’s lovely.  This is a reality show where the only villain is time and whatever idiot confesses to bringing along any sort of store bought gadget or device.  Knocked up that cookie cutter in your shed?  Great!  Bought it?  You fucking disgust me!

Bake Off is British through and through.  The clue is in the title.  It’s great television and it demonstrates beyond a doubt that you need talent to appear on telly, either to make, present or just fucking cook scones badly on, you need talent.

A sword just don’t cut it.  Terrorists have taken to sharing their holiday videos with the world and the news media.  For what reason, Christ alone knows because if they think it’s somehow going to frighten, scare, intimidate or impress people, they really, really need to fire their audience research people.  The same audience that are nearly in tears when the old chap gets a hug from the Sex Pest on bake off and hang around to watch the news are then shouting ‘arsehole!’ at the bloke with his mum’s headscarf, a balaclava and a glaring deficiency in the girlfriend department.  Whatever terrorist videos are (and the only thing I can possibly think they are in internet terms is ‘troll bait’), they certainly aren’t good.

Think you’re tough?  Try baking two dozen identical flapjacks with the nation waiting to Tweet things about you?  No?  Thought not.