Author: StuckinaBook

Great British Bake Off: Episode 8

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Last week I decided to recap Episode 7 of The Great British Bake Off, and it proved quite popular – so, a day late, I’ve decided to do the same for Episode 8.  And again, it took forever… but it was fun!  If you need an overview of how the programme works, or want to catch up on last week’s episode, click here.  In brief, my favourite contestant (Sarah-Jane) went home, and so did someone who reminded me too much of a colleague (Ryan), Paul Hollywood mangled the English language to hitherto unsuspected contortions, Mary Berry borrowed a coat from Joseph (which apparently was a huge hit), and Scottish James wore a disappointingly low-key jumper.  This week – biscuits!  Given how GBBO has shown me that I had mis-defined puddings, desserts, and tortes, I’m fully expecting the first biscuit challenge to involve ostrich eggs and jelly.  We’ll see.

Now that Sarah-Jane has gone, I’m completely Team Cathryn.  And I’m sorry for calling you Kathryn last week, my dear, I’m on the right page now.  In the here’s-what-will-happen-this-week clips, she’s making this face:

A big part of me hopes that this is never explained, so that I can continue to believe that she has an invisible exploding camera.

The remaining bakers (shall we settle on that, rather than ‘contestants’?  It’s much friendlier) process into the tent.  Scottish James is wearing shorts, which helps explain (if not atone for) the second week in a row where he has no natty knitwear.

Let’s get straight on with the show!  The ‘Signature Challenge’ is to make 48 crackers or crispbreads (crisp which now?) – ‘They should be thin, and crack when snapped in two – a little bit like Nicole Kidman’, as presenter Mel helpfully adds.  Paul threatens to ‘test for the snap on every single one of them’, which isn’t so much playing with words as talking complete nonsense.  Unless he intends to use the crackers to play cards?

Bless Brendan – or The Brend, as I now know him.  He’s probably the best baker left, but oh he does irritate me – yet I find it endearing that he continually tries to play down the fact that he’s four hundred years old.  In an early episode he claimed not to remember the ’70s.  Even if he meant 1870s, I’m certain he’s lying.  In spot-The-Brend’s-age-giveaways no.1, he’s interviewing about usually only making crackers to serve at buffets.  Presumably to go with little olives, for Beverley et al from Abigail’s Party.

I can’t get very excited about crackers, I’m afraid.  John is very anxious about whether or not he should use yeast, and Scottish James joins the nation’s housewives in flirting a bit with Paul.  Cathryn promises that hers will be crackers rather than cookies (a shame, I think a cookie would be much nicer) and the cameramen join the rest of the world in forgetting that Danny exists.

That shot is just to show you how they introduce everyone’s recipes, which I missed out last time.  It’s obviously supposed to be a cookbook, with the recipe title on one side and an illustration on the other, but sometimes it’s rather a thankless effort on the part of some work experience kid in post-production.  Usually the illustration resembles the finished product only in the vaguest imaginable way, not least because BBC seem only to have access to MS Paint when it comes to colour choices.  Would you put anything that looked like those ‘Asian Spice Crackers’ anywhere near your mouth?

“These are the sort of crackers you’d have with your mates around,” John explains, “a really good nibbly cracker.”  Uh-oh.  Paul’s nonsense-speak is catching…  His definitions haven’t really elucidated the matter, have they?  Unless there are some crackers that you can only have when all your mates have abandoned you, and you’re lying in bed, crying into a glass of red.

Oh, Danny is still here!  Bless her heart, she’s trying to act all dangerous and maverick.  She has a ‘controversial’ ingredient – what is it?  Hash?  Arsenic?  A potent aphrodisiac?  Er… no.  It’s desiccated cheese.  But she gets a bonus point for describing picking a 1970s ingredient as, essentially, ‘doing a Brend’. Not her exact words, but the gist.

John has a mini breakdown over a fork and a Woody Woodpecker impersonation.

The Brend confides in us about his love of precision – ‘If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’ – and he’s got out a ruler, tape measure, and cutter.

I worry a little for The Brend.

Lots of shots, now, of them trying again to make the whole process sound like Mission Impossible – Mel throws around words like ‘crucial’, and puts on the sort of voiceover tone usually reserved for newsreaders detailing the deaths of innocents.  Cathryn says something about the importance of not burning crackers, but it’s hard to make out over the sound of a production guy bellowing in the background – which, I suppose, adds something to the heightened tension, even if it briefly demolishes the fourth wall.

John taps his cracker, possibly to see how well it is baked, possibly to start his own miniature baked good orchestra.  Who can say?  Everyone is baking in stages, so that they can use the same shelf for each tray of crackers and thus prevent varying levels of bakedness (Paul’s influence, sorry.)   Everyone except Scottish James, that is, who shoved them all in at once – which is treated, once again by Mel’s voiceover (where has Sue gone?) as the activities of a half-crazed fifth-columnist.  He may be whole-crazed, as he declares that his cracker looks like a little mouse.

As you see, it doesn’t.

I love Cathryn all the more for saying ‘Heavens-to-Betsy’, which is something I often say myself.  It started ironically, but now I just say it.  John, meanwhile, is singing a song about crackers, and Danny is reciting numbers to herself like a madwoman.  The obvious crackers/crackers pun has, bizarrely, yet to be made by Sue.  And if Sue ain’t going there, neither am I.

Paul and Mary are wheeled on for judging…

Brendan’s are “really scrummy” (darling Mary, talking with her mouth full) and “have a good bake on it” (Paul “gibberish” Hollywood)
Danny’s have a good crack, good consistency, and a lovely colour.  Snore.
James’ (and that is how BBC2 do their apostrophe – God bless BBC2!  You wouldn’t get that on BBC1) are beautifully crisp, and Mary seems to be wolfing them down, one in each hand.

Cathryn apologises for hers before they’re even handed over, because they’re varying shades and thicknesses.  I forgive her everything when she says “Oh lor'” – the sooner she stars in her own sitcom as a put-upon Yorkshire landlady, the better.
John’s ‘break well’, and have a ‘hint of curry’.  Which sounds horrifying, to be honest.  Paul wanted them to be bigger – to which Mary rightly points out that he could just eat twice as many.

Oh dear, we’re going to Learn Something About Biscuits.  Mel takes the opportunity to audition for Countryfile.

We’re off to Anglesey – which Mel falsely claims is ‘the mother of Wales’, whatever that means – to learn about the ‘James cake’, otherwise known as… something I couldn’t quite catch.  It sounded like Abattoir Biscuit, but I suspect it isn’t.  Yet again a mix of Food Historians and Local Bakers awkwardly tell us anecdotes to the backdrop of bizarre montages… let’s get back to the tent, shall we?

“The quarter-finalists have no idea what sort of biscuit they’ll be asked to bake next.”  Ah, you’re back, Sue. And say what you like about these contestants, compared to other reality shows – the ones on GBBO certainly know how to wield a good facial expression.

I think we have a winner.

And the Blind Challenge is… chocolate teacakes!  Biscuit, topped with marshmallow, covered in chocolate. Apparently it was 30 degrees heat (which seems a far-off dream, watching it in this miserable weather) so doing things with chocolate will be tricky.  Mary Berry warns that Paul Hollywood will have to be kind.  He makes the sort of face Jeremy Paxman might make if he were asked to be polite, or Piers Morgan if he were asked to be non-repellent.  (I.e. Paul won’t be kind.  That’s what I was going for there.  I just thought I’d phrase it to include two of the more obnoxious people on television because, let’s face it, Paul Hollywood is a sweetie really.)

None of the bakers really seem to know what they’re doing.  First things first are the digestive biscuits which will form the base – nothing that they’ve produced looks much like a biscuit to me, but who am I to judge?  The extreme heat is ruining their attempts at chocolate, and seeing John’s sweaty brow, I’m suddenly grateful for the clouds and rain we’ve had in Oxford today.

The Brend (described by John as ‘a machine’ – well, he has developed a semi-robotic monotone, with hints of Maggie Smith) seems to be having the most success, whereas lovely Cathryn is running into trouble… This week she has mostly been looking grumpy, but in an adorable way, like an overtired toddler.

Perhaps she misses lovely Sarah-Jane?  The happiest moment of my past week (which has been a steady run of headaches, so it’s not saying much) was discovering that Cathryn and Sarah-Jane co-author a blog, which you can read here.  What do you think the chances are that they’ll become my best friends?

I’ve realised I haven’t included any pictures of actual baked goods yet, so here’s a rather artsy (if not entirely appetising) picture of Scottish James’ teacakes in action:

Oh dear.  John’s come out rather well, but Cathryn starts shrieking “Oh my giddy AUNT” at hers – with a grin plastered over her face – and Sue doubles up her role of Presenter with that of Redoubtable Head Girl, and gets her to calm down and turn out her teacakes.  For once, Cathryn hasn’t overstated her disaster… after some poor crackers, I’m rather terrified that my favourite will be going home…

Just call them ‘deconstructed’, and you’ll be fine, love.

Aww, Scottish James gives her a hug.

Berry and Hollywood come on to do their blind judging.  Cathryn gets good comments for her biscuit and marshmallow, so maybe there’s hope for her yet.  Everyone else gets mixed comments, even The Brend (who, again, looks incredulous) but Paul gives everyone a ‘pretty good’ overall – high praise, indeed.

Oh dear, Cathryn is in fifth place.  Then last week’s star baker Danny, then John, then The Brend, and first prize is taken by Scottish James.

Onto the final challenge! First Mary and Paul give their thoughts on who is doing well, and who is in danger.  While they are praising Brendan and Scottish James, an editor cruelly puts up a protracted shot of James trying, and failing, to put on an apron.

Even crueller, since it turns out it’s his 21st birthday!  As Sue says, he can become an M.P. or… go to adult prison.

The showstopper challenge is – gingerbread houses!  What fun!

Oh, wait, Paul says he’s after ‘gingerbread structures’, not houses – those he will ‘smash’, only to be satisfied with ‘architectural genius’.  Gosh!  I’m even more excited… or is this some sort of budget cut, where Kevin McCloud will come on and present Grand Designs at the same time?  Will they quietly run the National Lottery in the background next week?

Cathryn wins even more I-Love-Her Points from me by making a Buckingham Palace gingerbread house, while Danny is making a two-feet tall Big Ben (or, in fact, Elizabeth Tower.  Big Ben is just the bell, fact fans.  I thought the tower was called St. Stephen’s Tower, but Wikipedia proves me wrong.)  John is going for a Coliseum [spelling courtesy of BBC; not how I’d have spelt it] with over a hundred pieces (designed by his graphic designer boyfriend), and James is going to make… a barn.  Hmm.  Not really quite as glamorous, is it?  But possibly easier to pass off as successful.  Everyone knows what Buck Pal looks like, whereas barns come in all shapes and sizes, don’t they?

I love that his baking comes with architectural plans.

I don’t think we talked to The Brend at all.  Presumably he’s building a Gingerbread Retirement Home?  Oh, my mistake, he turns up on the other side of some Gingerbread Of Times Past segment which I entirely ignored – he’s making a birdhouse, fondant bluebirds and all.

I’ve got to say, the final results are rather breathtaking.  They’ve had more interesting visual challenges in Series 3 than in previous years, and this one was a stroke of brilliance by some ideas-person backstage.

Here, for contrast, is a gingerbread house that my dear friend Lorna and I once made.  From a kit.

John’s is spectacular, evenly baked (I’m editing ‘an even bake’ here, folks, and into fewer words), although not quite gingery enough for Mary.  They only seem to eat a tiny fragment of it, though.

Brendan’s is described by Paul as ‘a bit much’.  The man has made grass, and decorated his Shredded Wheat roof with climbing roses.  The phrase ‘less is more’ probably makes The Brend retch.  And it’s too spicy for our Mary… oh dear!  I tease The Brend, but I was confidently expecting him to walk this (with a zimmer, obvs.)

Danny’s ‘could have been taller’ (!) and is quite cookie-gingerbread, which sounds lovely to me, but may or may not have been a compliment.

Cathryn claims that the Queen might be ‘naffed off’ with her design – and it does like a bit like Buckingham Palace post-earthquake – but Mary reassures her that you can tell what it was supposed to be.  Paul thinks the fact that it’s ginger, chocolate, and orange offers too many flavours, but Mary wants to eat all of it, to the last crumb.

James’ structure is appreciated, but the judges don’t seem actually to eat any of it.

So, who’s going home?  I worry that it’s still going to be Cathryn… she says it’s been a ‘crumby week’, and I don’t think she’s even making a pun.  Sue will be annoyed that she missed that one.

The star baker is…

Birthday Boy James!

And, going home, is…

Oh no!  It is Lovely Cathryn.  Everyone – the other bakers, Mel & Sue, Paul & Mary – seem equally distraught.  She probably was the worst this week, but it won’t be the same programme without her.  Still, that sitcom (working title: “Fine Words Don’t Butter No Parsnips”) can go into production asap.

Becoming my favourite seems a surefire way to get booted out…  I’ve had to transfer my affections to James, so… will he be on his way back to sunny Scotland next week?  Join me (probably) for the semi-finals!  They seem to be making dozens of complicated things.  It should be fun…

David and Sylvia

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I have a few half-written posts lying about in the draft section of Blogger, and tonight – coming in late, halfway through a book review and with the prospect of another Great British Bake Off recap on the horizon, I am turning to one of them.  I no longer remember the wider framework which I intended to use for a review of Sylvia & David: The Townsend Warner/Garnett letters.  So, instead, here are three wonderful quotations Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote to David Garnett…

Warner to Garnett, 1967: I go home on Saturday, and on Monday the decorator comes, and all the books will have to be moved from Valentine’s sitting-room and dispersed through a house where there are far too many books already.  It will be a fine opportunity to read books I have forgotten we have, and even to find some I thought we had lost.  Of course we should also see it as an opportunity to weed out books we don’t want.  Can you weed books?  I can’t.  I discarded some Ruskin about thirty years ago and have often regretted it since.  I don’t know why exactly – but I know it was a mistake.  I might have read it and liked it very much.

Warner to Garnett, 1972: ‘What a lot of books we have written!  This is borne in on me because I have carried basketsful of them out of this room into the next’

Warner to Garnett, 1974: ‘I have been having visitors too.  One of them was Peggy Ashcroft who summarised the plight of ageing actresses by saying in a smouldering voice “Now I have only Volumnia left me.”. . .

Three-Quarters of a Century of Books

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Time for the third and final update on how A Century of Books is going!  Final update, that is, because in three months’ time it’ll all be over…

It is impressive – and unintentional – that at each juncture I have been exactly on target.  After three months I was on 25 books, after six months I was on 50 books, and now – at the nine month mark – I have read 75 titles for A Century of Books (including five which have yet to be reviewed.)   I’ve actually read 107 books so far this year, which leaves rather more duplicates and non-20th-century books than I was anticipating.

As before, here is how I’m doing, decade-by-decade…

1900s: 6
1910s: 6
1920s: 9
1930s: 9
1940s: 8
1950s: 8
1960s: 6
1970s: 8
1980s: 8
1990s: 7

No decade completely finished yet, but none suffering too much neglect either…

For a list of all the links up so far, click here.  More importantly – if you’re doing A Century of Books, are some variant thereof, how’s it going for you?

See you at the end of the year for the final count!  I’m feeling optimistic that I can do this…

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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I’m at work this Saturday (boo!) but a friend is coming over to watch I Capture the Castle in the evening (hurray!) so it’s not all bad.  Plus word got round at church that I like baking, so I got an 11pm text asking me if I’d make something for the Sunday service – will do, check.  Better than being asked to lift things or (the horrors) kids’ work (kids work?), which I have managed always to avoid.  Anyway… here’s your weekly miscellany, tuck in!

1.) The link – Adam and Chloe got in touch, and told me about The Willoughby Book Club.  It looks like a great idea – here’s what they had to say:

A little about us… we offer our customers a personalised book club gift service for a range of ages and interests. In short, they choose from our range of book club packages (Babies, kids, adult fiction, non-fiction, cookery etc), tell us a little about the person they’re buying for, and we’ll then send out a brand new book once a month with a personalised message with their first delivery.
Maybe drop hints with your nearest and dearest…

2.) The blog post – is Lisa May / TBR 313’s take on Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men on the Bummel – partly because it’s a book I’ve been intending to read for ages, and partly because I’ve neglected her wonderful blog up til now, and I’m discovering all the delights that are there!

3.) The books – came from lovely Slightly Foxed, as a delightful surprise in the post.  Their beautiful Slightly Foxed Editions are gorgeous hardback reprints of memoirs.  Some of the most popular ones, now sold out (as they only print 2000 of each title) are available now as paperbacks – and they have sent me Blue Remembered Hills by Rosemary Sutcliff and Adrian Bell’s Corduroy, which Karyn was recommending only the other day.  Can’t wait to get onto these, as the other SF editions I’ve read have all been utterly wonderful!  (And now the collector in me wants them aaallllll…)

A Man in the Zoo – David Garnett

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I spent a day this week in the Reading University Special Collections reading room, going through Chatto & Windus review clippings books, looking at dozens of early reviews of David Garnett’s Lady into Fox and A  Man in the Zoo.  This was incredibly interesting – looking at the initial response to these books, which was pretty positive, and seeing how their consensus over Lady Into Fox as a future classic have rather died a death.  David Garnett has become rather a footnote in the history of the Bloomsbury Group (most famous, perhaps, for marrying Virginia Woolf’s niece Angelica – having previously been the lover of Angelica’s father Duncan Grant.  Messy.)  But if anyone has heard of his literary output, it is for the 90-page novella Lady into Fox, where a lady turns into a fox (surprise surprise), which I wrote about briefly here.  It was a big bestseller in 1922, and lots of newspapers were eager to see what his follow up would be…

Hop forwards to 1924 and A Man in the Zoo, often found in tandem with Lady into Fox, since they only make up 190 pages between them.  Garnett has dropped the Defoe-esque (apparently) style of Lady into Fox, but he’s still in person-as-animal territory – although this time there is nothing fantastic at play.

John Cromartie and Josephine Lackett are visiting the zoo, and are in the middle of an argument.  John has proposed, but Josephine doesn’t want to leave her ailing father – and John believes that she simply doesn’t love him enough.  They’re having quite the contretemps, when Josephine says:

“I might as well have a baboon or a bear.  You are Tarzan of the Apes; you ought to be shut up in the Zoo.  The collection here is incomplete without you.  You are a survival – atavism at its worst.  Don’t ask me why I fell in love with you – I did, but I cannot marry Tarzan of the Apes, I’m not romantic enough.  I see, too, that you do believe what you have been saying.  You do think mankind is your enemy.  I can assure you that if mankind thinks of you, it thinks you are the missing link.  You ought to be shut up and exhibited here in the Zoo – I’ve told you once and now I tell you again – with the gorilla on one side and the chimpanzee on the other.  Science would gain a lot.”
She is venting, but… he takes her at her word.  John offers himself as an exhibit for the zoo – and, mostly to annoy a troublesome member of the committee (‘it was not, however,until Mr. Wollop threatened to resign that the thing was done’) they agree.

So he moves in.  He is housed between an orangutan and a chimpanzee, and draws quite the crowd – to the envy of his animal neighbours, and to Josephine’s horror.  He is given a private bedroom and a library, and simply sits reading, ignoring the visiting public.  (It’s starting to sound a little blissful, isn’t it?  All that time just to read!)

For the rest of this short novel, Garnett shows Josephine and John’s reactions to the situation, and (most adorably) gives John a pet caracal.  I hadn’t looked one up before – but they’re rather beautiful, aren’t they?

(photo source)

As some of the early noted, Garnett doesn’t entirely take full advantage of his scenario.  It could be used in all manner of different directions, but he doesn’t explore very much – and the addition of another man (a black man, rather crudely drawn) feels a bit like Garnett is clutching at straws in an already extremely brief novel.  Lady into Fox was so brilliantly done, so logically worked out from the metamorphosis onwards, that A Man in the Zoo feels rather scattergun in comparison.  And the comparison certainly comes up time and again in those early reviews – as might be expected.

Taken on its own, without any reference to Lady into Fox, it’s an enjoyable little book.  Garnett’s style is pretty plain on first sight, but writing about passionate people without sounding ridiculous or hackneyed is difficult, so he deserves credit for that.  I suppose, with an extraordinary conceit at the centre of a narrative, the style shouldn’t be over the top – so his gentle, straight-forward writing makes the tale seem almost rational.

I’d definitely recommend seeking out a copy which has both of these short novels together – not least because they are likely to have all the woodcuts by Garnett’s then-wife Rachel Garnett, which have wonderful character to them.  Those for Lady into Fox are remarkable in the way she captures the fox’s movements, as well as the human soul disguised in the metamorphosis.  The woodcuts help the fable-like quality of these two novels.  I don’t know what message he might have been trying to give – they aren’t simply Aesopian tales with morals – but an intriguing 1920s take on the strange and unusual, given a matter-of-fact treatment.

 

Side by Side

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Thanks for your comments yesterday – we’ll see, it might become a weekly feature til the end of the series, if I have the time and energy…

But, today – back to books!

I’m always intrigued by those arbitrary connections which books make while sat next to each other on shelves.  (There’s a great quotation in Carlos Maria Dominquez’s The Paper House about this, which I included in my review here.)  For those of us who shelve alphabetically, I mean (and I am always fascinated by the shelving decisions of bibliophiles).  Actually, any shelving system will throw up intriguing, unexpected combinations, unless you actively shelve by genre etc.  This sort of thing wouldn’t interest many people, but I think I can guarantee that some of you will be among that minority…(!)  I love the idea that a simple alphabetical system can create clashes or harmonies between authors who might have nothing in common, beyond the first three letters of their surname.  But as the eye wanders along from book to book, one can’t help but compare…

I thought I’d share some of the photos I took in Somerset quite a while ago, to show how authors have ended up being curiously appropriate or inappropriate bedfellows…

I love that two of my favourite authors – Ivy Compton-Burnett
and Barbara Comyns – are next to each other.
(Any authors who might divide them?)

It feels appropriate, too, that Elizabeth Cambridge
and Dorothy Canfield should sit alongside each
other – since I discovered both through Persephone.

But – oh dear – Muriel Spark and Nicholas Sparks?
I don’t think MS would be very amused…

And can you imagine what Ivy C-B would say to
Jackie Clune and her book about triplets?
(She might get on better with Noel Coward…)
Winifred Watson, Evelyn Waugh, H.G. Wells, Dorothy Whipple,
Antonia White – which of us wouldn’t relish that dinner party?

This one just struck me as a maelstrom of bizarre connections.
Thackeray, Trapido, Trefusis, Trillin, Trollope, Twain, Tyler, Undset –
it shows the range of my reading, but it’s a little dizzying…

That was fun!

Less relevantly, but because I know some of you will want to see it, here is about half my Virago Modern Classic collection – the ones in Somerset.

I would love to see some snapshots of your bookshelves… if you have any unusual next-door-neighbours, or oddly-fitting ones, do pop a photo up on your blog (if you have one) and put a link in the comments!

Great British Bake Off: Episode 7

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Rather late in the day, I’ve decided to post blog reviews of The Great British Bake Off.  This might be the only one I ever do, because it’s taken forever, and it won’t be relevant to many of you – and it sure as sweet bippy ain’t relevant to books, unless you count my Great British Bake Off cookbook – but I thought it’d be fun.  Feel free to twiddle your thumbs til tomorrow if it’s of no interest to you, and forgive the way in which my caustic sense of humour (brought on by any reality programme) might emerge, and actual details may be sidelined!

In case you don’t know, the Great British Bake Off is a gentle baking show, where contestants are sent home week by week, having failed to make the most impressive meringue tower or (horror of horrors) produced bread without enough crumb, or an inadequate bake.  (Parts of speech fall by the wayside in the furore of the kitchen/big white tent.)

The judges are Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry.  Paul Hollywood tries to be the baking world’s Simon Cowell, and knows no greater compliment than ‘that’s not bad’, but he has a twinkle in his eye which softens any disapproval.  Mary Berry is everyone’s favourite grandmother, without a bad word to say to anybody, but can do more with a disappointed glance than Cowell could with his whole arsenal of insults.  And she’s come dressed in Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat, bless her.

This week, two people are going home, and the challenge is – buns.  Sue Perkins (presenter/comedienne/dowdier version of Victoria Beckham) is quick to spot the potential for puns, but I shan’t sully my blog with her innuendo – which is about as shocking as a sunken sponge, of course.  They have to make 24 sweet buns, of any variety, in three hours.  Scottish James seems inspired to launch into an Eric Morecambe impersonation, but decides better of it halfway through.

Brendan (brilliantly described on some blog I read as ‘tiny bald oddity Brendan’) kicks off proceedings by proclaiming his love for fresh yeast.  He’s unnervingly good in all the challenges, but that’s never welcome in reality programmes.  We love the plucky underdog, not somebody who can produce a pastry lattice seemingly out of nowhere (see also: Holly from last year who, for no obvious reason, decided to hide a gingerbread house under her croquembouche.  She ended up coming second to lovely Jo.  TAKE NOTE, BRENDAN.)

He’s making Chelsea Buns for the Signature Challenge (i.e. ‘make something you’re good at’) – or, as he has termed them, Chelsea Bunskis, because they’re going to be a bit Russian.  Mel (the other presenter) apparently knows her Russian (her surname is Giedroyc, so perhaps that has something to do with it?) and gives him a long name in Russian which I can’t now remember. [EDIT: It was Polish, not Russian!]

James is making ‘Easter Buns’ (also, apparently, a variant on Chelsea Buns – which I keep giving caps, for some reason).  Mel says, in the voiceover, that he is ‘never afraid of trying something different’.  White-water rafting, perhaps?  Staging the first all-lion Broadway production of Cats?  No, it turns out his daredevilry begins and ends with wrapping puddings in muslin.  I’m mostly disappointed that he’s swapped his jazzy knits for a plain blue jumper.

Luckily John has taken on his mantle.  Last week he had to leave the strudel competition because a food processor left him some pints of blood lighter (or so we were led to believe) but he’s back, and he’s inspiring Sue to throw in some jazz hands.

He opines that he is nervous, but “that’s the way of life.”  Later he adds “What’s done is done, and can’t be undone.”  Profound, John, profound.  That near-death injury has clearly made you quite the sage.

Don’t worry, I won’t recap absolutely everybody.  But I can’t ignore Kathryn (played, it seems, by Jane Horrocks.)  She’s a rather ditzy, self-deprecating young mother, who seemed in the first week as though she was there simply for comic relief, soon to be sent home, but she’s proved herself rather adept at everything -even while certain that all her offerings are awful.  I’m amused by the brief ‘contestant home life’ clip she gets.  All the contestants get these, and they last about two seconds (which hardly makes up for the hours the cameramen presumably spent on the motorway to film these segments.)  Most people are offering cake to their friends, family, or colleagues (last week poor Brendan was shown handing some to a neighbour, who appeared to shut the door in his face without saying a word.)  Kathryn, inexplicably, is shown with tent and campfire in tow.  Is she homeless?

She looks about 12 in this picture, but she’s at least… 22?

Ryan (our next contestant) unnerves me because he looks and acts very like a (female) colleague of mine – so let’s ignore him.  Onto Sarah-Jane instead.  She’s my favourite, and not just because she’s a vicar’s wife.  She’s probably the worst baker left, but Sarah-Jane is able to laugh at the whole process – even while crying in a field under an umbrella.  She’s also offers the highest likelihood of dropping everything on the floor (oh, Rob from Series Two, gone but never forgotten.)

I should have noted down what people were actually making, but they all seem to be Chelsea Buns or things that are close enough for non-experts like me.

In the first couple of series The Great British Bake Off would divide time between the competition, and lengthy histories of the fruit cake or currant bun.  Thankfully these segments have grown shorter this series (perhaps the biography of the Victoria Sponge hasn’t changed much in the past twelve months?) but we’re still made to sit through experts waffling on about cakes and bakers past, while Mel does nothing to disguise her boredom.  Rev. Steven Wild is very animated and rather likeable, but there isn’t really any sense that he knows anything worth mentioning about Cornish Saffron Buns.

Back to the kitchen/tent, and Sue’s best pun yet – “You bun-loving criminals!” – and John (or was it James?) quite genuinely says “Good luck, little buns, good luck” as he puts his trays in the oven.  Brendan does his best to pretend the whole challenge is a down-to-the-wire angst-fest, but his heart isn’t really in it.  It’s not a high-octane show, despite Mel popping up occasionally and saying “One minute left, one minute” in excerpts probably filmed at the end of the day.  But we do have our first accident!  Kathryn spills some of her buns, but… they’re fine.  Alfred Hitchcock it ain’t.

Hollywood and Berry (crime-fighters extraordinaire!) step forward for some judging.  Always astute (“Did you use almond extract as well as almonds?”) and straightforward (“Burnt”; “Bland”) they eat extraordinary quantities of buns.  Occasionally Paul picks one up and pulls it apart, but it’s not quite clear what he’s trying to prove.  He pokes a hole in one of Sarah-Jane’s (“it holes” – Paul, please put some effort into correct use of verbs!) and her critique isn’t great – leading to this rather heart-breaking face.

Poor Sarah-Jane!  Don’t go!

A mixture of gibberish and Mary Berry’s mischievous grins, and we’re back to establishing shots of sheep and ducks.  Sarah-Jane and John seemed to get the worst critiques – Brendan and Danny do well.

Onto the technical challenge!  Everyone has to make the same thing, and Hollywood and Berry will judge them ‘blind’ (only it’s always entirely obvious which contestants made what, as they squirm and wince their way through their assessment, in front of the judges.)  This week – jam doughnuts!  If Our Vicar’s Wife comes by, she’ll tell you about the jamless jam doughtnut she ate on honeymoon.  The news that it’s jam doughnuts seems to fill Sarah-Jane with glee, Danny with consternation, and Brendan with a vague melancholy.  Only Scottish James has made them before, many times… could pride come before a fall?  Usually Kathryn claims not to have a clue what is happening from beginning to end (this week: “It’s just like kneading a big ball of chewing gum”) and yet produces one of the best results.  We’ll see.

For some reason, we’re now off to see Tori Bottomley, WWII Re-enactor.

Thanks, Tori.

We’re back to the tent, and Scottish James claims that the ‘most satisfying thing in the world – no exaggeration’ is when bread dough on the scales weighs exactly what you want it to.  His seems to, so life is all downhill from here, eh?

Nobody else really seems to know what they’re doing.  Kathryn toys with ‘taking the oily plunge’, whatever that means, Danny is next (“I wonder how much you can disguise with a whole heap of caster sugar?”)  Although Danny is very talented, she doesn’t have the right ingredients for a great reality TV contestant.  She’s somehow very forgettable, and exactly as good as she looks.  Ideal contestants should either be much better or much worse than you’d expect, and (if possible) have a strong regional accent and/or comic facial expressions.  Never mind, Danny, at least you’ve got competence on your side.

Jam is haemorrhaging everywhere, ‘doughnut doom’ is mentioned, but eventually everyone’s trays of ten doughnuts must be brought to the front and laid before the critical eyes of Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry.  Paul announces that he’s looking for “Light colour, cooked inside, and a good amount of jam.”  Quantities of jam have now taken on moral significance.  Paul’s talent is being able to tell, simply from holding a baked good, exactly where the contestant went wrong – whether they were proved a minute too long, or have an ounce too much flour – while Mary witters a little, smiles at the contestants, and shows just as much expertise in far fewer words.

Well, in seventh and last place is lovely Sarah-Jane, followed by Ryan, Kathryn (that’s a surprise!), Brendan (who looks incredulous), John, Danny, and in first place is Scottish James.  He feels that he has cheated the other contestants, because he’s made doughnuts before… Ryan, on the other hand, considers coming second-last as ‘a sort of victory’.  Hmm.  It’s also a sort of failure, isn’t it, Ryan?

Finally we have the Showstopper Challenge, which is basically the Signature Challenge but with fancier toppings.  They’re making celebration loaves – from Christmas loaves to Stollen to  ‘Kugelhopf-Brioche Baba’, whatever that may be.  James is making that, and apparently it includes half a bottle of whiskey.  At this stage in the game, and having presumably seen the programme before, the bakers know what Mary and Paul especially like and dislike (“Mary loves a lemon.”)  James concedes that Paul isn’t a big fan of lots of alcohol in a baked good, but he’s going right ahead anyway…

This post is getting absurdly long, so I’ll just give you a quotation or two:

“I’m the bridge between the 70s and today.”

“I’m trying to fight for my place in the competition – that’s why I’m shoving a piece of marzipan full with cherries and chocolate.”

“It can look like a drunken seaman.”

“Paul’s frightened me a little bit about the amount of cinnamon that’s in the dough.”

It’s getting pretty exciting!  Sarah-Jane – who really is fighting for her place now – has decided to make a plaited loaf, despite being appalling at that during Bread Week.  Well, good luck to you, love.  At this point, unless her loaf turns out to be a sentient being, she’s heading back to Crawley.

Oh.  Sarah-Jane, did you know you can save money on train tickets if you buy them early?  I’d get on the internet now, love.  Brendan, who was worried that people might think he’s too dated in his decoration, has opted for this…

And the judging begins!

Brendan gets “good bake”.
Sarah-Jane’s is “raw”, but has good flavours (always a death knell.)
Ryan’s “doesn’t have that sort of wow”, and his pork brioche (*shudder*) is also raw.
Danny’s cake has “a nice strong colour” and Mary can taste all the separate flavours
John’s strikes Mary as too flat and “a little bit on the stodgy side” – which, in Paul’s less gentle lexicon, becomes “it’s beginning to weld my mouth together.”
Kathryn presents hers with a sparkler on top, and the cinnamon levels turn out to be acceptable.
Finally, James’s whiskey is over the top – he needs to concentrate more on his ‘core flavours’.  So we finish off with yet another of Paul’s incomprehensible criticisms.

Two people are going, who will they be?  Presumably Sarah-Jane and Ryan, no?  Paul and Mary make an effort to pretend that it could be various of the other bakers, but unless they’re picking names out of a hat arbitrarily, then surely these two will be on their way home…

This week’s star baker is… Danny!  She smiles a bit, but seems to have forgotten all about it before the camera pans away from her.

And, going home…

Sarah-Jane and…

… Ryan.

So, no surprises there.  They both seem fairly cheery about it.  I’ll miss lovely Sarah-Jane… and now I’m Team Kathryn.

Next week – biscuits!  But possibly not another review from me, as I’ve discovered how very long this sort of blog post takes to write.  Hope you can forgive a step away from the usual – we’ll be back to books tomorrow.

The Railway Children – E. Nesbit

StuckinaBook All , , 35 Comments

I’m still having trouble filling up the first twenty years of 20th century, so decided to take recourse to a reliable candidate for 1906.  When I started this project there were a list of authors I thought would come in handy for the decades I know less about.  Some I’ve read this year (Muriel Spark, Paul Gallico), some I haven’t yet (Milan Kundera, Penelope Fitzgerald) but E. Nesbit was always on that list, and likely to appear at least once before the end of 2012.  I haven’t read The Railway Children since I was about eleven, and I thought (given how often I’ve seen the film) that it was about time for a revisit!

Well, what on earth can I say about The Railway Children?  Surely – surely – you’ve all read it, or at least seen the film?  No?  Someone at the back hasn’t?  I’ll whip through the basics of the plot quickly, and then give you my 2012 response in bullet points.  M’kay?

Bobbie (Roberta), Peter, and Phil (Phyllis) are three young siblings who, when their father leaves mysteriously, must move with their mother to the countryside and ‘play at being poor’.  While she scrapes together money by writing stories, the children grow to know and love the railway and station.  It becomes the focus of their lives, and their various exploits and adventures are connected with it – whether rescuing an injured boy playing paperchase, preparing a party for the station master, or ripping off petticoats to stop a train derailing in a landslide.

Here’s how I responded to it in 2012…

It all happens so much more quickly than I remembered!  I suppose I’m used to the pacing of the film, and of course perception of time changes over the years, but I was amazed at how speedily E. Nesbit dashes through the events.

E. Nesbit is funny!  There’s an arch, dry humour that I hadn’t spotted the first time around.  It first crops up on the opening page, where Phyllis is described simply as ‘Phyllis, who meant extremely well.’  I’m not going to say that The Railway Children is a raucous knockabout, but this humour prevents Nesbit stumbling into over-earnest territory.

Lordy, she’s sexist.  Par for the course in 1906, I daresay, but she doesn’t seem to be using irony when the doctor says “You know men have to do the work of the world and not be afraid of anything – so they have to be hardy and brave.  But women have to take care of their babies and cuddle them and nurse them and be very patient and kind.”  *Shudder*

However, there is such a lovely feel to reading this book.  A mixture of the qualities inherent in the story, characters, setting – but also, of course, a little journey back to my own childhood.  Not only did I read and watch The Railway Children, but I grew up next to a railway.  No station, and no steam trains of course, but the noise of trains still takes me back.

Er, yes… yes, I did cry at the end.

Song for a Sunday

StuckinaBook All 0 Comment

Not many singers come out of The X Factor (or similar shows) with great records – mostly because they’re shoved through Simon Cowell’s song-making factory, or because they’re good singers but not good songwriters.  The only brilliant album from X Factor (that I can think of) is Rebecca Ferguson’s ‘Heaven’.  I haven’t heard Aiden Grimshaw’s album yet, but I rather loved ‘Curtain Call’ – enjoy!