The Blacklist: Five Films I Hate That Everyone Else Loves

When I was a young lass with barely a handful of overreactions and needlessly capitalised opinions to call my own, I had a school teacher who offered me this sage advice when it came to debating: "Don't rant.  When you rant, we stop listening." Which - don't get me wrong - was all well and good within the confines of structured debating competitions largely dominated by chinless male adolescents whose sense of self-importance was directly proportional to how much they wished their voice would just drop already.*  But this is a blog, so sorry Mrs Edwards, I am going to rant my little digital socks off.

In summary, the following films are abominations and deserve to be fire-bombed out of existence.

The Jane Shakespeare Blacklist: Five Films I Utterly Loathe That Everyone Else Inexplicably Loves (and Obviously Contains Spoilers For Those Films)

Now look.  Most of the time, I get by ok despite being an emotionally neutered wasteland of a human being whose ability to respond appropriately to the adult world has been unalterably decimated by years of learning my life lessons from TV. I grew up reading books and then I went to university to read more books and realised that watching shitty children's films on the internet was much quicker and less effort. I feel more strongly about television about than I do about some actual human relationships (when I started watching Orange is the New Black, I genuinely think I was more psyched to spend time with my Netflix account than I was with my first boyfriend). What I'm saying is that I watch a lot of stuff, good and bad, so I don't usually judge others on their choices (in fact I detailed my love of crap TV here). However, there are a few films, just a few, that I loathe and every time I say I loathe them, someone looks at me like I just expressed indifference towards a Youtube video of an ocelot forming an unlikely friendship with a penguin.**  They're both small animals, I get why it's cute, I just...god, don't you people have anything better to do with your lives? You could be writing blogs justifying your deep-seated aggression towards humanity. Anyway, here they are.

5) Titanic

Now this is an obvious choice to kick things off and maybe kind of a cheat because actually there are a lot of people that don't love it. It's just that the people who love it really love it. And I hate those people. I've also never actually seen it all the way through. I just can't. Every time it comes on TV, I think, “This time, this time, I will respond to this film that makes people cry their innards out through their noses.” And every time I have to stop watching because I can feel bile rising in my throat at the first few strains of that Celine Dion wankfestival of over-literal interpretation of the concept of undying love. It brings out the absolute worst in me. It only takes a few minutes and I'm treating human tragedy like it's the funniest thing I've ever seen (cf also: Forrest Gump). Also obligatory mention of get on the fucking door.

4) The Lion King

This is potentially where I lose some friends.  But actually let's be clear.  I do not hate The Lion King.  But I am happily indifferent to The Lion King.  But the world, as always, will not let me be.  "How can you not like The Lion King?" they gasp, as though I have expressed a neutrality towards breathing oxygen, and that incredulity has pushed me dangerously towards hatred.  Easily, is the answer.  Bloody easily.  Anthropomorphism has never been my thing, not ever, and when I watched Bambi as a kid I asked my mum whether Bambi's mum had just been shot and she nodded sadly with soft, compassionate motherly eyes ready to leap to the rescue of my tender psyche and I said "oh ok" and went back to wondering what exactly his dad had been doing all that time.  Nature is not cuddly, it is red in tooth and claw, and it will thank you for showing some respect (I mean you Ang Lee). Also if I want to read Hamlet I will definitely just read Hamlet.  So let me be, in my joyless, loveless bubble.  I'm not telling you not to enjoy it but I will not pretend I enjoy it either.  I am the Andy Murray of film watching, refusing to smile, and winning at Twitter.

3) 500 Days of Summer

I have been told so many times by so many folk that I just didn't "get" this film.  No, you see, it is a deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, the magical quirky girl who pinwheels into the life of the male protagonist and heals his damaged first world soul, it is a warning against projecting unmanageable expectations onto someone.  Is what they say.  Well, no.  Is what I say.  Because a) if that were true, why is the last thing we see in the film Joseph Gordon Levitt hitting on an identical woman (Zooey Deschanel just wasn't the right Manic Pixie Dream Girl! Keep searching, entitled white boy, there's a Manic Pixie Dream Girl out there for you too!) and b) even if the film was pointing out the folly of their relationship, so what?  The idea that putting women on a pedestal ends badly is not a blinding revelation.  I think most of us do not need a film to tell us that you cannot build a lasting relationship on shared love of The Smiths.

It is not a deconstruction of the trope because it does nothing to deconstruct the trope.  The story is still told from the viewpoint of the aforementioned lost boy who pursues a woman because she symbolises a meaningful existence and ultimately 'wins' her, despite her free-wheelin' ways and initial reluctance.  The fact that he loses her again means nothing for, as the film makes clear, he will do this again and again and again.  A deconstruction would tell her story, show her agency and inner life rather than just informing us that she totally has them, and focus on her choices because of what they mean for her, not as and when they affect him.  In the end, it still reinforces the stereotype that women's lives are plot points in men's stories.  No amount of non-linear storytelling and cutesy Expectations v Reality set pieces can disguise that.  It's hollow, it's twee, and it challenges nothing.  Mic drop.

2) Juno

It is not the miracle of central heating or the tender embrace of a lover that keeps me warm at night, it is my hatred of this film.  It nourishes my soul.  It gives me energy.  Why?  Because it's fucking annoying.  Basically.  But oh, such annoyance.  My intolerance of this film is nigh on Biblical.  The smug Dr Seuss dialogue, the lazy mumblecore performances, the appalling manner in which Michael Cera continues to exist, the vicious desperate straining towards being alternative (and yet at the same time so painfully afraid of offending anyone - no it's totally cool that you support abortion! It's just not for our did-we-mention-ADHD-but-not-in-a-way-that-is-ever-really-represented-as-anything-other-than-edearing-in-an-offbeat-way heroine!  Oh, and by the way, all abortion clinic picketers are also quirky and adorable!).  At no point does this film celebrate anything difficult or unusual or uncomfortable (spoilers: the baby ends up with sweetly middle class Jennifer Garner, bad Jason Bateman with his ephebophile tendencies is banished, and Ellen Page goes to the prom with Michael Cera, the poor, poor girl) and it pretends it does because it comes packaged in The Moldy Peaches***, ironic euphemisms for penises, and a fucking hamburger phone.  I really hate that fucking hamburger phone.

1) Love Actually

Ok, this is it.  The big one.  I don't want to overreact here but everyone involved in this film deserves to be put up against a wall and shot.  Even you Colin Firth.  Especially you, for trying to trade off against Darcy goodwill by jumping into a lake.  Every character in it is a borderline horrendous sociopath and every one of its hoard of dead-eyed paycheck-visualising actors has done a better performance than this at some other point in their careers, and for Kris Marshall, it was his mugshot when he was arrested for drunk driving.  This film goes out of its way to tell you that any option - literally any option - is better than just talking to a woman.  Hold up passive aggressive placards about how your entire existence has been destroyed by a woman having the temerity to marry someone else, learn to play the drums, buy a woman on the white slave trade market, decide you have no future together because she committed the heinous crime of electing to look after her brother instead of having sex with you, offer to have her ex boyfriends killed because they called her fat (because no woman of yours will bear the shame of being called fat) but for the sake of all that is holy, do not simply talk to her about your feelings, she will not respond to your simply and sincerely expressed feelings.

Oh Gentle Reader, I cannot truly express to you the depths of my antagonism towards this film.  I hate it with the gnawing, churning, all consuming darkness of a black hole, and were I possessed of ungodly  reality-altering powers, I would rip it out of existence itself and send it spitting and cursing back into the howling chasm from whence it came.  I hate the way, the truly tragic way, it takes actors that I like - Laura Linney! Andrew Lincoln!  forever to me to the most perfectly cast Edgar Linton there ever shall be, decent and strong-jawed and faithful! - and buckles them into this devil spawn of a roller coaster ride to hell.  Oh, I am sorry Linney, Lincoln, Firth, Ejiofor, Freeman and company (Not you, Knightley.  Never you.) but I cannot forgive your presence in this cynical money sink of a film (that does not - has never - really believed that love is, actually, all around but knows that you will believe it for long enough in your wine-addled Yuletide fugue of loneliness and existential despair to rent it off LoveFilm or add to the royalties by watching it on repeat) on the basis of previous and subsequent good form.

And the turtlenecks.  Dear weeping Jesus on a two-wheeled canoe, the fucking turtlenecks.


*I was actually really good at debate.  I once did a public speaking contest where they invented a prize to give me because I had written my speech the day before and not followed any of the rules about structure or having an actual argument but was apparently "utterly charming". But I am fucking charming, so you know.
**Actually that does sound fucking adorable.
***Who I liked before this film, goddammit.


A/N: Bonus Extra Episode of a TV Show I Hate That Everyone Else Loves, Incidentally Also Written by Richard Curtis: Vincent and the Doctor (Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 10)

Snow Patrol is just the tip of the appallingly twee iceberg here.  No one - no one - can straight-facedly call someone "my friend" in continuous prose and not sound like a twat.  Just - just go and watch it again, and this time listen to the dialogue.  Consider the incredible crassness of the metaphor of Vincent van Gogh being haunted by an "invisible monster" (DEPRESSION THE REAL MONSTER IS DEPRESSION).  And ask yourself whether you actually thought it was good, or whether you just felt like you should because Matt Smith and Bill Nighy compared their bow ties.

(IT'S ABOUT DEPRESSION.)

True Romance: 'The Name of the Doctor' (Doctor Who) and 'Second Sons' (Game of Thrones) Reviews

Author's Note: As you can probably tell, I wrote my Doctor Who review immediately after seeing the episode (for the third time).  Game of Thrones, on the other hand, has taken me a week to get round to watching, hence the lateness of this review.

Doctor Who Series 7, Part 2, Episode 7: The Name of the Doctor

Oh Stephen.  I know I say this every year but I swear, I'll never doubt you again.  It was only when my brain had stopped playing the word "WHAT" on a loop and I'd drunk a substantial amount at a Eurovision party that I realised what a truly fantastic episode this was.

I'll admit, a large part of this conclusion came from the cessation of my hyperventilating-y thoughts of OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU TAKING MATT SMITH AWAY FROM ME because, rationally, let's look at the facts: a) We know he's in the 50th anniversary special and b) I don't really believe John Hurt is going to take over full-time as Doctor Number Twelve.  There was that mention of the Valeyard early on in the episode that seems like a great big honking clue: for those unaware, the Valeyard was (in Old Who) the Doctor's final regeneration gone all evil and introspective, basically.  Take that coupled with the closing dialogue about Hurt "not acting in the name of the Doctor", factor in the show's propensity for wordplay/riddles/literal language and it seems to me that, for all the talk of the 50th anniversary marking Matt Smith's regeneration, it could be just as much about resisting a regeneration.  For bonus evidence, the BBC released an interview of Tennant and Smith (together at last) in which Smith said that 10 and 11 seemed to get on pretty okay but there was Someone They Weren't Allowed To Talk About who was more bemused/annoyed by the two of them - given that Hurt was announced to be in the anniversary show months ago, I bet this is who they're talking about and he's sort of the Doctor but not.  Because he's the evil Valeyard guy.*

Although then again, I've just thought back to that "Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor" caption and have immediately doubted all of this. I mean, the Doctor lies though, right?  Let's move on before I devolve back into sobbing "please don't take away Matt Smith" again.**

Speaking of sobbing, I did.  I was all tarted up to dash off to the aforementioned Eurovision party the minute it finished and it was a good twenty minutes before I actually left the house because I was completely redoing my eye make-up.  River River River.  That was some pretty fucking glorious River.  Anyone who wants to disagree, let's take this outside, because that's my River - not clingy and dress size-y and smug, but brave and calm and brilliant.  The moment where the Doctor caught her hand and said "You're always here to me" literally made me drop my fork and neglect my delicious takeaway like a hilarious romcom moment.  We've had so much of the Doctor being superior to River, brushing her off, ignoring her etc etc that she was in danger of becoming just a running joke (Moffat thinks wives are annoying, no-one is surprised) - and it looked like that was how it was going for the first half of the episode too - so that whole dialogue ("I thought it would be too painful" "I think I could have coped" "For me") was possibly one of my favourite things this show has ever done.  All we wanted (me and my pal River) was some acknowledgement that she was in some way different to every other companion that heads through those doors, and we got it.  Sorry Amy, but I'm awarding the 'Girl Who Waited' badge to your daughter.  If that was River's final goodbye - and I suspect it was written so that Alex Kingston could or could not come back as the show demanded - it was a bloody good one.  Compliments all round.

Not least to the actors.  At least forty percent of my DON'T LEAVE ME MATT SMITH woe wasn't down to the frankly inexplicable level of attractiveness he manages to achieve on a weekly basis (this week's new Doctor-fetish: blindfolds) but to the fact that, unlike the rest of the show, he just gets better and better and better.  I mentioned a few weeks ago how he's undeniably a different Doctor to the one who shouted at baked beans that we started with; that came to beautiful fruition here with Smith skipping electrically along the spectrum from comedy to tragedy, and nailing it all the way.  He's so good I'm not even going to make a joke about wishing he would nail something else as well ifyouknowwhatImean.  There's not much I can say about his performance that I haven't said before, except that I am so so so looking forward to seeing how 10 and 11 interact, since 10's whole schtick was 'bouncy yuppy' and 11's whole schtick is kind of 'ancient old man fragility with the face of a twelve year old'.  I turn instead to the supporting cast: Vastra, Jenny and Strax once again prove themselves to be as able a TARDIS family as any ragtag bunch of misfits from the RTD era, and bring a substantial amount of human drama to the proceedings (which is impressive, considering that they're two-thirds cold-blooded). I even welled up a little when I thought Jenny was dead (which would have been a cruelly Whedon-esque move) and her "I'm so sorry, I think I've just been murdered" was chilling and heart-breaking in perfect measure.  Similarly, Strax and Vastra's "The heart is a simple thing", "I have not found it to be so"got me right in the feels - which only begs the question: if you can write like this, Moffat (see also above mention of Doctor/River dialogue), then why don't you, like, all the time?  It certainly silenced my inner Moffat-can't-do-characters demons.

And speaking of characters, this leads us, of course, to Clara, who deserves a special paragraph all of her own.  I was very satisfied with the resolution to the Clara mystery: the whole 'Impossible Girl' thing always seemed like a bit of a red herring.  Far more interesting were the moments when she was confirmed to be 'ordinary' - because that's really what companions are for, in the end, is to celebrate the capacity of the ordinary and everyday for heroism. My prediction was something along the lines of "Clara is just a normal girl being copied across space and time and ultimately the evidence will be all there in the TARDIS" and you know what? It kind of was.  Just, y'know, the burnt out shell of the future TARDIS.  But they were in it.  Oh shut up, I'm going to take that one, and there's nothing you can do about it.  The episode also seemed to clear up the hazy Clara-Doctor dynamic somewhat (maybe it was all that River in the air) with him saving her in a desperately parental way.  Hopefully now Jenna Louise Coleman can get her teeth into something with a bit more in the way of defined personality, because she bloody deserves to.

If I had to have a complaint it would be the villains, such as they were.  The Whispermen were very reminiscent of one of my favourite Buffy episodes/villains, the Gentlemen from 'Hush', complete with creepy nursery rhyme - so much so that it strikes me that writers of this show really need to stop presuming that the Atlantic Ocean magically stops the fans from being aware of Joss Whedon.  I felt like they didn't really get much of an outing, being an obvious red herring to deflect marketing attention away from THAT ENDING but maybe they'll pop up again in future with some extra creepy powers?  Let's hope so, it has been a while since we've had a vintage Moffat take-a-standard-fear-make-it-so-you'll-never-sleep-again villain.  The Great Intelligence was ultimately a bit of a letdown, really.  Contrary to my usual opinion about Doctor Who doing over-laboured story arcs (unfavourable, for those in doubt) I sort of felt he hadn't been signposted enough throughout the series, at least not enough for a Big Bad.  Still, ultimately none of it was really about that, was it? The greatest villain on the show, as always, is the Doctor himself.  Oh I am excite, please to make it November soonest.

So I'm calling it: best series finale of the Moffat era.  It didn't quite have the razzle-dazzle/ preposterousness self-regard of Series 6 mid-series finisher A Good Man Goes to War, but it didn't need it: I'm enjoying this quieter, more self-contained mode, and it gives the show a gravitas (if not a dignity) that allows it to strike exactly the right balance between silly and serious.

In conclusion, kids, it's going to be a very long summer.


Game of Thrones Series 3, Episode 7: Second Sons

The obvious centrepiece of this week was the hilarious and tragic Lannister-Stark wedding.  Lannister family events are understandably awkward occasions (all that inbreeding) but this was more so than usual, given that the nuptials were taking place between sensitive hedonist Tyrion and trembling sorority girl Sansa.

I do so enjoy it when the show takes the opportunity to play with its form a bit, especially Cersei and Loras's little moment under the stars.  In a show that excels in putting together unlikely characters and watching the magic, they set up a potential watercooler let-me-show-you-my-hidden-vulnerability moment, only to have Cersei snap "Nobody cares what your father says." Speaking for us all there, Cersei - I still haven't forgiven Loras for not being nearly as good-looking as the books say he is.  Cersei and Margaery's conversation was, similarly, fantasy's equivalent of Sex in the City, or maybe Hollyoaks.  "If you ever call me sister again, I'll have you strangled in your sleep," hisses Cersei at Margaery's perky breasts after the queen-to-be goes a step too far in advancing the Tyrell domestic policy of winning hearts and minds.  Indeed, Margaery was in danger of slipping more than just a nipple this week as Joffrey seems to be not quite so entirely under her spell as we've been led to believe, ignoring his mother's half-hearted attempt at parenting to go and deliver a casual rape threat to the newly wed Sansa Stark-Lannister.  My hatred of Joffrey has reached something like fascination - I'm too saturated with loathing to hate him more so I just wait in a state of something like awe to see what he'll do next.  He's like the Usain Bolt of sadism.  Just when you think he can't top leading Sansa up the aisle in lieu of headless Ned, he offers to come and help her out with her wifely duties later that night, only it's not an offer and I wanted to reach through the TV screen and make him drink his own spinal fluid.

Across the sea, Danaerys is still on a high as she wins a company of mercenaries over to her side (the Second Sons of the episode title).  Another deviation from the books here, with Daario coming in the guise of a character from an 80s-era children's fantasy film rather than the gold-toothed, purple-mustachioed swashbuckler of the books.  Given that Dany clearly has the hots for him (it's amazing what a gift of the severed heads of your enemies will do, I keep telling my dates that but they insist on getting me chocolate) it's probably for the best.  No reaction from Jorah as yet, but given how much I love Iain Glen's petulant little face as he intones "Khaleesi"in manner that is simultaneously bored and longing, I'm looking forward to it.  Quite a lot of nudity in Dany's storyline this week too - not only is there a requisite concubine getting pawed around, we get full on khaleesi-tits-and-arse too.  I don't know what I expected, to be honest - it is Game of Boners, after all - but the nudity count has been surprisingly light in recent weeks and setting that scene in her bath seemed particularly unnecessary.

The third main strand of the episode was probably just there to balance out the genders on the nudity front, to be honest, as Melisandre gets jiggy with Gendry, if your definition of getting jiggy is tying someone up and attaching leaches to their unmentionables.  I know it's mine.  The most interesting aspect of this strand, however, was the conversation between Stannis and Davos in the dungeons, as Stannis attempts awkward make-up sex with his bf (or just says he'll set him free, whatever).  Mainly this is because Stephen Dillane and Liam Cunningham are putting in such fucking good, understated performances.  The way Dillane plays Stannis, he's the guy at the party that there's nothing technically wrong with but no-one wants to hang out with and you just know he really, really wants to be your friend.  The tacit acknowledgment that Davos was right about maybe not murdering innocent boys was a thing of beauty, and Stannis' attempts to make everything ok again were painfully reminiscent of his stilted interactions with his wife and child a few weeks ago.

The episode was bookended by two more odd couples (alas, no Brienne and Jaime this week, though after last week's BE STILL MY BEATING HEART rescue, they deserve a breather). Firstly, Arya and the Hound reach a tentative detente after one little attempted rock-murder, as it transpires he may be her best hope of getting back to her family.  The show seems to be set on presenting Sandor Clegane in more and more of a sympathetic light of late - no complaints, I'm just intrigued as to what exactly do they know because he sort of disappears from the books at some point.  (Not much Littlefinger of late either - after delivering that stonking monologue about chaos, maybe he's gone out on a high? Ah well, the plot requires him back soon, I believe.)  Our other couple was Sam and Gilly, who have a beautiful - if not terribly exciting - equilibrium to their scenes, with Gilly building a fire while Sam thinks about baby names.  One White Walker attack later - heralded by some frankly much scarier crows - and the mysterious dragonglass seems to be coming in handy.  When you get to Westeros, Dany, you could make a packet on that alone.

All in all, an entertaining episode that had an enjoyably gossipy feel to it - lightweight in comparison to recent weeks, though tightly focused nonetheless.  Sadly there is no episode next week, which means I'll have to wait a full fortnight for my next Jon Snow/Brienne and Jaime fix.  It's a hard life.

This Week's Winner: Doctor Who in spades.  I keep just remembering bits and smiling a beatific smile. And then crying.


*The good people on the Guardian comments section seem to think he's not the Valeyard since he's already appeared in Old Who but instead maybe the very first incarnation who wasn't yet "the Doctor" (i.e. Matt Smith is the 11th Doctor but not the 11th regeneration) or the missing Time War Doctor who ended it by killing everyone and therefore acted for "peace" and "sanity" but not "in the name of the Doctor" - which would put an interesting spin on Christopher Ecclestone's tenure as he always seemed to take personal responsibility for the whole shebang but hey ho (actually thinking about it, this makes the most sense).  Either way, we're all agreed that Hurt is only along for the 50th anniversary ride and MATT SMITH IS NOT LEAVING, OK? OK.
**Right, well, I've just read that the Beeb have officially announced that Series 8 will air next year in split-series format with Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman and Stephen Moffat all returning BUT it will mark Moff's last tenure as head writer and possibly contain a mid-series regeneration. So now I just don't know what to feel.  I mean, on the one hand, more Smith/Moffat in the foreseeable future, on the other...all things must pass.  Fuck you, Doctor Who, I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to feel this existentialist about a children's show.

Middle Class Reality: The Great British Bake-Off

Quick note: the blog will be back regularly in the near future, I have two other posts that I'm sitting on and almost ready to release into the wild!

...

Having spent most of my life denying in plummy tones that I am in any way upper-middle class (“Middle-middle, it makes all the difference”), I think I can deny it no longer. For you see, ladies and gentlemen, I have started watching – and hugely enjoying – The Great British Bake-Off. I know nothing about baking. Every cake I have ever made (bar one rather nice chocolate effort in Food Tech at school) has failed to rise more than a few inches. On the rare occasion that I do attempt a Victorian Sponge, I automatically make three so that at least I can sandwich them together in layers that will vaguely resemble something tall enough as not be risible. I don't actually even like cakes that much – my love for carbohydrates tend to manifest in noodles, chips and bread.

So it is with some surprise that I find myself an avid watcher of a programme that takes middle class judges, middle class presenters and middle class contestants and asks them to perform a (these days) middle class pursuit that I have little interest in. As far as I can tell, the appeal lies in the human ability to find drama in anything, even how light a touch someone has for pastry. There is also something brilliant in watching twelve-odd people going “BAKING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, YO” every week. Most of us have baked at home or at school and knocking out a batch of fairy cakes every now and then is still pretty par for the course in most kitchens, so to see people who have made home-baking into a real art form, who understand what it is they're doing as opposed to just going “oh so now we add more sugar” is something of a delight. Then again, it's always intriguing to watch someone do something mysterious and skilful and baking, with its weird mixture of science and artistry, is one of the most mysterious of all.

Of course, much of its success depends on the people involved, starting with the judges who don't quite manage to pull off the Masterchef trick of Little but Terrifying teamed with Friendly but Tough. Instead we have Mary Berry, author of much baking literature, who comes across as a kind of uber WI leader and quite as proficient in conveying crushing disappointment as any mother (or, in my case, Food Tech teacher) and professional baker Paul Hollywood, filling the Simon Cowell role and occasionally being tutted at by Mary. Then there are the presenters, the always delightful Sue Perkins, dragging along comedy partner Mel Giedroyc in her gurning wake. Sue is quite as funny, intelligent and informed as she is on Supersizers and every other BBC programme (at one point asking a contestant if she can perform an interpretive dance for her to help calm her nerves), while Mel is essentially a much less good version and everything she says makes me hope the poor baker being twittered at turns around at punches her in the head. But, of course, it would be nothing without a good selection of contestants and the ones we are faced with are anvil-thumpingly diverse in the range of ages, races, genders and sexualities on offer. But they're also great.

There's camp Ian (favourite line so far: “Pastry is a cruel mistress”) who spends most of his time smiling shyly and flustering self-consciously at the camera, but has been cruelly outed because of his overly-doughy bread. There's Jason, a black 19-year-old Croydon rude boy who is a delightfully arrogant foil to all the middle-class modesty going on (catch phrase: “I'm sure they'll like it”) and produced a truly excellent-looking salmon and pak choi quiche in the second week with little more than a shrug and a self-satisfied grin. There's lovely Holly, awarded the title of Star Baker in the first week, who is clearly just extremely talented and an early favourite to win, and seems genuinely wry and unassuming about the whole process. And then, of course, there's Rob, an extremely good-looking photographer and my latest pretend telly boyfriend. Rob is clearly not the best baker in this competition. Or rather, he probably could be but doesn't seem to be that bothered about anything other than looking appealingly at judges, presenters and the camera with his big green eyes. In the first week, he dropped his gooey chocolate cake on the floor with a resounding splatter and the nation leapt to their feet with a collective cry of heartbreak as he looked on, slightly bewildered that such a thing could have happened to someone with such thick, glossy hair. Rob schleps around the kitchen sort of haplessly, smiling naively while Mel pretends she's hugging him to comfort him after his latest disaster. He probably shouldn't last more than another few rounds but I'm clearly not the only one who wants him in the final just so they can keep looking at him. Rob and Jason in the final, Holly to win.

The only thing lacking in the competitor stakes so far is someone who desperately wants to win, so much so that they'll be lying in wait with an electric whisk as their fellow bakers make their way back to their Ford Fiestas at the end of each week. My money's on Ben who, has produced some very good efforts but also has a tendency to go white-lipped and sniffy at any hint of a criticism. This isn't to say I don't like him though – after a tense moment with some pastry that wouldn't emerge from its case, Mel remarks blithely, “That was tense!” “Especially with you standing there,” he replies darkly.

Anyway. Tonight is biscuits, and who doesn't love a biccy? I'll be watching, trying to ignore both my screaming class-conscious paranoia and my tummy rumbling. Om nom nom.