mostly david ephgrave

Tonight saw the second installment of this year’s Bake-Off, which once again made people from all walks of life up and down the country disproportionately stressed about cake. The sticking point, as ever, seemed to be the fact the bakers in the tent aren’t given enough time to do what they do in such inevitably hot conditions; surely the most common factor to come up in Paul, Prue or Mary(oh, how I miss Mary)’s - critique would be how much better the final product would have been if it had had time to set. It would be hard enough to bake in such a tight window in a normal kitchen without doing it in a marquee under bright lights (on what always seems to be the hottest day of the year). As ever, I watched the programme through my fingers, occasionally disbanding my hand-based fortress to tweet. I do this because the people of the internet need to know the opinion of a man who seldom bakes; this is the service I offer to the nation for free.   8:06PM: I'm a nice active li...

I was surprised and amused to discover one of the three jokes I make a point about being the only gags I’ve ever written at the top of my show made it into the i Newspaper’s 50 Best Jokes at this year’s Fringe; what with my line about Anne Boleyn getting into last year’s Telegraph and Comedy Central rundowns, I’ve now got just one joke left to feature somewhere notable to achieve a 100% success rate. I don't get it. Joking aside (no pun intended), it was a relief to have something like this happen, as prior to it, I only had a single disappointing review to speak of as the sum total of this year’s coverage - save a couple of Q&A interviews - and I didn’t want that to be the legacy of what’s otherwise felt like a successful run, at least regarding show content; while it wouldn't be the first time, it’s frustrating when you only have an unrepresentative write-up as the online legacy of your run. It’s funny to be included in another Bes...