No oven-ready comments on Bake Off battle

Sometimes, I just have nothing to add to the conversation. It’s happened quite a lot in the last week or so, when I’ve struggled to have anything remotely informed to say about the two biggest talking points in the news. I’m not referring to the Labour leadership contest, the ceasefire in Syria or anything heavyweight like that but The Great British Bake Off moving to Channel 4 and the imminent divorce of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

I have been able to offer my raging indifference, of course, but that doesn’t really go far when it’s coupled with a total lack of knowledge on either subject.

It’s perfectly fine to talk about trivia, of course, and a conversation about climate change or Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy wouldn’t exactly make for a fun night out down the pub. But we all prefer it when it’s the sort of trivia we know something about.

You get some idea how people who don’t like sport must feel during the World Cup or the Olympics, when you’re never far from a conversation about England’s best starting eleven, or who might be taking banned substances.

The outrage over the Bake Off transfer has been particularly baffling, almost at the level you would expect if the government suddenly decided to abolish the monarchy. Unless I’m missing something, viewers are simply being asked to press the ‘channel up’ button on their remote control a couple of extra times to watch a cookery show.

If it’s any consolation to the Bake Off die-hard, I had similar reservations when Test cricket moved from the BBC to Channel 4 but the coverage actually got better (once you got used to the insurance adverts between deliveries).

And, as the producers search for new presenters, I’d suggest they could do a lot worse than Geoff Boycott.