Bake Off is so boring!

Liz Jones

IT’S not been the best of summers. Not because of the rain, but because The Great British Bake Off has gone off the boil. Fallen flat. Become stale. Become scrambled egg! A case in point: on Wednesday, the contestants, chosen for their type (Asian woman in headscarf, Asian man, old biddy, eccentric old man, ingénue) rather than their skills, were asked to spend two hours making gluten-free pitta bread. Without any filling.

What we ended up with was a pile of what resembled the inner soles of shoes, with Mary Berry forced to remark on what a lovely shade of brown they were. It was boring! Why spend two hours making something you can buy perfectly well in Waitrose?

Even Sue Perkins, whom I love with a passion, seems to be going through the motions, ladling out jokes laced with innuendo unworthy of a Carry On film.

Mary Berry (whom I also love given I once did a daylong fashion shoot with her, and despite having to stand around in her undies, and change into myriad outfits, she didn’t complain once, and told me I could eat her shortbread even though I’d dropped it as she washed her kitchen floor every day) seems delirious with boredom, and only seems to perk up when hazelnut liqueur is involved.

And Paul Hollywood? He is just typical of men who spend any time at all in the kitchen: he thinks he’s heroic. I can’t stand male chefs.

They have to compensate for the fact that they are poncing about scissoring micro-cress by making as much mess as they can, and butchering as many small creatures as possible.

Jamie Oliver waged a