THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF, BBC1, 9pm
I READ an article at the weekend on how everyone suddenly hates Paul Hollywood. After his decision to follow The Bake Off to Channel 4, Twitter has turned against him and he’s now seen as arrogant, money-grabbing and traitorous.
Of course, Hollywood was always “the bad cop” in The Bake Off, swaggering around with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, playing the tough dude alongside Mary Berry’s English gentility. But this image has now curdled, moving him from pantomime baddy to one of the architects of GBBO’s destruction.
We’re supposed to hate him now, and if genuine bad feeling has entered the bloodstream of The Bake Off then perhaps it truly does deserve to wither away in Channel 4 as this show has always been about good sports, manners and camaraderie.
It’s hard to pick a favourite from tonight’s three finalists: absurdly cheery Andrew, pouty Candace or good egg Jane. The most warm and memorable baker, Selasie, left last week. So with dull bakers and bad feeling, the blow of losing GBBO has been softened somewhat.
SAILORS, SHIPS AND STEVEDORES: THE STORY OF BRITISH DOCKS, BBC4, 9pm
IT’S baffling how this programme, which aims to tell the story of the glory days and industrial decline of Britain’s docks, can exclude Glasgow and Belfast.
It looks at the docks in Liverpool, London and Cardiff and tells us their history over the 20th century. We see they were once rough, bustling and invigorating places, representing the industrial might of Britain as well as providing skilled jobs for the locals. The docks were “the engine of the post-war recovery”.
But as the 1970s began to bite, the energy and purpose of the docks began to wane, shipping companies moved to different ports, and unemployment and decay set in.
Nowadays, a city’s dockland will either be waste ground or reinvented with trendy flats and bars, and we see that much more was lost than simply jobs. An identity and way of life vanished too.
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