It is a measure of how greedily the nation has gorged itself on a certain televised baking competition these past two months that even the prime minister felt compelled to refer to a “Great British take off” in his address to the Conservative party conference. You could even see the Bake Off tent as a metaphor of the kind of fantasy Britain that David Cameron appealed to in his speech – one in which differences of class, race, gender, sexuality and religion are ironed out and the one thing that matters is the ability to compete (ever so politely, but in fact rather ruthlessly). However that may be, The Great British Bake Off has been as light and joyous as a bavarois. October skies will brood all the darker for the lack of it. Just for a short while, the nation’s heroes have been a roadkill-eating photographer from Cambridgeshire who constructed a fully functioning well from tempered chocolate; a bashful junior doctor who baked a bicycle in bread; and a charming young woman whose lip wobbled heartbreakingly at the disaster of her chocolate souffle. Ian, Tamal and Nadiya: we salute you.
