Superb article! I never read Cartland myself, but I’ve always been fascinated by her and Heyer and their enduring legacy in romance. Despite being firmly in an era where sex and more raw language is frequent in romance (and has been for years), it’s always interesting to see that these conversations on purity, sex,…

I’ve never once bothered to look into her, because she’s not Mary Berry and therefore I do not care. I finally did this season and Christ on a cracker has this woman done some shit. 

There have been cases where the technical threw everyone for a loop (go make campfire pita!), or someone didn’t hit the showstopper, but Laura’s complete collapse right out of the gate was really difficult to watch. I don’t know if there’s been a contestant in the history of the show that has bombed so consistently…

Normally bakers are given five days between filming each episode to decompress, practice their baking, and function like normal human beings; this year, bakers were given a single day of rest between two grueling days of filming, which is not enough time to recuperate from anything.

I love(d?) going to movies by myself.  You’re just sitting in the dark watching anyway.  I would see a lot less movies if I had to find someone to go with me. 

Noel tapped into that “genuinely caring about the bakers” energy that Sue and Mel had. I don’t think he did at first, but now it feels like he has sincere appreciation and affection for them. Doesn’t stop him working for a laugh at any cost, but I read it as endearing.

Matt Lucas seems a bit adrift, like they just told…

They should have tapped Richard Ayoade. His and Noel’s combined energy is bizarre and electric, and I would love to see the havoc they could wreak together in the tent.

Yeah when literally every single one “could have used longer,” you fucked up in making the challenge. 

She was OVER technicals with last weeks:

To be fair, this show has always had a strong sexual element in the commentary, which was started by Mel & Sue. Noel is a fucking madman, and this sort of stuff is completely on-brand for his style of comedy. Tbh, he’s my favorite part of the show now, particularly this season as he’s obviously going mad in the COVID…

They’re setting them up to fail. For some reason the producers think it makes for good TV?

Yeah, that really pissed me off as well.  The last two weeks have been stupid to the point where if it wasn’t for Hermine I would be done.

Not that it makes it less wrong but Noel and Paul are not gay. Noel has been married since 2010 (to a woman) and has two children and Paul was married for 19 years (to a woman) before getting divorced not long ago. 

About two thirds of the mango usage this season has been due to Dave. Dave really really really likes mango.

“Thick” is the way I’ve always described how sugar soda tastes to me. I grew up drinking mainly Tab and Diet Coke, and I still prefer Diet Coke to any other soda. Regular Pepsi is atrocious, and regular Coke is absolutely, positively thick.

I won’t attempt to pass judgment on it as art as I’m not qualified to. As a lifelong feminist who has read A Vindication of the Rights of Women, I feel vaguely qualified to comment on it as a tribute to Wollstonecraft and her ideals: it sucks giant donkey balls.

Her answer was pretty clumsy, but I essentially took it to mean that no one, even people who check the “right” boxes, is spared from deep, sometimes even crippling, anxiety about the way they look. Which is both true and perfectly relatable, but is also not the answer a lot of people want to hear when someone is…

Way too many people put way too much faith in polling.

Because academia is where it’s enough of a benefit to be worthwhile, while frequently having not quite enough scrutiny to really make that charade fall apart the way it would in, say, politics.  Outside of a few places there’s not enough reason to do that sort of thing full-time - accountants or plumbers don’t get a…

I’ve been called picky (and seen other called picky) for simply ordering food without a single ingredient enough times to know that the definition isn’t necessarily as strict as you’d like.