The Great British Cry Off - A Steve Rant

Steve sipped his pint and looked around the room, it was pretty quiet for a Wednesday. He tapped his fingers quietly on the table as he waited for Johnny to come back from the loo.

He was so glad he was out of the house tonight. He absolutely knew Ronnie would be watching the final of the ‘Great British Bake Off’. Steve hated all of these cookery competitions  but this one took the biscuit, or the cake or the falpjack. Cookery competitions seemed to be ubiquitous and they were all more or less the same. At any given time you could turn on the TV to see someone crying because their soufflé hadn’t risen or their rock cakes were more like the former than the latter.

Johnny came back and sat down taking a good swig of beer as he did.

‘Quiet in here tonight.’ Johnny said as he threw some peanuts towards his mouth, most of them missing.

‘Everyone’s watching that damn cookery show I should imagine.’

‘Oh yeah it’s the final tonight isn’t it? Who do you want to win?’

‘Frankly I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just don’t know what people see in it.’

‘Nah nor me really, Abi’s hooked of course.’

‘So is Ronnie, it’s all she talks about at the moment. But I just don’t get it, watching other people bake, how boring is that? And then... and then you don’t even get to try it. At least when I watch Ronnie cook I get to sample the wares. It just seems odd to me.’

Johnny nodded along in total agreement.

‘And all the drama that goes with it. All the ‘it’s been my lifelong dream’, ‘it’s all I’ve ever wanted’ bullshit.  Cos that is what it is, bullshit how can it have been a lifelong dream? The show’s only been on the TV for few years and who the fuck dreams of being a baking champion anyway? And the tears, surely there are more important things in life than a bloody cake, when did tears become a essential ingredient of television? They should just judge them on how well they cry not on how well they bake. The Great British Cry Off.’

‘You’re preaching to the converted mate, I agree with you.’ Johnny hoped his agreement would shut Steve up, but it didn’t.

‘I mean let them have their contest, fine, I'm sure some of the recipes are great, but they are making mountains out of cup cakes.’

Johnny smiled and was about to speak but Steve got there first.

‘I’ll tell you what it is, it’s roughly 1 hour of footage stretched out to fill 11 hours of the schedule. It’s bubble gum TV; all flavour but no substance. Cheap TV promoted to the hilt so everyone is talking about it, making it seemingly much more interesting than it is. They were talking about it on the news today, the bloody national news.’

Johnny looked at his empty glass and waved it in front of Steve. Steve got the message, finished his own beer and headed to the bar with the two empties still shaking his head indignantly.