Great British Bake Off and Twitter Spoilers

I do love Bake Off, of course. I love baking. I even looked at the application form last year but since I once worked for 3 months as a prep chef in an American theme restaurant I am sadly precluded from applying. It's just as well - I'm not well-practiced at pastry or yeast and I am not overly fussed about it looking good.

I missed the first series but have watched it ever since. Now it's possible to follow most of the contestants on Twitter, of course, and actually get their commentary alongside the show. So, last year I followed a few of my favourites; and as I read their comments I became aware that John was preparing for something that didn't sound like his pre-Bake Off career path. In fact, it sounded as if he was preparing to go away somewhere. Somewhere like....a baking school in France, perhaps? His ambition? I decided he had won. And then he had. "Should have put a bet on it," I thought.

This year I only followed one Bake Off contestant. I don't particularly like spoilers, so I didn't seek the rest out. I did love Frances's bakes though. I thought the creativity was great. The match box delighted me in particular. So, I followed her, and then witnessed an exchange between her, John and first series winner, Ed.

Hmmmmmmmmm. First season winner and last year's winner met current contestant? Last year's winner is tweeting first season winner and also contestant from current show, looking forward to shows together in the future? Why would last year's winner and first season winner do shows with a runner up?*

I decided Frances must be this year's winner. At times it seemed unlikely, because of that whole style-over-substance debate, but as the weeks rolled by, it began to look as though I had made a correct inference. And I had! I was quite pleased she won. It was clear she really took the feedback on board. I warmed to Ruby by the end, even more so when I read this because she clearly has quite a lot of fight in her, that didn't come across in the show. Kimberley was very good too. But Frances's had the edge, for me, probably because my own presentation is so awful: "Presentation - nil pois" as Mr Z would say.

Next year I'm not looking at Twitter at all.


* To be fair to John, I looked back through his timeline for this tweet and he seems to have deleted it. A momentary slip up, then. But, unfortunately, things on the internet do seem to stay there forever. Does this mean even people with tens of thousands of followers really forget people are watching?