The Great British ....

I was a bit of a late-comer to The Great British Bake Off (but there are only so many episodes of Come Dine With Me You Can Watch), so I started to watch the last series and soon became hooked.

My palate has always been more savoury than sweet, so cakes and puddings have never been my forte, and my attempts at bread in the past could be classed as dangerous weapons – put it this way, you wouldn’t have wanted to have dropped one of my loaves on your toes.

But by watching this show, I feel that I have learnt so much, and have recently been attempting to make cakes and biscuits, much to my boys’ delight. I’m even tempted to have another go at bread making, as the Daily Mail gave away a free bread making magazine at the weekend. The detailed recipes are so comprehensive that any fool could do it. Right? It’s not often I feel sorry for the bin men but soon they might be sorely tested.

The re-runs of the show are being shown on BBC2 in the afternoons at the moment, and I’ve series-linked the shows so that I can watch them at my leisure. They have become my guilty pleasure, the highlight of my day (how sad it that?).

I love the camaraderie of the contests, the highs and the lows, and I even love the detailed explanation of the origins of some of the dishes.

When The Great British Sewing Bee started a few weeks ago, I thought, no, not for me. I did have a brief experimentation with sewing when I was in my early twenties, but my attempts at making my own clothes were about as successful as my bread. But I made the mistake of watching the first episode and now I’m hooked on that too. There is no hope for me! I'm looking forward to tonight's episode.

For both these programmes, the elimination which takes place before the contestants are picked for the show is huge. The number of people who have such a passion for their hobby is phenomenal.

But hang on there a minute …… how many of us are there out there, fingers pounding our keyboard as we pour our own passion into our writing, hoping that someday, someone out there will recognise our talent? I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess.

I can’t really see The Great British Write Off (pardon the pun) being that much of a success though. Watching people scribble away in their notebooks or tap onto their keyboards is hardly visual. But then again, if any BBC producers want to give it a go, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of contestants.

What do you think? Would you go on TV to get your talent noticed?