From top: Noel Fielding (left) and Matt Lucas, of The Great British Bake-Off, ‘Cork Battenburg’; Vanessa Foran

Within the last few words of Bake’Sheet Season 10, I said Bake Off could do with a bit of a shake up, but I can’t deny there was some phewing relief when they got it going this year and that it was so familiar to me; like an old friend broke through restrictions and gave me a hug.  A new location and a new presenter, yet I haven’t actually felt the loss Sandi.

Which I feel bad about, I don’t think Bake Off followers, fans or just stuck under the thumb of the remote controller watchers ever saw the best out of her. A tis what it is.

But t’was a blast from the past that made me want to put this oddball re-meander together.

You may not know this but some of my favourite Bake Offs, since this kicked off here, back then, when t’was just Frilly and all of ye, were actually shows I didn’t write up.

One of those was the Festive special just gone with The Derry Girls.  Here, treat yourselves.

Meanwhile; Sister Michael, and it must be said, and not just ‘cause the girl’s from Cork, Siobhán McSweeney’s Sister Michael boots from her own half that Father Jack off into the scruffy mound of old seat cushions that do’be corned in the suite of feckie religious cranks from the telly.

There I said it and have a Hon de Mná with it as well.

Damn right there is no denying Siobhan McSweeney’s roots when she introduced the Cork Battenburg to the Tent.

When Siobhan was describing her showstopper to the Judges I knew exactly what they were going to get.  And I was already sniggering and kinda gagging, but kinda whistful and weepy when the Hollywood was giving her his piercing blue stink eye, while Prue was the dotie dottie domestic science teacher she assumes when she’s around celebrities and non(ish) bakers. Coorke Battenburg well….

To clarify, to us tis Battenburg, just Battenburg, and the only Battenburg bhoy; and it was what our Mam’s and their Mam’s before them got in when something a bit better than a swiss roll was called for.  The early evening visit from the School Head or the Parish Priest stuff.

So you know the occasion, and naturally it’s the one that arises with eff all notice to put together some decent ham for sandwiches, a flan and some tea brack.

The Cork Battenburg was a pyramid shaped log, shaped by brown and yellow heavy dense sponge layers, with a miserable thin white spread running between.  A Thompson’s Bakery confection (since that Bakery is no longer with us,  a better more accurate provenance would be welcomed btw.)

I have no honest idea what the flavours actually were ‘cause they all tasted the same.

The lot was then slabbed, and I mean slabbed in gawkish cheap cooking chocolate, that was raked front to back top to bottom with a fork.  If it helps at all – picture a Toblerone in cake formation.

The Cork Battenburg could cap a roofing truss.

But what the Cork Battenburg’s arrival into the Bake Off tent also promised me, was that I knew we’d get see to everyone else’s Battenburg some day in the tent, and there it was – the very first challenge of the Covid Bubble Tent Bake Off.

Long windy intro, I know, but it was a flash back, even the smell of the crap chocolate type exterior came back to me so I couldn’t refuse it.

Then came 80’s week, and it all got me thinking, or as Frilly would have said back in the first Season of Bake’Sheet;  tinking

Throughout this entire series here on Broadsheet, I have stuck loyally to the principle that Home Baking is a spectrum of its own, everyone is on it somewhere, from the disasters to the Bake Off winners enclosures.  From those that burn the shop bought Apple Tart that only needed a bitta warming to the five tier Showstoppers with sugar work, tempered chocolate and home made fondant figurines.

Not even a Pandemic could this Season flop.

And I’m loving it so far, but not for the Bakers, my favourite two to watch are gone anyway (Lottie the Panto Producer and Rowan the Panto Queen.)  Although I’m going to lay heavy on Hermine for the outright win.  BTW Lottie was robbed.

I’m loving it for the challenges.

This year they really have made it about everyday home baking.  The resurgence in home baking that lockdown activated; although I question the wisdom of sourdough bread being the first adventure with flour and an oven. Homemade proper bakes is the one ongoing theme of Bake Off’s eleventh season.

This time last year no-one would have ventured a bread week featuring Soda Bread? Or Brownies, or Quiches – the rightly honourable baked beans have even made it into the tent.  All deserving and not a bit out of place.

And that’s what’s triggered me out of my retreat from Bake’Sheet.

So many of this year’s challenges are all about the Home Baker.  The everyday Baker.  The Budget Baker.  The Bedsit Baker to the all Mod Cons plus latest gadget room for a pony Baker.

There was even a Technical that was just pancakes, albeit Hipster flavoured crepes if you don’t mind stacked between a filling you can put together while sitting in traffic.

It might suggest the influence of their sponsors this year, Aldi.  But I don’t care, this year’s season is less showstopper and technical, and all about the basic mainstream of bakes, the bakes that 99.99% of bakers all turn to.

So this is where I am reaching out to all of ye, there is no point in me putting together recipes and hints and mince.  Let’s have a tent of ye.

Broadsheet Things that look like …. Soda Bread, Brownies, Quiche, Loaf Cake, posh Visitor Cake, Occasion Cake, Baking with Mammy Daddy Blended Family Cake, Tray Bakes and Biscuits.  Trifles, Tarts and stuff you can do with Baked Beans.

I’ll start by tidying up Soda Bread with Notions, a Beat Back Covid with Turmeric bikkies and a Flexi Cookie Pastry ye’ll love so much ye’ll hate me for.

Before I go, if I still have ye like, just to say I’m glad to see more balance now between Matt and Noel in the presenting, general chit chat and continuity bits and pieces.  And Covid wouldn’t stop the Hollywood Handshake.

One whinge and that’s that the Producers this year are a bit mean with the recipes they are making available, but one they did release might be worth a Bank Holiday effort, Peter’s Blackberry & Lemon Tart. Now don’t be put off by the skill level its set at, that’s only the bitta sugar work they stuck in to impress The Hollywood.  And if you’re like me you’ll recognise that as the faff stuff that can be left out.

And its called Jelly Art btw, give it a lash here for a fiver – Shop bought Jelly – shur don’t we all………….

And if you’re not wobbling about Jelly, and can split the faff from the full recipe; go for Lottie’s finest moment. No doubt Wobble Cakes will be a challenge in a future Series anyway, so no harm to get ready to judge them like the all the rest of us armchair amateurs.

You all know how and where to get involved in Broadsheet Bakes that look like (working title)

so lets have ye.

Recipes to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie marked ‘Recipe’.

Pic: Channel 4

Taoiseach Micheál Martin arrives at Government buildings, Dublin 2 this morning

This afternoon.

A good Christmas?

Beats every other year then.

FIGHT!

Meanwhile…

Earlier: Baby If You’ve Got To Go Away

RollingNews

Chief Justice Frank Clarke (left) and Supreme Court Justice Seámus Woulfe

 

This afternoon.

Didn’t see that one coming.

Efforts to impeach Supreme Court judge Seamus Woulfe ‘likely to fail’ (Brian Mahon, The Times)

Meanwhile…

Oh.

Meanwhile…

Good grief.

UPDATE:

All correspondence.

*adjusts wig*

What is that?

A vintage tape echo machine from Dynacord.

Emmet Ó Briain writes:

I’m looking to get this beautiful piece of audio equipment restored.

If anyone knows (of) anyone in the UK or Ireland who repairs valve/vintage audio equipment (or knows someone who might know), let me know!

It powers on and the tape loop plays, just doesn’t amplify or echo…

Anyone?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Etc.


Sorcha Richardson – The Starlight Lounge

Get yer skates on.

The new video by cult Dublin songsmith Sorcha Richardson (top) is a skater’s dream.

Co-produced by James Vincent McMorrow, the single is quintessential Sorcha.

She says:

“Sometimes life’s biggest changes occur through a series of very small and intimate moments. This is a song about joining the dots between them, surrendering to the knowledge that something pivotal is happening, and taking a leap of faith when you’re still not sure which way the story is going to go.”

Nick says: Lounge wizard.

Sorcha Richardson

50 years ago this week, local officials of a small seaside town in Oregon decided to dispose of a long dead beached whale by detonating a charge inside it, hoping to obliterate the bulk of the problem and let seagulls and crabs deal with the rest.

They estimated a half a ton of dynamite would do the trick.

As it turns out, that was overkill. Mammalian marine guts spewed everywhere, raining down on townsfolk. A quarter-mile away, cars were smashed with chunks of cetacean carcass. This story remained a local legend for two decades, until the early ’90s , when the newspaper columnist Dave Barry mentioned seeing footage of the exploding beast. Soon after, this video clip — originally reported by Portland news channel KATU — went viral on the internet, long before “going viral on the internet” was even a thing.

kottke

From top: Dublin city centre yesterday; Dr Julien Mercille

We’ve been facing a big problem in the Covid pandemic for a while now. There is a lot of confusion and debate about how to respond to it.

In order to address a problem properly, the first step is to look out for successful solutions – what have others done that actually worked to tackle the virus? Then, we can try to adapt those solutions to the situation in Ireland.

But it has been difficult to do that in Ireland because the public discourse about the pandemic, coming out of both government and the media, has neglected to examine and discuss seriously examples of successful responses to the virus in other countries – of which there are many.

Instead, we’ve spent a lot of time debating the details of the government’s approach even if it keeps failing and has thrown us all into yet another lockdown, with additional lockdowns to come periodically if the virus is not stamped out of the country for good.

Radio and television have been saturated with endless talk about questions like, How many minutes should people be allowed to sit in a pub? Is €9 the right price for a pub meal, or should it be €10.25? Should we be at level 3, 3.5, or is it 2.5? Should we allow 15 or 20 people at a wedding? And what about funerals? Can hairdressers play a role in improving their clients’ mental health?

Another problem is that proponents of “herd immunity” who have no solution other than let the virus run rampant keep getting invited on television programmes to create a false sense of “balance”.

But we wouldn’t need to ask any of those questions if we could simply eliminate the virus from Ireland (or get near that point) – and that’s what we need to focus on. An effective and widely distributed vaccine will be of great help there, but we’re not at all there yet.

In the international quality press one can see many stories about an obvious fact: Asia-Pacific countries have done so much better than Europe and the United States and many have virtually eliminated the virus.

One can read about the many economic benefits flowing from that, with country after country in Asia releasing positive economic data because their economy can now operate more normally. It is even suggested that Asia’s more effective response to the virus could propel it to lead the world in the years to come.

For example, the Wall Street Journal recently ran articles entitled “Covid-19’s Global Divide: As West Reels, Asia Keeps Virus at Bay” and “As Coronavirus Surges in US and Europe, Other Countries See One Case as Too Many”.

They explained how the Asia-Pacific region completely out-competed Europe in eliminating the virus, showing clear graphs of Covid cases contrasting European with Asian countries making it unmistakeably clear that policy answers must be thought in Asia- yet such graphs haven’t appeared very often in our own media.

The articles explained, in reference to the Asia-Pacific region, that…

“…Life in these parts has returned to normal in most ways. Bars and restaurants are bustling. Rugby games and marathons are widely attended. Food festivals are sold out. Soap operas can film crowd scenes. Even mask-wearing has relaxed in many areas.”

And they reap the economic benefits: China’s GDP expanded by 4.9% in the third quarter; Taiwan’s growth was 3.3% thanks to a rebound in domestic consumption and strong exports; Vietnam is one of the few Southeast Asian countries expected to witness positive growth this year. One important reason? “All three have crushed the virus”.

Of course, a few articles make similar points in the Irish press, but they are exceptions. More often, what we hear are horror stories about the US, UK, Italy, France or Spain, with the implication that Ireland is doing well in comparison.

Also, we have articles implying that Ireland’s leaders are on the right path, even if compared to countries in Asia, they have, like Europe, failed completely.

A sample of headlines illustrates the point – all from the Irish Times:

“Ireland ‘Outperforming Almost All European Countries in Controlling Spread of Covid-19’”

“Ireland Ranked Among Best for Covid-19 Innovative Solutions”

“Ireland Has the Fastest Improving Incidence of Covid-19 in Europe”

Comparing ourselves to countries that have failed might give us false confidence but it won’t drive the virus away from the island. For those serious about dealing with the pandemic, Asia-Pacific countries are a better source of inspiration.

Some are islands, others not; some are democracies, others are authoritarian; some have communist traditions, others market-based economies. They provide plenty of creative examples to deal with the virus.

For example, one of Ireland’s key issue to address to achieve elimination is the border with Northern Ireland. It is often presented by politicians as an insurmountable obstacle which seemingly prevents them from doing anything other than their yo-yo strategy of repeated lockdowns.

However, the border is entirely manageable by drawing creatively from successful examples of border management that have stamped out the virus.

Australia’s border management is probably the most relevant and applicable case, but there are also interesting stories in Singapore-Malaysia, Vietnam-China, and Thailand-China to name a few. They have used “border community bubbles”, special arrangements with employers, special permissions for cross-border commuters, etc.

We should have a discussion about how these cases can be applied to Ireland, rather than ignoring them or dismissing them because they have differences with our country. Otherwise, we’ll keep making mistakes.

Julien Mercille is an academic at University College Dublin and member of ISAG—Independent Scientific Advocacy Group.

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