I’ve been fairly addicted to Masterchef recently, especially the earlier rounds when there were some spectacular disasters, notably the poor sod who put baking beans directly onto the uncooked pastry case (i.e. without a greaseproof paper liner), found that the beans sank into the pastry as it cooked, had to start again with 5 minutes to go, and then inevitably served up raw pastry. Mmmmm, nice!

Not even the 3 finalists, who begin the final week tomorrow, are immune from basic mistakes. In the semi-final, one contestant’s floppy chips nearly earned him elimination, to be saved only by another’s collapsed soufflée. “Cooking doesn’t get any tougher than this“, shouts one of the judges during the open credits, and I think he’s right. The remaining contestants are:

• Jonny (he of the floppy chips), from Northern Ireland, who gets rather sweaty and flustered,
• the remarkable Emily, who’s 18 and turns out incredibly imaginative food – only a year older than my son, who couldn’t boil an egg,
• and floppy-haired James, who’s partner has just had a baby, which seems to have made him realise that his dream in life is to work 18 hour shifts in a kitchen – can fatherhood have been such a disappointment to him?

My money’s on James, so his poor child can expect to see not very much of him for a few years. Nor will we see much of these three, whoever they are:

I know fast food can be a pretty frightening experience, but their kebabs must have been truly awful.