GBBO - please don't change the recipe!

There are some recipes that just shouldn't be messed with.

Take Victoria sponge for example.  It's flour, eggs, butter and sugar, then with good quality jam and perhaps butter icing added for the filling.  Sometimes there are variations on this theme - like adding cocoa powder for a chocolate cake - but basically the four main ingredients remain the same.

Well, that for me is the Great British Bake Off.  We have our four main presenters - Dame Mary of Berry, Paul 'Sparkling Blue Eyes' Hollywood, and innuendo laden-duo Mel and Sue.  That's it, don't mess with it. 

The chemistry between the team works.  Yes, the talk of soggy bottoms etc sometimes gets a little trying, but we forgive them because it's such a good watch.

In a world where there's so much uncertainty and nastiness, we could rely on good quality BBC output like Bake Off, and Strictly, and Countryfile to help us forget just for a little while what life was really like.

Wrapped in our cocoon of icing sugar, or sequins or Adam's Farm, we can surround ourselves in good things, even if it is just for an hour.

And now?  Well, the bad news is that GBBO is leaving home.  It's packing its bags and mixing bowls and heading for Channel Four.  It's decided that Auntie Beeb's house isn't enough and it wants more.

More what exactly?  Money obviously.  Which is a shame, because although I'm well aware that everything sadly revolves around money, it  just feels a little bit tawdry. 

The silver lining in my cloud is that at least it hasn't gone over to the great satellite dish in the sky, because then my relationship with GBBO would have abruptly and permanently ended.

As it is, I'm thinking I will give it a trial reconciliation, just to see if we can make the new arrangement work. 

But if they change the recipe, lose the main presenters and drive me mad with commercial breaks every ten minutes, I may have to reconsider my position.