Kiss the shop or else it gets the hose again.

RECAP.

My Face Is The Front Of Shop

For their biggest slab-building of the series (so far… I’ve got high hopes for a slab built bidet inspired by the family car from your childhood) the potters were looking back to a time before the heat death of the local high street with each of them having to produce a trio of shops that fitted together to make a nostalgic parade. The briefing of the “nostalgia” did run the risk of high levels of twee

I never really grew up with traditionally local shops – the only shop I have a distinct nostalgia for was an ice cream shop called “Scoops” that needlessly had its ceiling painted like the Sistine Chapel and a blue ice cream with a flavour so indistinguishable it was only known as “Smurf” and contained a level of E-numbers that I’m genuinely surprised didn’t kill us all. But alongside it I’d probably do a sandwich shop because my mum worked in one and we got a shit tonne of free cake every friday and a Post Office. I was a bit shocked not a single post office appeared and I was going to make a Mr. Bates joke here but in reading his Wikipedia page for material, I don’t think anything I write could top the anecdote about how he met his wife

so… who’s going to take me Appalachian clog-dancing this Valentine’s Day, lads?

Imy being significantly younger than a fair few of the potters and being born on this side of the millenium (how dare she) had a very different impression on the local high street with the novel addition of a photography studio

the blacked out windows do make it look slightly like a strip club called “Lucky Stars” but I don’t blame her for going that route because I think rendering the windows was the hardest part of this challenge. Personally all of my second story windows would have been student accomodation with expletives written in post-it notes and life-sized cardboard cutout of Ainsley Harriott looking out of a curtainless room like a malevolent force of evil in a Blumhouse film.

Imy’s shops were all inspired by her mother – a café they used to people-watch in, a florist because mums like florists like dads like a shop that only seems to sell screws and the aforementioned photography studio because her mum has always supported Imy’s modelling career. A little trepidation as you drop your daughter off at the building with blacked out windows might have been called for though.
Francesca was also drawing inspiration from her mum with a café inspired by one in Goa that the two of them would frequent – and it is a bakery despite what looks like SEX written on the window like the squint-incredibly-hard SEX written in the stars on The Lion King

she was also doing a florist with her third being a vintage clothing shop

she had grand ambitions of showing off with three differently textured roofs as well as building a balcony so precarious it feels like the star of an opening scene in Casualty

she had a bit of a nightmare with this challenge having made the mistake of putting one of her walls on the wrong way around

the rectification of which severely ate into her time to get through her weekly shop receipt of a to-do list

and caused a little instability in the build. By the end of it I think Francesca would have burnt every high street in the country to the ground and embraced the eldritch call of a landlord lifestyle

that’s the face of a woman that’s about to charge you £1200pcm to live in a shoebox above a cheese shop and won’t take your mould complaints seriously.

Diana had the most traditional (read “expected”) build featuring all three of the most common shops with a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker fishmonger

or to give them their traditional names MEAT, FISH, CAKE. There is just something so funny to me about a butcher’s only sign being “MEAT” – it’s just so… threatening. Stephen was also doing a butcher but had sadly foregone the declaration of Generic Mystery Meat in favour of a garland of sausages

I do enjoy the personal addition of the hula-hoops in the window of the toyshop that’s extremely proud of its… prams? Stephen also struggled with the challenge a bit because of his decision to build his shops first, then adding the texture. Which you knew was the wrong thing to do the moment it was introduced with the same level of scepticism you’d reserve for the first person to try milking a cow

the problem being that by this point his clay had hardened too much to actually put the detail in so he spent the remainder of the challenge having to wet his clay with a spritz bottle like it was a misbehaving cat

truly a man in the trenches.

But while Stephen desperately paddled through this challenge with cinderblocks on this ankles just hoping to be safe, Natalie and Steve were eagerly fighting for that top spot. And by “fighting” I do mean Natalie being on the verge of making one of her shops an underground fight club

but instead she was married to the Parisian chic of a bakery called “Nat’s Buns” and a sweetshop called “Le Bon Bon”

to be fair it was by way of Yorkshire and I think she’d perfectly captured that vibe because “Le Bon Bon” had me astrally projecting back to my French oral exam practice in a high school valiantly keeping its reputation as a “Language Academy” held together with duct tape and whatever chewing gum they could scrape off the bottom of the desks. Picture it: it’s Sheffield in 2007, I am a sweaty adolescent with a dwindling interest in learning French. The teaching assistant has just asked me which film I went to see over the weekend. I answer, pausing in panic as I contemplate how to say the title of the film – do I use its english title? Do I try to translate it to French? Surely I can’t say “Gros Garçon”, I have too many body image issues for that. And then I answer, in my infinite wisdom, by just saying “Run, Fatboy, Run” in the most diabolical French accent you’ve heard outside of Emily in Paris. I saw the life leaving the teaching assistant’s eyes. Did I mention all of this was happening in a cupboard? ✨Trauma✨

As for Steve, he was going for a very classic looking Tudor building high street featuring a pub, antique shop and cheese shop

the pub as a nod to illicit moonshine business he runs out of his garden shed

and the cheese shop because of his, well, increasingly more illicit cheesemongering

I do enjoy a contestant with so many hobbies that they can do a mildly interesting lore drop like this halfway through the series. Granted it’s no second episode reveal of working at the Moulin Rouge – you’ll always have EVERYONE beaten there, Natalie.

The third wheel to this Steve vs Natalie deathmatch is of course James who was also doing a pub but his was 🏳️‍🌈gay🏳️‍🌈

somehow “Pride Pub” sounds like less of a queer venue than Francesca’s vintage clothing shop called “The Clay Closet” but we of course love the representation but you can of course only qualify as a bona fide queer venue if you have a decade old faded promotional poster of either Cher, Madonna or Lady Gaga in the window. It’s the law of the European Union.

Lastly we have Jonathan who was going the most Facebook mum religiously liking everything titled along the lines “Like this if you remember a time when you’d eat mattress stuffing for breakfast, regularly get tetanus and fight flocks of crows to get to school!”

granted his came with significantly less undercurrents of wanting to do for measles what Justin Timberlake did for sexy

As well as the most irresponsible cornershop, his other two shops were a bike shop and a fishmonger called “In Cod We Trust” instead of Diana’s proclamation of anonymous marine life because Diana boycotts Wordle for having too many letters.

I am also still trying to work out if there’s a pun in the name “Full Gas Cycle” but my knowledge of bikes extends about as far as only just knowing the difference between one and your grandmother.

Taking 3d10 Psykter Damage

Continuing Defunct Things Of The Past Week, the potters were having to make their very own Psykters

which I did think was going to be another case of the ringed water bottles made of clay from the wild west

I will never be convinced that this is actually a real thing. However, it turns out the psykters are real because alongside philosophy, the rapidly waning concept of democracy and geometry the ancient Greeks also gave us wine coolers

which is further evidence in my upcoming essay about how Chrysippus of Soli is the progenitor of the Wine Aunt lifestyle.

Did they explain the logic behind how they kept the wine cool? No, I assume it’s to do with air flow in the belly because I cannot imagine another reason for it to be shaped like the average Mr. Men character

but also I, at least a little bit, believe they added the belly because it just lets them have more wine and they made up the cooling part.

Given that this was everyone’s first time seeing a psykter and having only been given 15 minutes, two attempts and a blanket ban on uncut dick jokes that I fumbled the moment Steve presented this

the potters all did really well! Steve did particularly well, having to really take the time to decide which of his two precious, perfectly born psykters would inevitably take first place like me getting a little bit too into the Basic, Better, Best segment on Antiques Roadshow

meanwhile, with Jonathan

whoever framed this shot with Steve in the background – I hope you get the BAFTA you deserve because to me you are Caravaggio reincarnate

Jonathan managed to avoid coming last, only just, with Stephen ultimately bottoming the ranking with his somehow square take on the shape

it’s not right, but I can’t say I’m not impressed for somehow achieving something that reads as so angular during a throwing challenge.

It was a rare trip to the bottom three for James’s psykter which had too fluid a transition between the belly and stem

on the other end of the psykter spectrum, I guffawed when Diana revealed her panicked second attempt at a psykter that she didn’t use for the judging (sadly, I want to see it getting critiqued)

fire it and immortalise it immediately. I think it’s perfect.

A Psykter Throwdown Ranking:
1. Steve’s Sophie’s Psykters
2. Natalie’s Wine Cooling Thrown Weapon – WATCH OUT STEVE!
3. Fran Got A Critique 🥳
4. Imy vs Geometry: A Saga by Homer
5. I’m In the Corner, Watching You Psykter
6. James’s Fluid Belly
7. Jonathan’s Unchopped Psykter
8. The Only Square Psykter

My Face Is The Real Shop Front

Despite the panicked rush at the end of the building time, all of the potters’ pieces came back unharmed. However Stephen was having to deal with a bigger project than most as he was having to add most of his texture and detail work using glazes so while some potters’ pre-glazed pieces looked like this

Stephen’s looked a bit like Smeg had designed a range of counter-top mini fridges

it did prove to be slightly too big a job with his final piece looking a touch underdone

however the primary colours of it and the flatness aren’t without charm – it has a feeling of a child’s playset. Ultimately the biggest loss though was for the toyshop whose train section is apparently closed until further notice

I wish he’d gone with Trains and Dolls because then it could have also been a queer venue

Trains Pride for the dolls.

Francesca also struggled with her decorating and in a real case of “nothing else is working, I’m going to put my whole ass into this one thing!” she absolutely snapped on her bakery mural

the rest of it? Just ignore this wall that looks a bit like a breeding ground for damp

the real lesson to take away here is that I need to learn to wield my power of declaring someone my favourite only to immediately doom them more responsibly. And for no reason at all, here’s Natalie and her take on Paris by way of Yorkshire

I think there’s more to like about this in macro than as a whole – the crimping on the awning and the canvas texture she gave the poster are incredibly well done and clever – I’m always impressed when someone manages to make clay look so much like an entire different material

but something about the Sweet Shop feels just a tad unfinished compared to the level of detail on the other two

so I was a little bit surprised that she ended up winning, just because Steve’s scene is just an insane achievement – the potential downside being that it does also look a bit like the whole place got hit by a Just Stop Oil stunt

but I also don’t mind Natalie winning because if it were up to me I would just done an alternate balancing of the scales by swapping this week and How Many Times Can We Say “Clock Hole” Week with Natalie winning for her Moulin Rouge clock and Steve for the pub that crushed the Wicked Witch of the East

Wicked Part 2, in cinemas this November!

Speaking of the Natalie and Steve 2 horse race, I fear we’ve run face first into the problem that seems to be a major pitfall for Pottery Throwdown in these last few series with a lack of variation in the episode wins and placements in general

it’s hard to not feel like the final 3 is already decided so we’re kind of just spinning our wheels – compare it to Bake Off’s last series where by this point in the competition 5 different bakers had been declared Star Baker, two of the finalists had both been in jeopardy of going home and Jeff had Jeffed

granted, Bake Off has more ways to slightly manipulate the judging by critiquing flavour, something we the audience can’t experience and is entirely down to personal taste but the Throwdown has done it before – their best season, in my opinion, was Series 4 where it felt like a real free for all

(I would like the CIA to investigate the circumstances of Adam not winning anything until the semi-final please.) Or the most insane series, track record-wise, where by the time we got to episode 7, half the potters who had been given Potter of the Week had been eliminated and we would only just get someone getting the honour twice

Obviously, this isn’t any fault of the potters and I’m just glad they’re getting to showcase their talents and you can’t ask James, Steve and Natalie to be less good but as someone who has a degree in Television Production, I think a little more could be done in the overall producing because honestly, you could have just swung wild and said Jonathan won this week and I’d shrug and say “Yeah, as long as he finds that AWOL apostrophe to stop the wholesale selling of Bobs”

I think this is great – particularly the fish shop, the window is SO good, I adore the stylisation of the window

“But he came bottom 2 in the Throwdown Challenge” – DYLAN CAME LAST IN THE BREAD WEEK TECHNICAL AND WON STAR BAKER! I cannot stress how little the second challenges should actually matter – it’s a complete crapshoot at the best of times made entirely for humourous b-roll footage to use in the trailers! But if Bottom 2 is too low, Diana was middle of the pack and her final Street of Generic Produce was perfectly good – I might just be glamoured by the shininess of the roofs and the mystery meat though

it’s not the most realistic looking but… look at the lobster and crab

slightly more concerned about the pig above the butcher than I’m not convinced isn’t Spot the Dog

“Where’s Spot? He can’t come to the phone right now.”
“Why? He’s an artisanal cumberland sausage now.”

I don’t want it to sound like I’m belittling the success of Natalie, Steve and even James though because they are absolutely killing it in the pottery, I just think everyone could be getting a few more flowers, I hear Imy’s got a florist

compared to her slab building in A Bad Time To Be Heterosexual Week in which Imy ran face-first into the concept of a circle

this is a vast improvement, partly because of the lack of circles. Some of the finer details are a little rough, but I adore the way she did the chipped paintwork and exposed brick

it strikes me as being very Aardman-like, which can only ever be a good thing. I do think my biggest issue is that the buildings just look a bit too modern and don’t quite translate to this particular style of build. And that’s Imy’s fault for being born after 2001.

Lastly we have James and his one stop shop for tarts, arts and your bartender Martz (they/them)

the painstaking effort he put into making the roof tiles was definitely worth it – I kind of wish the rest of it was as textured but I don’t think there was nearly enough time to do both that and the brickwork, which he admittedly painted on beautifully and I do think it was more successful than the yellow wash of the cake shop that seems a touch too jarring against everything else. I’m not sure they would have got the planning permission to paint their building that eye-searingly lemon.

An Unofficial Nostalgic Shop Parade Ranking:
1. I’m Standing Here Saying “Jonathan” With My Whole Chest, FIGHT ME IN NATALIE’S PARISIAN BAKERY AND FIGHT CLUB.
2. Just Stop Oil vs Artisanal Cheesemongers
3. Diana’s Mystery Meat Emporium
4. Natalie’s Parisian Bakery and Underground Fight Club
5. What If We Kissed In The Pride Pub?
6. Imy’s End of Terrace Strip Club
7. Trains Pride Month Has Been Cancelled
8. Francesca’s Hail Mary Bread Mural

As mentioned earlier the winner of this episode was of course Natalie

happy for her – I think anyone who managed to go through the pottery process and keep their blood red manicure perfectly intact deserves to win many a prize. Also, the lipstick shade? Immaculate.

In the bottom were Francesca and Stephen. I did think there was a strong possibility of Francesca going home because I do think technically hers seemed a bit rougher and more incomplete than Stephen’s. However, Stephen has been circling the drain on a couple of occasions and they’d got all the hula hooping they could possibly get out of him so it was a fond farewell to Stephen

I will always love you, you adorable garden gnome that wished really hard to be a real boy.

And so, 7 potters go to Pornographic Vegetable Week: