Certainly not before 9pm!

Would you consider donating to my Donkey Sanctuary That’s Definitely Not A Money Laundering Scheme?

Welcome to the Stage, Miss Sue Veneer!

As the potters hit the halfway mark, they come to their second Set Challenge on… General Gift Shop Tat Week as they make Souvenir Sets inspired by their favourite UK holiday towns. Each set had to consist of a ribbon plate (????), a ringable bell, a tankard and one other choose your own adventure piece of ornamentation: a conch shell, clog or… allegedly renowned decorative wheelbarrow

I have never in my life seen one of these in a gift shop – could they not get in a test fridge for Unwieldly Fridge Magnets?

I was surprised that the resulting sets weren’t nearly as repetitive as I thought that they would be because, let’s be honest, if you’ve been to one British resort town, you’ve kind of been to all of them: 1. Baby’s First Gambling Addiction
2. Crazy Wave Fairground Ride That’s Barely Passing Its Funfair MOT
3. The UK’s Best Fish and Chips!^{[citation needed]}
4. Ice Cream Parlour With Closely Guarded Family Recipes That Taste Suspiciously Like Haagen Daaz
5. Seagull Equivalent of the Japanese 1st Air Fleet
6. Porpoise/Dolphin/Seal/Just-a-rock
7. FUCKEN WIMDY
8. Fascinatingly Niche Museum That Also Has An Aquarium
9. Goths. Just Loads of Goths.
10. The Same Guy Doing Wildlife Tours Telling You The Same 7 Facts About Lobsters.
11. Don’t Mention The Ties To The Slave Trade!
12. These Horrible Chip Men:

and who says the UK doesn’t have culture?

Despite the vast array of places that are all secretly 1 place, we did end up with a Duo of Swanages with Andrew and Bill both harkening back to their childhood holidays in the area

but despite their Dorsetine Showdown, Bill being the sprig expert (sprigspert?… no.) was on hand to help Andrew when his Granny Sprig Mould was suffering from a bad case of trapped wind

I say “help” really all he could do was tell Andrew that he was going to have to obliterate his granny

someone call The Warrens because Andrew seems to be trapped in his own personal Blumhouse franchise

we can add Gladstone to the UK’s list of the Top 10 Most Haunted Places on the UK, we can get Adam from The Traitors to come and use his little gadgets in the drying room

he did nothing all series and yet these 3 seconds he was on the TV ranks in my Top 5 moments of The Traitors UK series 4.

Andrew’s Granny Sprig Mould (a name I will be using for the next Hag I run in my D&D campaign) wasn’t the only piece of tankard decor to get left behind as Kayleigh had to nix her Tankard Crab Claw (a less good hag name)

which was a shame because it was one of my favourite design choices anyone was making this episode but her Paignton inspired set was still charming enough as a whole

and yes, Siobhan did point out that her bell did look like Donald Trump

although I just feel like I’m looking at Mr. Blobby at the end of a burlesque routine

I would tip.

The Bells did seem to offer the best outlets for creativity because the Tankards were just a size off

and the plates were a laborious nightmare with the piercing required for the ribbon placement

however, the piercing did look therapeutic in the way I’ve never found those mental health colouring books to be, I’m just too anxious to rely on marker pens. My three greatest fears in life are:
1. Heights
2. Children with Balloons
3. Marker Pens Running Out Halfway Through a Project

I think I was just traumatised by how absolutely prized marker pens were at school in Zimbabwe during the early 2000s – the school yard economy was built on them and these

the girls that would watch you like a hawk if you borrowed their marker pens to make sure you only used them for “highlighting” your drawings <3 – Jessica Christie, junior proponent of the Fuck Ass Bob, you will always be a part of my story.

If I did this challenge, my joke answer is that I would do the Welsh car park in which my older brother tried to order “Hot Chocolate Soup” from a burger van. My real answer is that I probably would’ve done Seahouses and gone absolutely ham on the puffin theming – they’re my 12th favourite bird because they look like guinea pigs used their three wishes from a genie to put have the ability to fly, wear little suits and be stamped like a drag queen

I have my own theories, Darwin.

Fynn was the only one to bring coastal bird life into the equation with his bell handle being in the shape of a seagull for his Falmouth souvenirs, perhaps Raku Week scared everyone

beyond Fynn just being a truly excellent potter, I do think adding an animal motif is by far the easiest way to both add personality to something and also get Keith’s tear ducts to sweat. Emily was playing hell of a trump card with her Donkey Bell, that did go through a phase of looking like Anubis, Egyptian God of the Afterlife who perhaps occasionally holidays in St Ives?

her inspiration was Sidmouth, which has a donkey sanctuary that her Great Aunt used to traffic illicit ginger biscuits into

and upon her death, left an alleged £1.2 million to keep the donkeys’ McVities dependency going

and at least half of that money was invested into the Sidmouth Donkey School of Arts, of which Bill is a graduate

he played Bottom in a high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream so he counts as 1/4 donkey.
I’m thrilled for the Sidmouth Donkey Sanctuary, I really am, but I do think I would need a year long course of therapy if a relative of mine dropped that kind of money on horses that still need Beta testing.
Emily’s additional piece was a clog inspired by her dancing shoes

I was once clogged up during our stay at St Davids in 1997 when I was 3 – a bout of such severe chronic constipation that it’s genuinely one of the most nightmarish experiences of my life. It’s been nearly 30 years and a whole new gender yet I still feel like I can’t show my face in that village. Sorry, I was told I wasn’t allowed to do a circumcision joke because Elham said “I’m trimming the bell”

so instead you got the mystery bag that contained Ironic Constipation Trauma Dumping. Sometimes both choices are ✨bad✨.

Elham was taking on Whitley and giving it a very personal approach, using a trip her mum and one of her friends took their kids on

apparently there were 7 kids on this vacation which I think immediately classifies it as a school trip, personally.
She was one of the few potters making a Very Well Known Souvenir Wheelbarrow hers being an ice cream barrow

while Bill’s was a sort of Generation Game conveyor belt of beach litter found in Swanage Bay

I hope you can remember all of that Andrew, you’ll have the chance to win a holiday to Britain’s Best Death-stination if you do!

I just had vivid flashbacks to that episode of The Apprentice series 5 when they had to do tourism marketing and one team went with pensioners and the other just did every homophobic hate crime they could get away with on television at the time as they tried to turn Margate into the new gay capital of the UK. The marketing material consisted entirely of the straightest man alive directing two anonymous twunks like they were making gay-for-pay porn

it’s like Men At Play and Czech Hunter attempted the most ambitious crossover of the century.

Naveed was inspired to theme his set around Folkestone because his wife really wanted one of his makes to be something special to her

and he couldn’t think of a decent dad joke about any UK tourist destinations, forcing him to pursue other outlets for humour lest he internalise it, let it fester and turn into Paddy McGuinness

there we go! He’s safe for at least another fortnight!

Lastly we have Angharad who was basing her set on Porthcawl, which was the only location I hadn’t actually heard of

a lot of her design was relying on glazing so by the end of the making session, hers was looking a little more sparse than most

however, she definitely wins the Coolest Great Gran Award (sorry Andrew) for Ghost Train Granny

Ghost Train Granny will also be making an appearance in my D&D games.

Giving Me The Candlest-ick

Continuing Future Charity Shop Fodder Week was the task of turning a set of three of the ugliest candlestick holders I’ve ever seen

they were just a means to an end in terms of testing the turning abilities of the potters with Bill gliding through the whole challenge with a serenity of one of the sweatier swans

while apparently there was a full moon over Gladstone and Kayleigh was filled with primal rage, assuming her most bestial form

but even though she was going through a bout of Rapid Onset LyCLAYnthropy, she was only really criticised for putting an extra ball on her biggest candlestick – GOD FORBID A WOMAN PACK THEM IN

and from there this challenge is utterly impossible to actually write about because nothing much happened. The potters were all really good at this particular task with the sets being near enough identical, making Rich and Keith look like the king and queen of the white chess pieces

they should repeat the chess set challenge from one of the first series – they must be running out of niche crockery sets by now? I’m still chasing my personal white whale: Bathroom Week Bidets. They can at least make Escargot Platters a technical.

I do somewhat wonder if they’re struggling to find things to do in these Throwdowns that feel like actual challenges for the skill levels of the potters they’re getting in these days? Which is just an observation more than it is a complaint – the deliberate setting up of failure in Bake Off’s Technical Challenges is one of its less good components. I think Junior Bake Off proves quite nicely that even with detailed recipes, diagrams and supervising adults, things will still reliably go quite wrong.

An Official Candlestick Ranking Without Fun Names Because I Cannot Differentiate Any of the Sets:
1. Bill
2. Emily
3. Elham
4. Fynn
5. Andrew
6. Naveed
7. Angharad
8. Kayleigh

Ribs and Bonbonbonbon Plates

The initial firing hadn’t resulted in any major disasters, just a few hairline cracks here and there along the pierced edges of some of the plates. The second firing was where things went a little bit wrong for a couple of the potters – most notably Bill whose plate developed a spiralling S-crack around its base

however the judges glossed over that relatively easily and instead focused in on the fact his set wasn’t quite cohesive enough with this plate being colourful and predictably beachy while the rest of his pieces were quite industrial looking

and even if his plate was a bit damaged, you do have to admire his building skills because his tankard could rival even a Sports Direct mug

and yet somehow it was not the heaviest tankard going as Elham’s daintier tankard was apparently made out of dark matter and capable of some real blunt force trauma in a Whitley bar brawl

unfortunately for her the inevitable murder is an open and close case because she left her fingerprints everywhere

I wish there were a few more obvious Whitley identifiers in her set but she had set out to make it a more personalised set and was successful on that front. I do however think she had by far the best piercing, it’s immaculate and really ambitious

I thought a few of the other potters had kind of skimped out on the piercing work, most notably Kayleigh

the flow of the ribbon is really distracting to the glazing and contradictory of the shape, I just don’t think it works. Her accompanying bits and bobs however are rather brilliant. I would however like the Oxford debate society to please hash it out over whether her… vessel… is a coffee mug or a tankard

We need a Futch Scale for Cups that goes from demitasse to My Little Brother Making A Bucket of Chocolate Milk and Hiding In A Bush With It. However old you think he was when he did that, add a few years.

It was definitely ultimately coming down to a choice between Fynn and Angharad for Potter of the Week. The latter’s was wonderfully eye-catching as she’d played to her strengths with a very graphic, pin-up style, much like Kayleigh’s I do wish there was more piercing but I do like the trim she game the plate

I do enjoy how much her conch shell looks like the pokemon Shelmet

I think of all the conch shells, Naveed maybe had the best in terms of shape and generally actually looking like a conch shell instead of Anonymous Mollusc Remains No. 5 – we’ll focus less on the shape of the bell but appreciate it’s at least got a flared base

I loved his set and the running theme of the fact he’s apparently married to Evel Knievel

at least she’s in the right place

I think Naveed managed the balance of personalisation and recognisability a little better than Elham. His piercing work, also ambitious, had suffered a few fracturings but was still managing to hold itself together

which is a shame because it did knock him out of contention for the win so it’s another week of me just being a girl standing before a pottery show asking them to please let Naveed have nice things. Fynn however did absolutely dominate this challenge though

so much so that Rich was unable to resist the need to high five Fynn on a job well done

WE ARE NOT MAKING IT A THING. If people start chasing a “Rich High Five” I will be invoking cross-amputation punishments and you’ll lose your hand privileges. I will be the King Xerxes to a judging gimmick’s Hellespont Strait.

One of my favourite pieces of the whole episode though was Emily’s donkey bell, it’s stupidly cute

and was definitely the highlight of the set for me

I wasn’t as enamoured by the illustrations as Keith was, the faces on the plate are just a bit… Evangeline in Doctor Who

the lettering however was really great! I think I just found the colours to be just as washed out as Andrew’s were

granted, his also lacked defining outlines, further exaggerating the problem with the washed appearance and he hadn’t got round to decorating the bell at all because of that damned granny! It was just one of those weeks for Andrew where he was put on a back foot and nothing he did would really catch him up to the others.

An Unofficial Tourist Set Ranking:
1. Getting Fulmouthy
2. Angharad is Porth-calling in Second
3. Naveed’s Daredevil of Folkestone
4. Kayleigh’s Starfish and Stripes
5. Emily’s Donkey Gong
6. Elham’s Balletcore Murder Weapon
7. Bill’s All Barrow and No Light
8. Andrew’s Durdle Death Knell

As everyone pointed out in the episode, Fynn’s looked like they’d come right out of a shop, it could’ve been him or Angharad but I think his overall slightly more ambitious builds pulled him across the finishing line first

and then it was down to whether Bill or Andrew would be singing their Swanage song – Bill for his disparate aesthetic and biggest crack in the room (down boys) or Andrew for missing the mark in terms of clarity? With Bill winning the candlestick-off though, it was goodbye to Andrew

he’s gone A LOT sooner than I would’ve predicted, much like Mark I had him as a strong contender for the final. But I’m even more concerned for the grammar in the room

the literacy rate is about to drop exponentially! Without an on-duty teacher they’re going to have to pop the Shrek VHS into the trolley-mounted TV.

And so 7 go on to become Terracotta Warriors