My gran reads these so I best not say what I was going to say.

How dangerous can one pot be, Michael?

Flower Power

Seeing as Terracotta Week had gone *so well* it was another Specialist Medium Week as the potters found themselves working with clay infused with gum arabic in order to create ceramic flower arrangements

as well as the flowers, which the gum arabic clay was mostly for, the potters had to throw a vase and make sure that each arrangement included at least 4 different varieties of flower or plant, with a desperate plea for it to be a modern take that included something interesting because they didn’t want to have to judge 7 vases of ceramic roses, poppies and daisies

well… guess what Mimi? We ended up with a lot of typical English countryside offenders (which is also what you get called if you get caught dogging) but everyone did at least have a decent enough reasoning behind their choices. Naveed and Fynn were veering the most out there, Fynn doing a bouquet of tropical flowers that his step-daughter can’t possibly kill

which is a challenge if I’ve ever heard one – I believe in you Maddie!
Naveed was inspired by his father’s allotment featuring vegetable flowers and an abundance of cabbage varieties

and I am willing to give him the accolade for having created what I believe to be the world’s first cavolo nero mould

which can also be used for a fossilised jurassic turd during Dinosaur Week

when will Pottery Throwdown indulge in the time honoured tradition of creating increasingly preposterous fake fossils!? If you haven’t watched “Mantracks” by Dan Olsen on YouTube, I thoroughly recommend it – it’s worth it just to learn about the evangelical velociraptor lawnmower theory

gotta up there in my top 2 attempts to prove Young Earth Theory, alongside Crocoduck

God’s Personal Dino-mower and Crocoduck are boyfriends and they’re kissing.

Most of the potters had all opted for sprig moulds in order to make things easier for themselves, all except Bill who just isn’t like the other girls

Siobhan thinks Bill is cool for not using sprig moulds, I think he’s cool because sometimes he looks like a dog that accidentally got hotboxed by his owners

he was using the task of creating an immortal bouquet (immortal for as long as it takes for you to get sick of dusting the goddamn thing) to preserve varieties of flowers that usually wilt too quickly to be used in arrangements – bluebells, daisies, dandelions, any excuse to keep saying “pussy willows”

and yet despite TWO potters hand sculpting pussy willows, not a single reference to Serial Mom was made

I fear the show has become much too heterosexual – deploy The Gay Bit of Homer’s Iliad Week IMMEDIATELY.

Elham was joining Bill in the Great British Pussy Willow Off with a arrangement that she’d given a name that’s impossible not to misread

it was inspired by the bouquet she had at her winter-themed wedding and then in a true case of “til death do us part” the vase she was making took on a distinctly funerary urn shape

a funeral urn today, his and hers matching gravestones next week

meanwhile, with the Pottery Throwdown Producers:

Bathroom Week is dead, long live Crypt Week! I guess I’ll take Personalised Recumbent Effigies if I can’t have that bespoke bidet inspired by your least favourite crustacean. Mine’s the stupid sexy Crabman from Thundercats

just if you’re curious.

While some of the potters were going very personal, Emily was mostly just using this challenge to fuel the most middle class grudge I’ve ever heard

not only did you have to worry about Keith mistaking your peony for a rose, you had to hope Emily wouldn’t walk over and demand WHERE 👏 ARE 👏 THE 👏 SEPALS 👏. And you kind of knew she was doomed because of the fact she was getting extremely bogged down in the finicky details

meanwhile Bill was just happy to make bluebells with stems as thick as a finger and shrug

a classic case of promising the world which just isn’t achievable in a mere 6 hours. It probably also wasn’t helping her chances that her country garden posy

had a very similar theme to Kayleigh’s posy showcasing British flowers with medicinal properties

the show would like to remind everyone to not eat foxgloves to try cure your heart disease

and finally, joining Emily and Kayleigh in The Same Arrangement in 3 different typefaces is Angharad

at least hers has a cow?

All Your Vase Are Belong To Us

For their second challenge the potters were having to embellish a pot in the style of guest judge, Jo Taylor

with particular care being desired of originality, neatness and safety around children ages 10 and below

she was really acting like Emily had turned her pot into some sort of swiss army knife of mass destruction while I genuinely thought it was the best one…

she ended up coming second last because Jo Taylor was convinced she was seeing premonitions of someone taking their eye out with it, while Naveed came last with a pot that looked like the waste paper basket of a frustrated screenwriter

I’m so mad that Siobhan made the joke about it looking like the rat with an ear grafted onto its back because I had literally written the exact same thing

a few of the potters were unable to untether themselves fully from the floral theme of the main make – Emily’s aforementioned Death by 1000 Cuts being a prime example and Angharad managing to go for a less lethal version with more of the abstract flourishes Jo seemed to be looking for

sadly Jo Taylor was not as keen on Elham’s biblically accurate vulva and she ended up in the middle of the leaderboard

and if you think that’s the party at the back of her vase, the other side features a fruit salad gloryhole

at least Fynn was on hand to class things up with his William Morris reference points

there’s no such thing as an Arts & Crafts Gloryhole.

It was Kayleigh who stood out though, managing to get the smoothest and most refined finish on her embellishments

the only slight critique was that it was a bit of a mullet situation with there being absolutely no coverage on the back half

sort of a Maisie Adam situation

sometimes I’m tempted to just chuck it all away and get this haircut. And that’s why I’m seeking an ADHD assessment.

An Official Vase Embellishment Ranking:
1. Kayleigh’s Smooth Reverse Mullet
2. Emily’s If It Passed a Safety Assessment
3. William Morr-ish
4. Elham’s Glory Whole Fruit
5. Bill’s Lumps and Bumps
6. Emily’s Weapon of War
7. Naveed’s 15th Draft of Page 1

Gl-Azaleas

It was hard to know who was in the worst shape coming back from the initial bisque firing because literally everyone’s benches looked like the elephant graveyard from The Lion King

and while most of them had experienced some understandable breakages considering the small and fragile pieces they were working with, it was Emily who found herself in the worst position with a sprig of unsalvageable moonwort

her desire for botanically accurate weeds really came to bite her in the ass – I admire the ambition and dedication to pedantry… BILLIUM MCPOTTERY, THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF A BLUEBELL STEM IS ONLY 0.75CM

but Emily’s plants were falling apart in her hands even if she dabbed the glaze on with the most delicate little tap-tap-tap

god bless her for eventually just trying to do as little of it as possible in view of the camera, she’d used the Doctor’s Note gambit to forfeit terracotta week (I hope everyone thanked her HEARTILY) so the only thing she could do was make it as unfilmable as possible

glazing can save a lot of sins though but sadly for Emily the second firing only caused her stems to wilt, which does give her bouquet some much needed character…?

I think the most disappointing part of it is that the leaves seem to have all been painted the same shade of green?

I cannot stress enough how important it is to not over-promise on this show, diva! The moment she picked a fight with Vladimir Kanevsky she was cooked – especially when you had Kayleigh churning out a peony this good without setting too high an expectation

Kayleigh had played it *slightly* safe with her composition, keeping it all very low and stout

but I also can’t hold that against her considering that A LOT of the examples the show had were all of a similar proportion

what I will hold against Kayleigh is that her vase is hideous, I am so sorry, I just hate it so much. I get it, I really do, but… I think maybe when it gets to the point of drawing Ibuprofen and galantamine hydrobromide tablets on a vase for the sake of theme, we need to start trying to find the light of God again. but at least Kayleigh had a theme, Bill was just… doing stuff?

his palpable hatred of this week really came through in the final product when it got up close

but from a distance? It looked amazing!

and what’s more on trend for a floral based challenged than Claude Monet?
His transparent glaze had been applied in a bit of a rush and pooled in certain places, creating milky pools here and there

it’s a thematically appropriate cataract, Keith!

I also looked up “milk of the poppy” to try and make a very relevant Game of Thrones joke but became enthralled by Poppy Milk, a traditional festive Lithuanian drink that feels like a five year old playing a practical joke on you

Lithuania, are you ok?

Some of the most frustrating critiques were levelled at Fynn’s vase of tropical flowers that was one of the biggest and most structurally sound sculpts in the room

Keith and Rich both thought the flowers looked too artificial and abstract which is kind of just what bromeliads and anthuriums are like – they’re the flowers you find yourself compelled to touch to see if they’re real and even when you do, you’re still convinced they’re a craft project by Heinrich Wilhelm Schott that got out of hand

and I think that made them the perfect subject for this challenge and a very shrewd choice! As well as being a much needed break from the same 5 British wildflowers. Which is why I also LOVED Naveed’s turducken of allotment vegetables

cavolo nero has never looked so chic! I am still baffled about why this didn’t win – it has amazing ambition, it stands out from the rest, it’s thematically cohesive – THE BOWL IS A CABBAGE

*maybe* they could say it was because one of the courgette flowers had broken off but they never actually mention it during the critique and the composition certainly wasn’t unbalanced because of it! And I think you can forgive that when you see how many of his chive sprigs had remained in tact. However much Princess was being paid to fire these implausible sculptures was NOT ENOUGH and she knew it

that’s the face of a woman rooting for ecological breakdowns.

I was hoping that the glazing process might illuminate us on why Elham’s bouquet was called The Iron Posy (2026, Markiplier) but I am still none the wiser unless it’s because of the grey/purple shades of the roses and arum lilies?

I wrote that and then I realised, it’s probably her 6th wedding anniversary, innit? Or she’s a really big fan of Jean Rollin’s work within french fantastique cinema during the 70s

either way, her flowers were very good, I think she was mostly done down by the fact there were so many similar flowers being made by others potters to compare her too and not let it stand out as much.

Lastly we have Angharad’s whose bunch of flowers was a little hit and miss, her daisies were a bit stuff and amongst the success of everything else

in a different challenge though, they’re perfect! the best part of her build though was the happy little accident of her coquettish burlesque cow

which Rich gave the voice of Mrs. Doubtfire for some reason

An Unofficial Ceramic Bouquet Ranking:
1. Naveed’s Gold Standard Brassicas
2. Don’t Parac-eat-’em-all, You’ll Die
3. Fynn’s Water-free Houseplants
4. Angharad’s Burlesque Cow
5. Elham’s Wed Ass Posy
6. Bill’s Monet Bouquet
7. Deer Ate My Homework

I really thought this was finally Naveed’s week and I really do think he was done kind of dirty by not getting the win, but I do think Kayleigh’s win can’t really be contested too much when you look at her flowers in macro and ignore the vase (I AM SO SORRY, KAYLEIGH, I HATE IT SO MUCH IT UPSETS ME)

it is becoming increasingly obvious that I will have to go to war in order to get Naveed his win – so Emily if you don’t mind, I might need to borrow that exceptionally dangerous pot you made! Speaking of Emily, given the trouble she’d had in the challenge, it wasn’t too surprisingly that she was eliminated this week

but before this if you’d told me that Emily wasn’t going to be in the final I would’ve been shocked because the judges were vibing with her stuff HARD, so kudos to them for being able to metaphorically kill their darlings. (Have I ever talked on the blog about how my screenwriting tutor at university thought I invented the phrase “kill your darlings”?)

and so, 6 go on to the quarterfinal where we’ll most likely have a double elimination