The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up to Cancer, Channel 4 ***

WHAT is it with Jeremy Paxman and pants? Years ago the former Newsnight anchor made the news for moaning about the lack of support in M&S underpants, and here he was on telly last night, talking about thongs.

“You wear thongs, do you?” Paxman asked fellow Bake Off contestant Joe Wilkinson.

“What do you wear?” the comedian inquired.

“I’ve been through the whole gamut but I’ve never tried a thong.”

“You will now.”

“I won’t!” Paxo harrumphed.

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Being harrumpher-in-chief was Paxman’s role in the Channel 4 charity fundraiser, and very good he was at it, too. He sighed, he scoffed, he called his food mixer stupid, he appealed to God several times, and at one point things got so bad he apologised to his dog, Derek.

The spaniel-dalmatian mix, a former resident of Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, figured almost as largely in the programme as Paxman’s choice of undercrackers.

The first baking challenge required contestants (Paxman, Wilkinson, actress Sally Lindsay, and I’m a Celebrity Jungle Queen Georgia Toffolo), to make 18 biscuits in shapes personal to them. Paxo chose Derek, whose picture he just happened to have on his cooking station (no partner or children, just the dug). From that moment on, all pretence of Paxman as a big beast interrogator to be feared went up in a puff of icing sugar. The big secret about this great grandson of a Glasgow cleaner, that he’s a pussycat, really, was out.

Unusual name for a dog, Derek. According to Paxman, he wanted his call to stand out in a crowded park of Rovers and Millies. Viewers with long memories might have noted that Derek (Lewis) was also the name of the prisons chief whose dismissal was at the centre of Paxman’s famous tussle with Michael Howard, when he asked the then Home Secretary the same question 12 times over.

Fortunately, no one was boring enough to bring this up. Somehow, Paul Hollywood, one of the show’s two judges alongside Prue Leith, doesn’t come across as a keen observer of contemporary British politics, though that may be doing him a terrible disservice. Old Twinkly Eyes seemed more concerned with locking antlers with Paxman in a jocular fashion, while host Noel Fielding preferred the carer to care home resident approach. “How’s it going, Jazza, you all right?” To which “Jazza” replied, “It’s going very well thanks Nozza.”

Part way through the hour came a reminder of the reason the four contestants were doing silly things with flour and sugar and we were watching (and hopefully donating). In a short film, a Scots couple, Michael and Shannon, spoke about his diagnosis arriving when she was pregnant. The cameras returned to find the outlook had grown bleaker. Beloved husband, dad, and son, Michael was 25 when he died. Channel 4’s fundraising drive does not pull its punches about this monstrous disease, and nor should it.

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Back in the tent, Paxman’s Derek biscuits tasted nice but looked awful. “If he were clever enough to think about these things I think he would feel he had not been done justice,” said Paxman. Somewhere in west London, a spaniel-Dalmatian cross was probably very cross indeed at his intelligence being slighted on telly. Later, when making his showstopper cake, Paxman whined that he had about as much artistic talent as his dog. Such disloyalty. Put him in the doghouse till Christmas, Derek.

Fingers burned, sweat dripping off them, the four contestants finally produced cakes that were not half bad, and in one case, Wilkinson’s, they were of near professional standard. Must have been the thong. Look and learn, Jezza, look and learn. But for the love of Prue, please don’t keep us posted.