The Bake Off is back, but will I hear a word of it?

Sometimes, I convince myself that I nearly invented Gogglebox. I’m pretty sure that a year or so before it launched in 2013, I said to my wife that a cool idea for a show would be watching people’s reaction to TV programmes.

My wife doesn’t remember this flash of brilliance. And if it happened, I obviously didn’t do anything about it, whereas someone else was presumably already on the case. Still, I can take comfort from the fact that I was – unless my memory is playing tricks – part of the zeitgeist, just as I will be when tank tops come back in.

Anyway, Gogglebox is of course a great show. But it has a lot to answer for.

I will think this particularly on Tuesday, when another excellent television programme – The Great British Bake Off – returns to our screens for its new season. I love most things about baking. I enjoy doing it, and eating its outcomes. I like seeing other people’s ideas, and I like watching them try those ideas out. I don’t love the washing up bit, but that’s what children and cats are for.

GBBO is, therefore, right up my street. In its early, glorious years – before ads, try-hard skits and when the Hollywood handshake didn’t feel a bit icky – my wife and I would tuck the kids into bed, kick back on the sofa and marvel at the culinary creativity of the best contestants. We would also watch aghast at some of the horrors, such as when Diana Beard took Iain Watters’ Baked Alaska out of the freezer in 2014 and it melted sadly on a sideboard.

Even 14 series in, GBBO remains a cultural touchstone. Our children became aware of it eons ago, and in the last couple of years, it has been impossible to say no to their endless requests to watch it with us. Initially, we thought it was all rather charming and old-fashioned. The four of us would snuggle up in front of the box, watch some jolly people make lovely cakes and the world would be marvellous.

But this is not what it is like.

Our kids, after all, are part of the Gogglebox generation. Quite aside from it now seeming normal to watch people watch telly, they spend hours gazing at videos on YouTube showing people who have filmed their reactions to anything and everything. There are cool young lads reacting to what is supposedly their first ever listen to “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. There are weird adults who unbox new toys and record the process in case posterity should show signs of discernment. And of course, there are the hundreds of gamers who shriek “OH MY GOD” every two seconds while they build Minecraft worlds for the benefit of easily influenced children and their own bank balances.

The consequence is that our beautiful family moment with Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood is very quickly interrupted by a child shouting at the TV, or exclaiming at a contestant’s ineptitude, or asking a question about what Noel Fielding said. “If you listened, you’d hear it the first time!”

I’m not even sure my son really cares about the baking process at all. He wants an excuse to stay up late, and he wants to know who wins – but the cooking bit is by the by. My daughter, as it goes, can whip up a truly excellent sponge, but she doesn’t much like eating cake. We constantly wonder why they bother to watch a show they seem intent on talking all over.

But then that is what they know. The reaction is as important as the action; the reactor no less central to proceedings than the actor or artist or contestant. I don’t recall spending my childhood “reacting” to The A-Team or to the weekly hits on Top of the Pops, aside from a brief “hooray” or a little foot-tap. But given that I nearly invented Gogglebox, who am I to argue that my kids haven’t got it right?