If you watch The Great British Baking Show, you know that Paul Hollywood, the acclaimed bread baker and baking judge, has a reputation for toughness. Prue, his fellow judge, a mellow woman who wears multi-colored glasses, is the nice one. But even she has her limits

On Season 7 of The Great American Baking Show, the level of the American bakers is abysmal. They are so bad that even Prue is unkind. The bakers weep, have dead zombie eyes, and in one episode feebly rebel by refusing to take their apple pies out of the tin. They did not get kicked off en masse, as we had expected – another of the bakers had already gone rogue, i.e., called in sick – but two will leave the show next week. Some of them clearly can hardly wait.

I decided whimsically that what the bakers need is bodyguards. If every baker had a bodyguard, he or she might feel protected from the harsh critiques. We worry about Dr. Jen, the New York dentist. Her smiles turn into wrinkled quivers and tears fall after the first seconds of a critique. .Perhaps her bodyguard could do healing Tai Chi and recite Dante in Italian: Jen spent four years studying in Italy, and at least she’s not in Dante’s Inferno. I would also say that Nicole, a bookbinder from Minnesota, needs a bodyguard-cum-cheerleader. She either hasn’t recovered from her illness – she called in sick last week – or perhaps she is homesick. Her bodyguard might play the lute to encourage her. And then he/she could protect her from lute-haters with his or her knowledge of the martial arts.

I started thinking about going to London myself, and wondered how much it would cost to hire a bodyguard. There are strange people there, as in all big cities. The last time I was in London, I was sitting outside the British Library drinking coffee when a peculiar man with a big head began behaving strangely. After I finished the coffee, I decided to get the hell out of there. And then, weirdly, he showed up again in a park near Harrods, where I had planned to go for tea, as so many characters in interwar English novels do. But I left hurriedly and went to Costa for a flat white. No idea what that was, but I drank it.

Anyway, wouldn’t it all be better with a bodyguard? We’ve all seen the movies: the bodyguard is literally a LIFESAVER. So you’re at the airport, and there is a bomb, or maybe just an idiot uncorking a fizzy champagne, probably the latter, and your bodyguard saves not only you but everybody in the terminal by intercepting the bottle and tossing it into the wastebasket. Now that’s a great ending. True, it was just champagne. But it’s an adventure.

And then you’re at Tate Modern – not the Tate you wanted to see, because you have never managed actually to find the Tate of Olden Days- anyway, you are offended by a piece of bad art. “What is that piece of shit?” you mumble. Well, the bodyguard naturally tears it off the wall. And nobody messes with the bodyguard. We both show impressive IDs and the guards quake and genuflect before escorting us to the door. I’m not saying I’m a member of the Royal family, but I have an impressive collection of library cards. As for the bodyguard…street creds.

A friend of ours might make an excellent bodyguard. He used to be a minor league ball player, but he blew it by taking massive amounts of steroids. My opinion: he is lucky to be alive. He got probation. That, too, was lucky.

Anyway, we decided that in return for a free flight, hotel, and the breakfast buffet, he would be my bodyguard. He would spend part of each day “guarding” me, and the rest of the day watching football or riding the Eye.

I was ready to book our flights when my husband gently reminded me that my bodyguard-to-be can’t leave the country BECAUSE HE IS A FELON. Actually, I did not realize that. I thought the steroids was an athletic problem.

Heavens, American security is so tight at airports that I hardly think your average – and in this case, perhaps sub- average – felon could smuggle so much as an Advil out of the country.

But it would have been a shock at the airport to see my bodyguard arrested.

And so I will have to travel without a bodyguard, like ordinary people.