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There is no polite way to say this: Ian Cumming's house is a mess. A charming, chaotic mess. The ceilings of the listed Tudor building are peeling paint; the kitchen is a Seventies relic, complete with brown linoleum and malfunctioning Aga; and I have to pick my way over a floor littered with children's drawings, deflated footballs and Rubik's cubes.
"We bought the house about four years ago, and it needs a lot of work," agrees Cumming, the travel photographer who shot to fame on this year's Great British Bake Off. "But these things always take more time and are more expensive than you think. And then, of course, Bake Off happened..."
Cumming, 42, who lives with his wife, Elinor, a doctor, and their two children, Zoe, eight, and George, five, in rural Cambridgeshire, had a bumpy ride on Bake Off. Unlike fellow finalist Tamal Ray, the series' heart-throb, or winner Nadiya Hussain, he didn't quite capture the public's affection, and was saddled with various less-than-sweet nicknames, from "Teachers' Pet Ian" - he was Star Baker three weeks running - to ''Creepy Ian''. (The fact he made ''roadkill pie'' in one episode may have had something to do with the latter moniker). In person, however, he is friendly, modest and funny - and I'm not just saying that because he baked biscotti for my visit.
Does he think he was edited unfairly, to make him less likeable? "I can't decide myself," he says. "They [the producers] have to have stories to tell. But I do look back, and think 'Oh God, why did you say that, Ian?' I know many people don't like hearing their voices back on the answerphone: well, try watching yourself for 10 hours of television. It's much worse."
He knew that Bake Off was popular, but was taken aback by how much scrutiny the contestants came under.
"It is a very positive show, but it is unbelievable how much negativity the press has come out with." Being labelled a ''house husband'' or, as one tabloid put it, a "new man'' irritated him most. "My wife's a consultant, that's a very serious job, so it makes sense that she does more of the work and I do more of the childcare. But...