Photograph: Richard Saker/The Guardian

I recently learned there is a Bake Off equivalent for sword making: Forged in Fire, an epic struggle between (almost exclusively) men and hot metal. Each episode climaxes with the show’s Paul Hollywood figure testing blades on a jelly torso filled with fake blood. If your sword wreaks graphic gelatinous carnage, you get the equivalent of a Hollywood handshake: the accolade “Your blade will keal” (which supposedly means it will “keep everyone alive” but that homophone is not accidental). I find the jelly torso slashing deeply, troublingly satisfying, so I’m trying a sword-fighting class at York School of Defence: I want to keal.