Gregg Wallace is in trouble. I would tell him to put a sock on it, but isn’t that what caused the problem? | Marina Hyde

As the MasterChef host ‘steps away’ from the show amid claims of inappropriate sexual banter, might he reflect on his approach to women and work?

One of Gregg Wallace’s wives used to be charged with compiling his daily to-do list. As the MasterChef host once explained, in words he somehow said out loud: “It starts off every morning with ‘yoghurt’, then ‘leg band’, then it’ll be ‘teeth’, then it’ll say ‘tablets’ because I’ve got to take my cholesterol tablets and vitamin C, then ‘check BBC News’. Those are all the things I must do before I leave the flat. Then it’ll say ‘Twitter’ because I want to tweet twice a day, then it’ll say ‘H’ for Heidi because of all the things I need to discuss with her.”

As you can see, at no stage does this list say “remove all clothes and walk around workplace with sock over penis” – so it’s a mystery why, in a period possibly contemporaneous with this list running his life, Gregg is alleged to have done that. And indeed, alleged to have joshed in a whole host of other inappropriate ways, over a period of 17 years, presumably under the aegis of other lists. Certainly while married to other wives. I’m sure Gregg would say that the idea that any list could schedule and micromanage his critically acclaimed banter would be absolutely ludicrous – and yet, I’m looking at the words “check BBC News” and thinking that perhaps he would not be the best arbiter of what is ludicrous.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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