http://www.bbc.co.

uk/programmes/articles/3jvTWD9xw9Rf3pqrw92c1pq/things-we-learnt-fromnadiya-hussain-s-desert-island-discs
Listen to the first video from 1:21. What does Nadiya say is magic?
Listen again and answer the questions.
1. Who was Mrs Marshall?
2. What did Nadiyas mother use her oven for?
3. Did Nadiyas classmates know how to bake?
4. How did Mrs Marshall respond to Nadiyas surprise?
5. How does Nadiya feel about baking now?
Listen to all of the second video. What are the two main topics discussed?
Listen again. Are the following statements true or false?
1. Judge Paul Hollywood is friendly to the contestants
2. Nadiya often has minor disagreements with her father
3. Nadiya aimed to improve race relations when she applied to go on the Bake-Off
4. Fewer Muslim women are racially abused nowadays than in the past
5. People have thrown things at Nadiya
6. Nadiya wants her children to be ready to fight back to racial abuse
Match the bold phrases in the transcript to their meanings.
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
h)

argue with someone who gives you criticism or abuse

be very surprised
make something impressive quickly and without effort or stress
to seem angry or aggressive all the time because you think you have been treated or viewed
unfairly
make food using machine that turns things into liquids by cutting them into very small
pieces
mouth/a lot of rude but usually inoffensive talking
the less important side of a pop record (B-side)/a second and often unwanted opposite part
of something
subjected to

K 1:21

The other thing that you enjoyed was cooking Mrs Marshall was your cooking

Yes

...teacher - tell me about her.

She was the one that introduced me to the magic. I look at it like magic, even now
sometimes, when I bake, and it comes out completely different, and I think, That is the
magic. I never knew that a mix goes in the oven and thats what it comes out like.

Cause your mum wasnt using the over?

Cause my mum was never using the oven.

Right.

I thought it was storage. So when I went into school and she whipped up this Victoria
Sponge, and put it into tins, and said, Right, were gonna put it into the oven, and it
was hot, and I was like, oh, I thought this was I mean, you imagine, at twelve But I
wasnt alone, I was in a class full of girls who had never baked in their lives.

Whoa!

And these were the ovens where they had steel doors, where you couldnt look inside,
and I was like, OK, so what happens now? And she said, We just wait forty minutes.
And forty minutes later, theres this cake! And I was like, Thats cake! And she said,
Yes, and she looked at me like I was completely insane, I was like, Thats magic! You
know, and to me, it was like sorcery.

But you see, there is a bit of alchemy in baking, isnt there? Do you still feel that?

Absolutely. I mean when Im doing something new that Ive never done before, and as
time goes by there are different methods, theres always new ways of doing things, erm,
Im always learning. And Ill do something, Ill whiz something up, and itll turn into a
paste, and Im like, Wow!

So, Nadiya Hussain, tens of thousands of people apply to be in that bake-off tent each
and every year, and then, there you are, 9 weeks later, episode 10,

Yeah

In the tent, in the final, the last of three, Paul Hollywood utters the immortal phrase, An
iced bun is a thing of beauty, there is no place to hide, and strangely we all believe him,
because...

Yeah

...were all in by then, we all think...

Yeah yeah

...that is somehow a golden truth how does it feel being judged by the iciest stare on
television?

Dare I say it, it got easier through time, because I felt like at the very beginning, I was

very different, I was really nervous, and by the -sort of- end, I thought, Well Ive got
nothing to lose now.
K

And you al- I mean, you started to really give it right back to him

I did

...which was one of the great joys of watching you.

I did, didnt I? My poor dad has been on the receiving end of my gob for years, so its
its nice to give it to somebody else.

You know your success and your fame has been credited by many very credible people
as doing more for race relations than any great big government initiative could ever do.
Wh-what dyou make of that?

I-I-I have to say I genuinely find that astounding. My jaw is on the ground when
someone says that, cause I cant understand how that happened. Um...I sometimes I feel
that its quite a lot of pressure, because I think like oh goodness, because Im not prefect,
but the fact that I-anyone can sort of look at me and say actually shes done so much
for race relations thats a good thing, you know, cause we live in times where things
are so strained sometimes that if something like a simple baking show can do something
like that, you know, thats a good thing.

And what about the flip-side of course, because you you know, youre a very
prominent woman, and we know that many many Muslim women who are not
prominent, you know, daily are ridiculed and abused in our streets right now, such is the
temperature of race relations in parts of our country. Does that happen to you?

Yeah I mean it has happened, I mean, through my sort of, early teens, when...when you
had like, sort of, the big things that happened in the news, you know, like September the
eleventh, things like that, wh-when its covered by the media and...and all these massive
things happen, you do...you do get abuse and I did get abuse. I had Ive had things
thrown at me, and pushed and shoved, and you know, I just it sounds really silly
because I feel like thats just become a part of my life now. I expect it.

Really? You expect it?

Yeah, yeah absolutely, I expect it. I expect to be shoved, or pushed, or verbally abused,
because it happens. Its been happening for years, so, um...

What do you do?

I dont retaliate. Because thats what I-I just feel like, theres a dignity in silence. And I
think, if I retaliate to negativity with negativity, then weve evened out. And I I dont
need to even that out, because if somebodys being negative, I need to be the better
person. Because Ive got s young children, the one thing I dont want my kids to do is
have a negative attitude of living in the UK, because yes, there are those negative
people, but theyre the minority. But I love being British, and I love living here, and this
is my home and it always will be regardless of all the other things that define me, this
is my home. And I want my kids to be proud of that, and I dont want my kids to grow
up with a chip on their shoulder. So I live as positively as I can, and all those things
that do happen to me hey, you know, it happens, but it happens to other people too and
we deal with it.