A cake is a very good test of an oven: if it browns too much on one side and not on the other, it's not your fault - you need to have your oven checked.
Getting into the habit of switching a timer on will, I promise, save you from any number of kitchen disasters.
A measuring jug is also vital when cooking rice, as this is always measured by volume rather than by weight.
There are people who claim to be instinctive cooks, who never follow recipes or weigh anything at all. All I can say is they're not very fussy about what they eat. For me, cooking is an exact art and not some casual game.
In 35 years of being in the media, I've had all this mud flung at me many, many times. It's not the first time. It's nothing unusual. I've been through it all before and the best way to deal with it is not to read them.
Memories are fallible and a timer can save a lot of hard work from going out of the window.
