The Apprentice

For the last few Wednesday nights at around 9.50 pm on BBC 1, what looks like an angry-faced combination of various woodland animals in a suit verbally abuses some god-awful bundle of arrogance and attitude held together with hair gel/hair spray (delete as applicable) before 'firing' them in turn from a made up job they haven't even got yet.

And it's very entertaining.

No really. I should hate this show. The contestants are all loathsome bell ends (even more so in the recent series) with whom I have nothing in common; it's full of 'business speak'; and the main judges are a deluded little monkey man and his cloned henchmen Greybot 1 and Greybot 2. But somehow it just works.

Admittedly the main reason I enjoy it is that I really like shouting at the little people in my television and this provides plenty of opportunities for me to do just that. The desperados jostling for Siralun’s attention are truly despicable. They are all ‘born leaders’ and ‘gifted salespeople’ if you listen to the twaddle that flows effortlessly from their massive, jabbering mouths. They are easy to hate and I like things that are easy. This all means that their constant failures and cock-ups are great fun to watch. It’s funny. That’s the best way to watch it, as a comedy. Some kind of ‘Wall Street meets The Crystal Maze meets…um…Judge Judy’?

Anyway, this series has been great so far and this is due to the quality of the brainless mannequins they have as contestants.

Ben - a smug squirrel who nearly went to ‘Sandhurst’ and who uttered the ridiculous phrase “To me making money is better than sex” which I hope (and pray) will guarantee him a life without sex; James – the reincarnation of Tommy Cooper; Lorraine – Emma Thompson in Nanny McPhee; Phillip – TV’s Bob Mortimer disguised as an arrogant twerp; and Debra – a huge faced cyborg who listens to the inane chatter of the others whilst wearing an ice cold, somewhat bemused expression not dissimilar to that of a bird of prey surveying a crowd of squeaking mice.

And the tasks, oh the tasks. ‘Re-branding Margate’ was a favourite of mine, one team went for ‘See It Through A Child’s Eyes’ (which I wrongly assumed would be lots of photos of the town from a low angle) while the other group decided to market Margate to the gay community, consisting of pictures of men and women looking awkward surrounded by rainbow flags. The ‘Create a Breakfast Cereal’. which resulted in loud-mouth imbecile Phillip successfully pitching the character of ‘Pants Man’ to his team mates. It was a man, in his pants. High concept stuff. Tonight’s episode featured one of the classic regular humiliations, the ‘Shopping Channel’ task. Watching the cast of idiots attempting to sell Deep Fat Fryers, a multi-colored scarf, and a Gold Jacket that would shame MC Hammer all the while wearing rictus grins, brought a warm sneer to my face.

The boardroom climax of the show will nearly always end in a school-yard shout-fest as each of the candidates scramble over one another to put their case forward to jumped up Napoleon Siralun. Ben’s tactic was to shout “letmefinish” repeatedly even though in some cases no one else was talking.

Evil troll Lorraine seems to think that playing the victim is the way to go despite having the kind of personality that even the Dalai Llama would find maddening. And in the end, it comes down to the little man with the plan, SIR Alan Sugar, to decide who goes off to minimum fame and little fortune and who is absorbed into his business and never seen again.

In reality, of course, it has nothing to do with the actual business world and is simply another clever spin on reality TV. But what a clever little spin.

I admit it; My name is Martin Higgins, and I am addicted to The Apprentice.

Join me won’t you?