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The Apprentice is back, or as I prefer to call it Check My Res-oooo-may (annoying Lord Sugar seems to have caught on to this chink in his armour of perfect pronunciation and referred to it as a CV tonight (which even he can’t fuck up). As I don’t seem likely to get invited back on the Apprentice: You’re Fired! (what have I ever done to offend Lord Sugar…? oh right) I enjoy live tweeting the episodes and marvelling at the fact that they’ve managed to find another batch of potential apprentices who seemingly have never seen the show before, or have seen the show and decided that despite all evidence to the contrary, the way to win this contest is to behave like an arrogant bellend.
To be fair, this time round the production had put in a joke candidate who would obviously get sacked straight away, giving the chance for everyone else to bed in: Dan. He suggested that his team be called “The Sugababesâ€, which Lord Alan should keep on the back burner in case he writes another autobiography and this one is about the army of illegitimate children that he was spawned in his time on TV (I am not saying he’s done that as he probably hasn’t, but if he has that’s a great title and also would be an amusing sitcom).
Anyway Dan was clearly a comedy character played by an actor leaning a bit heavily on copying Chris Addison in the Thick of It, from the way he managed to make the entreaty “Would you like some “SALADâ€?†the most aggressive way anyone has ever tried to sell someone else some leaves and also like salad was a euphemism for something (though Heaven knows what) to his admission that he wasn’t good at selling “to the publicâ€, which would seem to cut out an awful lot of any potential market. Also his admission that he had nearly lost all of his parents’ pension money in one of his businesses was a perfect and subtle way for the writers of the show to set up the idea that he came from a privileged background, but was Woosterishly incompetent.
In spite of being up against someone who had made the basic error of forcefully coveting the poisoned chalice of team leader and someone who had managed to duck out of being team leader in spite of having worked in a fish restaurant and then spent a lot of time at sea (so was clearly the most qualified for the fish-based task ahead of them), Dan was bound to be the first to be out and would have been even if there had been a new-born lamb on his team. He didn’t even have the legacy of naming the team.
The Apprentice remains an appealing format though, as a cartload of deluded idiots who take themselves too seriously are put through pointless and impossible stunts (selling fish-based lunches that you’ve had a morning to come up with and prepare to office workers had the potential to wipe out hundreds of innocent victims) by a man who is something of a deluded buffoon who takes himself too seriously. We can all feel superior to everyone and pretend we would be able to set up a competitive business in 24 hours with a load of pricks that we’ve never met before and make more than £1.87 profit. And it’s fun to tweet along and enjoy a community of other people doing the same. It’s pure pantomime with the ultimate prize that one or two of the idiots will end up becoming millionaires. I absolutely love it.
It feels like only last week that series 7 ended, but series 8 of RHLSTP is now with us, and starts with a pod clash between me and the man who lives in the house behind mine, Stuart Goldsmith.
ituneses
The audio is here and on iTunes.
Also a few more dates added to the Happy Now? tour. Check them out
The Metro seem to have given up putting my column online so if you missed the print edition you can read this week’s here.
