Usually, if a man from the East End asks you to go down to the docks at midnight, pick something up and dispose of it before daybreak, you don't ask questions.
But this is The Apprentice (BBC One, Tuesday and Wednesday, 9pm) so it's all above board. The man from the East End is Lord Sugar and the stuff he wants disposed of before daybreak is cat litter. "Git daan 'ere 'n' shift it," he says.
Sitting on one side of the Lord, as usual, is Karren With Two Rs Brady who shakes her head and tuts at everything anyone says, even when it's pleasant and reasonable.
"Good morning Karren," you say. "Isn't it a beautiful day?"
"Tut," she says.
At the other end of the table is Nick Hewer, who has now been sucking in air through his teeth at the pathetic sight of the candidates for nine years. He is nearly at the point of having sucked in all the air in the entire world ever.
And the candidates themselves? They are marvellously horrible. The boys are little pustulent globules of testosterone and hair gel, and the girls are like Girls Aloud left outside in the sun to go off. There are eight women in all but enough hair for 16 and enough intelligence for two. These are not the children of Thatcher – these are the children of Blair and they are much, much worse.
Every one of the contestants has come into the show with a business idea, but the ideas appear to be just the word "online" put in front of dull phrases. "My idea is for an online estate agency," said one of them. "My idea is for an online learning platform," said another. At these words, Lord Sugar nodded and looked impressed, so take note: all you have to do to sound impressive in business is put the word "online" in front of anything you say.
The other word that got used incessantly on the show this week was "positive", although nothing is quite so depressing as the repeated use of the word "positive". In the first episode, the girls' team leader kept saying how "positive" she felt even when things were going wrong. We've sold nothing, it's positive! Everyone hates me, it's positive!
The issue – as it always is with The Apprentice – is that the programme is essentially British people trying to behave like Americans. In other words, instead of picking holes in other people's lives and believing your dreams will never come true – in the traditional British way – the Apprentice candidates try to do that distasteful American thing that we so despise: self-confidence.
The Apprentice also turns the pecking order of the real world upside down. In the real world, doctors, professors and teachers are respected, but in Apprentice World – where only selling things matters – they're scum. This was most obvious when one of the candidates, Leah, volunteered for one of the tasks. "No offence," another of the candidates told her, "but you're a doctor." The look of distaste and confusion on her face as she said that word – doctor – should tell you everything you need to know.
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