THE APPRENTICE!!!

The most addictive series ever devised for television is back! Another group of numpties stride across a bridge looking all steely and “grrr”, little suspecting that soon they will be causing us all to laugh hysterically. This time around Siralan has no particular opinions on “schmoozers and bullshitters” but apparently does not like it when people “piss his money up a wall”. Lovable lieutenants Margaret and Nick are back in full effect! There is still a useless Amstrad emailer phone crammed into every shot! The house is not as nice as the one last series! Let the games begin!

Siralan tells the teams that the program is not a platform to launch a media career and the men shouldn’t spend the whole time “wandering round in their pants with their three piece suites showing” (Ha ha ha – and also “spoilsport”). Perhaps he should also have told this to media whores Saira, James and Paul Goddamn Torrisi from last series.

The women’s team surprise us all by coming up with a name for their team in two minutes flat (“Velocity” – meh) without fighting and having hysterics. At this stage in the game it is hard to tell everyone apart, but for one woman (Jo – looks a bit like Sally Gunnell, probably describes herself as “mad” and/or “wacky”) who stands out for all the wrong reasons as she spends all the time whooping and laughing hysterically/ punching her fists in the air, apart from the time she responds to criticism from Siralan, when she is actually on the verge of tears. Take a pill, bipolar girl! I somehow think that she will not be lasting long in the program.

The men are more entertaining and spend ages “brainstorming” and “free associating” before finally coming up with a name (Invicta) that sounds like a 1970s aftershave. The instant standout (for all the wrong reasons) bloke is Syed, who looks like a handsome Bollywood star and instantly reveals himself to be a massive cock by repeatedly suggesting that they call themselves “The A Team” even though there is tumbleweed/bells chiming each time he suggests it. He also suggests “The Winners” and looks like he wants to cry when his ideas are ignored. For the task he wears a ridiculous muscle shirt to show off his manly biceps (I bet he calls his arms ”guns”) and reveals hitherto unplumbed depths of dickery every time he opens his mouth.

The task is selling fruit and veg at a market in Hackerney. The girls choose, um someone to be team leader and decide to run around New Spitalfields and sexually harass blokes into giving them produce that is on the verge of going off - for free! Genius – they even end up with too much stuff to fit in their van. The men choose ultra wet, posh boy, cancer survivor Ben to be team leader and just buy stuff boringly (with Syed making a dick of himself whilst trying to haggle) and all run off to set up their stall. All seven men sell from their stall whilst the women sell from the stall and also go round businesses with trays of fruit to sell. There is more sexual harassment and comedy use of the word “melons”. The men run into problems when one of them works out that the guy running the scales doesn’t know the difference between pounds and kilos and has been selling stuff half price. Doh. He later makes up for it by roaming the streets and persuading passersby to spend £2 -£5 on a single apple! Perhaps he is a hypnotist or something. The men run out of stuff and buy more stuff from a corner shop to sell. The women also run out and go back to the wholesale market and get the rest of the free rotting veg that they blagged. The men spend £300 and earn £700 and the women spend £40 and earn £1,100!!! Wooo! Siralan is a bit narked that they used “wiles” to sell their stuff and also that they were selling manky crap, but they still win and one of the men is going to be fired!

Wet Ben picks Syed (of course) and Samuel to take with him to the boardroom (Samuel = this years Raj only better looking, as he “isn’t much of a salesman” and spent the whole time just stacking fruit onto the stall). Basically Syed goes into mouthy git overdrive whilst Ben mutters ineffectually that he is being terribly ungentlemanly and looks like he is actually going to cry. Samuel just sits there trying to look clever and sucking his cheeks in. Syed talks and talks and talks. Shut up, Syed. I think Syed is this year’s Paul, only without actually being any good at anything. Ben, of course, is dead meat though Siralan comments that Syed is basically an annoying bastard and that his “card is marked”. Ben complains that the others weren’t very loyal before he is cabbed off to oblivion. Has he never watched the show before?

Next week: Charity calendars! Kittens! Babies! Crying (from adults and babies)! Siralan thinks something looks like “a load of shit”! Awesome!