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...a blog by Richard Flowers

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Day 1954: The Apprentice: You're Hired!

Wednesday

Here is a terrible thing to confess: my Daddies are becoming addicted to REALITY TV!

It is all the fault of DOCTOR WHO.

On Saturday nights they turn on the telly EARLY so that they do not miss the beginning of the new show, so the evening starts at 6pm and that means it starts with Graham Norton's DANCE FEVER. Daddy Richard watches this and comments on the ESPECIALLY HORRID dresses and on the EXCITING moves and on which of the JUDGES fancies which of the CONTESTANTS.

Hmm, I wonder if this says something about Daddy Richard?

Anyway, after Graham Norton is Doctor Who (so long as Graham remembers to shut up!) and after that is Doctor Who Confidential on BBC3.

BUT after that is THE APPRENTICE – yes, it's the show with the Power Crazed Alien Lizards trying to win the trust, confidence, and most importantly money of fluffy Mr Sir Alan Sugar.


Actually, by this week, Mr Sir Alan seemed to have EATEN all but two of the Power Crazed Alien Lizards for breakfast, so maybe he is not QUITE as fluffy as I had taken him for.

Sad to say, however, my Daddies have started to find the desperate antics of this sorry bunch of big business wannabes to be DISTURBINGLY COMPELLING. I suspect that this is down to an IGNOBLE desire to see ARCH-LIZARD Syed get his much deserved comeuppance.

As the show has gone on and Syed has managed to kybosh each and every task in turn, we have seen Mr Sir Alan look at him almost fondly, even as he bawls him out and tries to shut him up. I suspect that Mr Sir Alan was seeing RATHER TOO MUCH of HIMSELF in Syed's brand of cheeky I'm-going-to-win-by-hook-or-by-crook ATTITUDE. Plus the fact that the OTHER Power Crazed Alien Lizards were actually SOMEHOW more incompetent than Syed was!

Still, in the end Syed's decision to try and run the entire WINTER OLYMPICS on the deck of a boat was what did him in. Also, getting caught on camera thinking about cheating on the RAFFLE… and then FIBBING about it to Mr Sir Alan's face! That was when Ruth "the" Badger DROPPED HIM IN IT good and proper.

The FUNNY thing was that as the end got nearer, I started to feel SORRY for the poor Power Crazed Alien Lizards as one by one they were gobbled up by Mr Sir Alan. Who could have been more annoying that total BLUFF-MEISTER Paul Tulip, and yet when Mr Sir Alan's masters of the inquisition were tearing his CV to pieces and making him eat it, I didn't half feel sad for the silly sausage. He had done very well at all of the tasks, even if he would have promised you the sun would rise in the West.

However, I do not think that Mr Sir Alan was at all impressed with Paul's made up CV and he was quickly dispatched. Ansel got a much nicer treatment by Mr Sir Alan, probably because he was actually a bit NICE in spite of the appearance of his strangely bling glasses.

That left RUTH, who Mr Charlie Brooker of the GUIDE in the GRAUNIAD described as a CAREER MINDED-MINOTAUR. In a good way. Even though she was the SCARIEST THING I have EVER SEEN – even scarier than Lord Blairimort's stormtroopers – I also started to feel that someone who put so very much effort into coming first in every single aspect of life deserves to win SOMETHING. Even if it is only a day off!

And Michelle, who has spent most of the Apprentice saying RUDE things and looking very much like she would rather be Apprentice to the Battle Queen of the S'rax

but, ACTUALLY, under her Alien Lizard exterior it was starting to turn out that she MIGHT in fact be SOFT AND CUDDLY underneath, having WORKED very hard for all of her life in order to look after the rest of her family because her older sister had died. Also, sometime she remembered to SMILE and this made her look MUCH MORE HUMAN!

This week though it was the FINAL! And it turned out that Mr Sir Alan had not been eating the Power Crazed Alien Lizards after all. Or at least not all of them – he had saved some of the least appetising ones for later and so they were able to come back and try to totally mess up Ruth and Michelle's chances of WINNING.

Mr Sir Alan wanted the girls to organise him TWO parties. Now, I may like Mr Sir Alan's CAR very much indeed, but wanting TWO parties at once is a BIT GREEDY!

Michelle made the very BRAVE choice ("brave" meaning "suicidally insane") to pick Syed and Paul and Sharon even though all of them HATED each other and all of them ESPECIALLY HATED Michelle.

On the other hand Ruth "the" Badger had made the BRAVE choice ("brave" meaning "suicidally insane") to organise a party that Mr Sir Alan thought stank like last weeks pants!

So they were about even on that score!

Once again, Syed was the VERY BEST at totally messing up, by managing to sell almost NO tickets for Michelle's party and having a BIG ARGUMENT with everyone else, out in the STREET. He said he was [holds fluffy paws very close together] this close to being REALLY HORRID! I am glad that they turned off the cameras at that point. Or maybe Michelle just DISINTEGRATED him with her LASER BEAM EYES.

Ruth meanwhile ADAPTED her Murder Mystery evening idea to be more like ANYTHING Mr Sir Alan had mentioned by making it a Murder Mystery in COLOURFUL and/or VICTORIAN costume. With CAN-CAN dancers.

I wonder whodunit?

Anyway, just like in the GENERATION GAME, Mr Sir Alan comes back at the end to hand out the scores.

Ruth had sold more tickets because she had thought to call up all of the people from the rest of the series and had not had Syed to spoil it for her. But Michelle had had a better party because she had done what Mr Sir Alan had asked and also because she had picked Sharon who organises parties as her job so was GOOD at it. And – to be fair – because when she had seen how Syed was MESSING her THINGS UP she had disintegrated him!

So Mr Sir Alan gave Ruth 9 out of 10 for being a jolly good Power Crazed Alien Lizard, but gave Michelle 11 out of 10 because he's a roughty tufty businessman and what good did MATHS ever do anyone anyway?

I think Mr Sir Alan chose Michelle because he thought that she had worked her way up from the bottom just like he had. And because in the end he admired her PLUCK in picking Syed and then he admired the POPPING sound Syed made when she disintegrated him!

And so Michelle won!

I wonder what my Daddies will find to do between Doctor Who confidential and the who-got-voted-off-Strictly-Graham-Norton bit now?

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