I can no longer ignore the comments on here from my three regular readers, and I have to profess, nay proclaim proudly, a similar obsession with this year’s The Apprentice. Wednesday night has, for the past nine weeks, seen me comfortably settled at 9 o’clock, mobile phone to hand so that The Queen of Cakes and I can exchange textual insights about the jaw dropping events which inevitably unfold in each episode.

I have thrown cushions at the television in frustration, most notably when Syed wouldn’t let ‘the A Team’ idea go, when the girls did the kitten calendar for the kiddies charity, when Sir Alan fired Karen, the only girl who at that point was not dependent on cheap feminine trickery in trying to get ahead. I had to physically restrain myself from hurling heavier things at the screen when Nargis embarked on her disastrous pitch, when both teams created ads reminiscent of cheap 70s soft-porn videos for Sir Alan’s exclusive flight service, when Syed eyed up the semi-naked girl in the Topshop changing room, when the boys’ idea of design for a calendar they had to pitch to top buyers at such shops as Harrods looked like your aunt’s local hospice’s annual tea-time fundraising flyer.

I have managed to conquer my initial instincts to support the nicer people, and recognise that the bullish Badger, for all her eye-narrowing, nose-wrinkling and lip-distorting when her competitors try to big themselves up, is probably the best person for the job. So I understood when the sweet but completely useless Alexa got fired. Likewise the first episode when it was the turn of Ben, whose entire pitch seemed to depend on a sympathy vote because he’s beaten cancer. I still hope that Ansell, who is also a good salesman, but somehow more personable than Ruth, wins. I also harbour a secret hope that he and the Badger will mate and produce little offspring. As the Q of C responded when I posited this to her in a text message last night ‘they’d be so cute… and chubby… and golden brown…’

Yesterday, however, I was completely torn. Tuan was an idiot. Board member and Sir Alan’s former PR Nick pointed out halfway through the task that Tuan should have taken note from the comments Sir Alan directed at him in last week’s boardroom – he needed to show he can sell, and can’t just stay in the background. But by taking on team leader role, he obviously thought he could look like he was doing something. Instead he was the only one of 6 people left who failed to let a single flat, and Syed saved himself by going out and frogmarching some innocent passers-by to a flat and then almost begging them on bended knees to lease it. Despite this, however, and despite knowing that it was the only thing Sir Alan could have done, I would have been happier if Syed had been fired. He is deceitful, rude, bullying, manipulative, malicious and stupid. He is so filled with arrogance that he can’t see when he’s cocked up – even trying to blame Tuan for the fact that he took the wrong keys on two occasions to viewings in last night’s show.

The two best bits of entertainment yesterday, as on most shows, came courtesy of Syed. The first was when he was standing next to a railway bridge which makes some of the local Hackney arches look palatial, talking on his mobile to a client who was lost on Wandsworth bridge, and confidently stating that he was standing next to Wandsworth bridge. This, for non-London-savvy viewers, crosses the Thames and is rather grander than the fallen down construction under which Syed was standing forlornly, wearing his hard hat, and bleating to passers by ‘Nicholas? Nicholas?’ Syed is one of the Londoners in the competition. The second was when, trying to talk down Tuan’s sales style, he said that he confuses things by using “big, financial terms like ‘consultant’, and ‘variable’.”

Sir Alan must know that he can’t work with someone like Syed. But as with all of his businesses, he knows how the show is marketed, and getting rid of Syed now would leave a gaping hole in the programme. So the watery-eyed Eastend blagger lives to face another boardroom.

Being an avid reader of disposable trash mags such as Heat magazine (despite Mukiwa’s earnest and well-meaning attempts to persuade me of the irredeemable evil of such publications), I have noticed recently that Kelly Osbourne has been lauded for her dramatic weight loss, and all the glossies are showing pictures of her sporting her new, beautiful, look.

A couple of years ago, her brother Jack lost a lot of his puppy fat, and immediately appeared in such features as ‘Torso of the Week’.

I don’t know what PR deals the ever resourceful Sharon has put in place with all of these magazines, but I feel I need to be a lone voice of reason, and point out that it doesn’t matter how thin they are, the spawn of Ozzy and Shaz are just not attractive, and it doesn’t matter if they embark on a Nicole Ritchie style abstemiousness, they never will be.

Little Brother and his girlfriend, Pretty, came to lunch yesterday. Babyfather did most of the cooking, as me standing for any length of time is becoming less tenable, and I kept having to perch on my birthing ball to ease out the lower back pains which are plaguing me more and more. We cooked a rolled shoulder of lamb, which we had watched being boned and rolled by the excellent organic butcher whose van frequents the untrendy end of Broadway Market’s food market on a Saturday. We stuffed it with dried apricots (the cupboards are full of dried fruit at the moment, to help me overcome the ’sluggish digestion’ which pregnancy brings on), and basted it with a garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt pepper and parsley crust. And served it with roasted parsnips and potatoes and steamed asparagus. I even made my own gravy, which I never do, and it didn’t go lumpy. Followed it with pear and raspberry tart which we’d bought from the always excellent L’Eau a La Bouche, also on Broadway Market. And then lovely coffee and easter egg chocolate, which we accompanied with trashy Sunday night telly.

The excitement of yesterday has relegated me to the sofa again today, while Babyfather has been doing a bit of DIY to finish off the kitchen he put in before he went off to rehab. And for which we went to IKEA on Friday to buy the last few bits and pieces. What a fabulously traditional Easter weekend…

“No one wants to feel like a sausage in a sausage factory. And you certainly wouldn’t want that when it comes to eyecare. At Dolland and Aitchison we prefer to take our time to find out what you really need. And what you don’t. And we promise to treat you like a person. Not a sausage. D&A. We see eyecare differently.”

This is the voiceover of an ad currently running on the telly. It accompanies animated images of a man who gets unwillingly pulled into a factory, wrapped in a sausage skin, and fitted with new glasses. On leaving, he meets a woman who opens a briefcase out of which grows an office, who then fits him with glasses.

Am I alone in wondering what the relevance is?