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.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 20th, 2006 at 11:04 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.