Apprentice V: Quest for Peace

Is there a lot to say? The candidates might as well be VO5 hunk-puppets at this stage, their personalities are so undefined. I didn't really catch many names, and it's hard to slander reaction-shot facial expressions. By God I shall try though! King Alan kicked things off by making reference to the candidates' similarity to bongo drums. We were all thinking it! Hopefully by series end we can expect to see him thumping them all upside the head, shaking out sin rhythms for Margaret and Nick to cavort to. Lusty so-and-sos.

Thankfully, there was a rash of regional accents in evidence. Always a pleasure. It's nice to dream that the BBC cast their candidate net a little wider than London and Essex. I think there may even be a gentleman from Liverpool. I look forward to cheering him on, provided he's not a total dunce, in which case I will resent and hate him for bringing shame on us.

The task last night had a credit-crunch whiff of start-up business. The candidates had a scant amount of cash with which to buy cleaning products. Backs heaving with soaps and suds, they ran off into the night (morning) to pester and harass the general public. "I'm fucken washing that." they'd say. Cameras drilling disapproving holes into the heads of anyone who so much as dared object.

The boys split into two teams, one decided there was a Victoriana shaped hole in the cleanliness market and zipped off to shine shoes; the other thought it best to make deals with cab drivers they couldn't quite honour. I don't know about you, but I don't tend to think of Taxi Drivers as great grue for my evilly lazy cleaning ambitions. Their job is driving, bullshitting, and being hard-faced. Hardly conductive to half-arsery are they? That was before the boys left car doors wide open whilst they blasted the world with jet-fast streams of H20. Good thinking dick holes! Soak the fucken seats while you're at it. I'm surprised King Cab Hard Face didn't ask for a massive discount. Maybe cab drivers can only round up?

By way of contrast, the girls pissed all their money up the wall on tat, then bullied the life out of military grade Limo drivers. Screeching "fuck yous!" when their outlandish pricing strategy was shot down. I say strategy, it was more like the mathematics of a bully. They needed £300, and by God you'd better pay them it for something. Both teams were so hyped up on swaggering bullshittery, they didn't bother to actually try and do the job. Instead they contented themselves with a convincing sort of impression. One eye on the task, the other on sniffing out any hint of weakness in their team-mates.

In the end it was Droopy love child Anita that went.



It was her fault the girls had overspent. Apparently. Anita's fleeting representation on the show boiled down to a series of frowning grumble faces, and toady law-man politicking in the board room. Such caricature was cast off for Adrian Chiles' aftershow You're Fired! in which she came off as a bit jolly hockey sticks.

Did you watch Charlie Brooker's new series Newswipe after that on BBC4? That was very good too.