Barking mad

The latest series of The Apprentice (BBC1, Sunday) had, I gather, its best ratings ever. God knows why. All those ghastly people! Lord Sugar! His sidekicks! The stupid, infuriating, boring contestants!

The last episode in the current series consisted of interviews with the four finalists, all of whom, in their own different ways, were barking. One young man was asked how he answered the criticism that he always talked in clichés. His reply, delivered without obvious irony, was, ‘I am what it says on the tin.’

The winner was a courteous young chap (called a ‘nerd’ in the popular press the next day, but that accusation is made against anyone wearing glasses) who has come up with a series of batty inventions, such as a biscuit to eat in emergencies, and a chair that might or might not prevent backache in a distant time. His only successful invention was a curved nail file, which is a good idea when you think about it, but he talked about it in the way that Joseph Smith probably discussed the Book of Mormon: ‘I am absolutely committed to making the nail file happen!’

Lord Sugar — they seem to imagine that this is a real peerage, and not one invented in a distrait moment by Gordon Brown — told them all that they were useless. He was particularly rude about the winner, telling him that no commercial enterprise would allow him into their premises to be told that they ought to buy his chair because it might prevent someone getting back pain later. He pointed at the losers, declaring, ‘You’re fired!’ but they went on grovelling to him because they hadn’t learnt anything different. ‘Thank you, Lorrshugger,’ they said.

You yearned for one of them to say, ‘Right, you miserable bastard, you can’t be bothered to shave, you haven’t flogged a real product for decades, and you made possibly the most self-serving speech ever heard in the House of Lords.’