Wednesday 14 May 2008

one policeman was nice,
said the boy stopped for driving
without a licence.

The Apprentice rolled on into another week. I have to say that the stars of this series have been not the contestants but Sir Sid James’ elderly henchpeople, Nick and Margaret, a sinister and yet fascinating couple who bring to mind the couple in the painting ‘American Gothic’.
I’m marginally more fond of Margaret since she is never ashamed of expressing how much she loathes the contestants.
Two weeks ago, Michael ‘Kosher Chicken’ Sophocles’ team won and he began banging the table with his little tiny fists. Nick appeared on the companion BBC2 show and told the audience that when he saw the show he texted Margaret and said ‘I loved the look on your face when Michael misbehaved. You looked like you’d witnessed a massacre.’
Margaret texted back and said ‘Oh. Would that I had!’
This week the hapless candidates had to sell wedding accessories at a wedding fair. Helene’s team went for a mid-range price line of wedding dresses in various colours. The original seller enthused over them. ‘They’re very popular,’ she said, ‘because celebrities wear this sort of thing. People like Jordan and Jodie Marsh.’
At this point, one would have thought that the team would have backed out of the shop slowly before running for their lives.
They also tried to sell some very pricey cake, which cost as much as the dresses. They didn’t sell any.
It’s quite intriguing how the public – and the media – can turn suddenly against a person. Once more, Michael Koshercles was in the firing line along with the moonfaced Helene and the rather dull Sarah.
Sir Sid took little time to fire Sarah, before turning his scary wrinkly gaze on the remaining two.
He was, he admitted, about to fire Michael, but the half-jewish one made a last minute desperate appeal and Sir Sid, to the visible shock of Nick and Margaret (Margaret, characteristically, wanted them all fired) stayed his firing hand.
The follow-up show was interesting, since no-one had a good word to say about Sophocles. Indeed, quite a few bad words were said, most of them being variations on ‘Slimeball’.
I suspect the days of the Koshercles are numbered.
With regard to the Raef Bjayou Hairwatch programme, I can confirm that this week the configuration of hair was entirely different with the front wave sweeping down in a completely different direction. Also, when Raef emerged from a cuddly bear costume (it’s not important to know why he was in one) he had a Christopher Reeve superman curl dangling over his big posh forehead.