Bitchanca!

How does that Bianca Jackson do it? Not only has she starred in what is possibly EastEnders' most ill-concieved TV trailer ever (and if you haven't seen it, be grateful and make sure never to turn on the Beeb at switch-over time for the next week or two, just in case), turns out she's also the business world's most evil bitchmonster on the side.

This week's Apprentice has to rank as one of the best ever, alongside that one with the cheese. Beautiful juxtapositioning showed us the awesome power of an Apprentice team at full pelt, with Raef (wittily retitled Lawrence of Araefia by his team of wags) leading the boys through that rarest of things, a perfect game. It looked like maybe there was some tension as the poshos took their time getting to the laundry to help out the Johnny Commoners, but then they did get there and they did help out, much to the chagrin of the programme's editors.

Thank fuck for Bianca, then, who cunningly disguised herself as sales manager Jenny Celerier and proceeded to give a room full of salespeople a one-hour lecture on selling before pissing that away when she offered to iron a hotel's pillowcases for a fiver a pop. Luckily, though, she'd already spotted her scapegoat, and dragged the poor girl kicking and screaming into the slaughterhouse with her by ignoring everything she offered then making her cry for not offering any help. Grade A bitch material indeed, particularly because she picked the clearly-quite-lovely-but-clearly-no-Apprentice-winner Lucinda as her target, who, bless her cotton socks, was taken aback by the fact that she was given no real orders from the off and never recovered. She didn't really make that good a showing of herself in the boardroom, alas, which meant the ire of Alan Sugar had to be directed on Shazia, a mostly-innocent, who just happened to be there because she'd opened her trap.

Much as the Bianca from hell deserves to burn at the stake for her evils this night, I'm confident that her punishment will be justice enough: when she finally pops her boardroom clogs, she'll have to face the audience on The Apprentice: You're Fired which the rather genial (and increasingly ubiquitous) Adrian Chiles gets to host on BBC2 straight after the main show. For one of those low-budget reality show discussion bits, it's actually rather good, in part because every week the Chilester points out all the funny bits you'd already pointed out to the rest of your living room, thus making you look witty and that. Anyway, it also involves the just-fired contestant getting to say their bit in front of an audience who've just watched the main show, so by rights Bianca ought to be set upon like Pope Joan was.

Imageless Telly? Egads!

There are times when we all despair of the kind of cock that Radio 4 puts out under the banner of 'comedy'*. Dear audience mine, the current 1830 slot on a Wednesday blows all that despair out of the water. Series two of Look Away Now was trailed as a comedy sports quiz, and thus made me worry for the wellbeing of my teatime ears, but it's possibly the most fun I've had in any thirty-minute slot over the past week. Actually, it's an awesome sketch show, with highlights including commentators reporting on the action in this week's crime dramas, Fabio Acapella (the unaccompanied singing tribute act) and the secret identities of Britain's all-conquering cyclists. This is, to be frank, pitch-perfect stuff, and, despite its sport-based subject matter, doesn't need any kind of in-depth sports knowledge to have you rolling about. I understand it'll be on again tomorrow night at 11, and there's a podcast for the next seven days, too.

For all those hoping for some more unleavened hatred of all things broadcasty, I must apologise. You'll just have to wait till I've watched tonight's Apprentice and finished this in-depth discussion of M*A*S*H I've got going on.


* - Feel free to put forward your own nominations for the award of 'worst radio 4 comedy' in the comments box and I may just force myself to listen to them and present some kind of vitriolic hate-prize to the worst.

Alan Sugar Wants YOU

Ah, yes, there are few better ways to kick off a cliched knockoff tellyblog than to talk about what everyone else in the talking about telly world already talked about this morning; The Apprentice kicked off for a fourth bout last night on BBC One. See that? It was in bold, like in the papers and everything.

This year, Sir Alan appears to have obtained his wannabe apprentices from the books of a low-grade lookalike agency. Already, David "yah, call me Dave" Cameron, in his less known but even more toffy guise as Nicholas de Lacey-Brown, barrister, surname embellisher and suspicious facial hair grower, has been given the Sugary boot. Chief among his crimes, and let's not kid ourselves on this, was publically acknowledging that he was in school for longer than Alan "call me Sir" Sugar. Possibly the array of poshos paraded into the boardroom every year should be given a cheat sheet advising them not to bring up class, education or an inability to discuss football when defending their business decisions. I imagine mentioning shoddy electronics and ridiculous telephones wouldn't go down too well either. He'll never let anyone forget that he's got less education than a barnacle and still has zillions of pounds.

The best thing about the whole affair is the fact that this left-school-at-sixteen, done-it-all-meself, ain't-never-needed-nothing-from-nobody-and-anyone-who-did-is-a-sissy overgrown barrow-boy is so fond of his knighthood that he insists on having everyone else use it all the damn time. You'd think he'd do the courtesy of returning the favour and addressing everyone else by their formal titles, too, but does he fuck. It's all Raef this, Claire that and Alex the other, although in the latter case that's probably a blessing in disguise, because there'd be too much cracking up if he turned to the boys' team and asked Mr Wotherspoon* what went wrong. I look forward to the day he has a baronet or an honourable on or something, so's he can learn what a dick he looks when he gets people to massage his ego like that.

It's shaping up to be a pretty fun series, as it generally is, and I'm looking forward to Lord Snooty and his Pals being recreated before our eyes courtesy of the likes of Raef "hair like a tunnel into eternity" Bjayou and Michael "I *sniff* thought we were friends" Sophocles while the rest of the lads form up into an hilariously incompetent version of the Bash Street Kids. Possibly even the Jocks and the Geordies, should we manage to squeeze another schism out of them.

Raef for the win, incidentally, mostly because Sugar would quickly come to loathe having to work with him.

* - Anyone else picturing a chain of kuh-razy pubs, where everything is topsy-turvy and nothing is what it seems?