Sralan ain’t so tough – he reprieved the unspeakable Michael Sobollocks this week after the best bit of blatant sucking-up seen on TV since the abject grovelling of the Chairman of the BBC apologising to Tony Blair for telling the truth about Iraq.

Fresh from his national triumph in last week’s kosher chicken caper fiasco, ‘nice Jewish boy’ Sobollocks who in fact is neither nice, boy, nor apparently all Jewish, wriggled his way round Sralan’s tip-of-the-tongue dismissal with a con worthy of Brer Rabbit besting Brer Fox. Sralan doesn’t seem to realise how much it reflects on our assessment of him personally that he sees something of himself as a younger man in this charmless, loud, mouthy, whingeing little creep who slithers back to the house while better, (well marginally, it’s a close call) people get fired.

But Sobollocks did provoke the best riposte of the series so far from the deliciously acid Jane Moore on the post-mortem show You’re Fired later on BBC2. With everyone remarking on Sobollocks’ unflinching self-adoration, Jane quipped with impeccable comic timing that he probably called out his own name during sex. If you haven’t been able to face the follow-up programme so far I really don’t blame you, but it is becoming the sweet treat you’ve earned after downing the earlier castor oil programme. Chaired by the excellent Adrian Chiles and helped by a panel of business savvy, recognisably human beings, the cringe factor is a little less and the honest comments about the toxic programme refresh the moral palate just a touch.

The fascination of this programme still centres as I said before on Schadenfreude – we and the contestants delighting in the misfortune of others. However our total incredulity that this bunch of borderline insane losers was actually chosen from over 100,000 applicants, begins to softens a touch. We back away a little from the comparison with Andrew Lloyd Rubber who auditioned over 250,000 people for the role of the Phantom in the film of his one-tune stage phenomenon, only to pick a leading man who couldn’t sing. In The Apprentice we begin to recognise the extraordinary range of cunning conniving and devious deception with which the seven survivors have scrambled ruthlessly over their fellow contestants’ bodies.

Even the terminally unsubtle Sralan is bemused by the mystery of how Alex is always on the losing side but never gets fired. Bemuse away dear Sugar-lump he’s playing you, with finesse and subtlety. My hunch is that Alex has had a clear game plan from the start of hanging back from risky roles and making sure he does well enough personally with any task to climb just high enough to avoid contamination when the shit of failure hits the boardroom fan.

Lucinda, who changes clothes faster and more often than a Sunday Pub Stripper was the first one in the house to first demonstrate the ability to listen when her lips weren’t moving. Like an indomitable memsahib in colonial India, full of quiet, gutsy, English determination, indefatiguable and irreducibly sensible she is beginning to turn her many perceptive managerial gifts into what should be a winning game. But see below.

Reining in his temper and peacock squawks (he thinks he sounds like a dinosaur – but let’s humour him) the raunchy let-me-take-you-in-my-stubble Lee came into his own this week selling ladies’ knickers and thongs. No surprise there then. With a stroke of genius he under-guessed female customers’ sizes so outrageously that one despaired for the members of the opposite sex who, though knowing it was a con, relished even the farcical assumption that at a lever-me-in size 16 they might be thought an 8. The only time some of his successful sales had been an 8 was when it coincided with their age. And then it was probably touch and go. OK so I'm a bitch - when in Rome.....

Horrid Helene who is on camera as saying she hates everyone on the house and knows they are all no good, screwed up big time…again, pretended to admit it, then set about shivving Sara in the back which in this programme has become a team sport. Angelic Alex was already safe back at the house so the supposedly incisive, decisive Sralan had to pick from sweet Sarah, suck-up Sobollocks or horrid Helene. And boy did the old Sugar-lump screw that one up. He joined everyone in the house over the previous 7 weeks and picked on Sara just because she hadn’t made a great job of emulating the flog-it-off-the-back-of-a-hooky-van kind of salesperson he warms to. Objectively it’s true that barrister Sara was always out of place in an aggressive sales environment but for her to have been given the order of the early earrings while Sobollocks chained himself to the chair was about as fair as Bluto's beard.

Everyone likes well-pressed, wrinkle-less, unruffled Raif. It is true that there is something beguiling about this un-toffee-nosed toff who looks as if he has just walked off the stage of a Noel Coward play or a Rattigan re-make. Despite his jolly japes and anyone for tennis insouciance I have to say he is so nice he sets my teeth on edge. Mea culpa. It’s weird but if I hadn’t known it was him in the fluffy teddy-bear suit, mystifyingly donned to sell wedding dresses, I’d have guessed. He only needs a bloody monacle and the image will be complete. Ah me, it’s another world the world of the posh.

And so...chunky Claire. Having had a massive confrontation with Sralan early on she is now managing him beautifully. She knows he likes her because she stood up to him – the indispensable quality in dealing with bullies – so she grafts away and keeps her head down. For me she’s become the one to beat. Not necessarily because she’s the best, she probably isn’t, but on the right tasks with the right management she will graft until she drops. She’s Duracell Claire, she’ll still be going when all the other clockwork rabbits have stopped clacking. But the main reason she’ll be hard to beat is she ticks all Sralan’s boxes: working class background, ballsy, a grafter, has learned when to shut-the-fuck-up and get on with it. Whatever it is.

For reverse reasons her competitors don’t tick the same boxes, except perhaps Lee. Sralan won’t keep Alex because he senses he’s being manipulated by him but just can’t work out how, and Sralan is hyper-sensitive to concealed attitudes and motivations – he’s suffered from that all his working and deeply insecure social life. He’ll find a reason to fire Lucinda because there is just no way on God’s earth he’s going to have a bloody ‘risk-analyst’ who looks like she runs a Chelsea Oxfam shop, working for him.

Firing both Horrid Helen and stupid Sobollocks next week is a no-brainer, but then surprisingly things will get subtle. Up to now most of the contestants have been too stupid to be genuinely devious. Wait till Alex, Lee, Claire and Lucinda take each other on – watch and wonder – because with those 4, Sralan himself is out of his depth. And that will be fun to see. There you are, I told you Schadenfreude rules. OK?

I DO enjoy your reviews, Zettel! This one was even better than usual.
The Apprentice is my favourite, favourite show. Every year. In spite (or, shamefacedly, because of) the dubious moral flavour. I guess it feels, for anyone who's been in any kind of cut-throat business where there's bullying and arse-licking aplenty, like a kind of pay-back. For which reason, if Claire wins this competition, I will be FURIOUS. Unlike The Badger, who was loud and domineering, Claire uses manipulative, bullying tactics and doesn't deserve to stay.
Susiex

Thanks again Susie

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the others screwed up so badly that old Sugar-lump was forced to appoint Lucinda! Wow, that would be good for the bullying old bugger's soul eh?

I have this idea to float to the Beeb. They should swap Sralan and Lord Rubber one week so Sralan gets the Nancies - can't you just see how quickly Graham Norton and Sugar-lump would really bond? And what ALW would make of our business barracudas I really don't know. Would be fun though.

thanks again

Z

What a fabulous idea - swap Sralan and Lord Rubber and watch the chaos ensue...
OR: swap the contestants, so the Nancies have to battle it out in the boardroom under the steely gaze of Sralan, Nick and Margaret - and Claire, Alex, Lucinda et al are forced to perform I Will Survive dressed in frilly neon costumes (Lucinda could bring her own).
Susiex

I'm warming to this idea. I'd pay good money to see how Claire would deal with lascivious old Barry Humphries either patronising her, coming on to her, or both. I rather expect Dame Edna would cease being a cross dresser and pass the full female medical.

John Barrowman and Raif, or Grahma Norton, or both! Oooohhh! still my racing heart.

Bsd boy Zettel. Bad boy.

Let your imagination run riot Susie!

Z

I'd pay good money to see how Claire would deal with lascivious old Barry Humphries either patronising her, coming on to her, or both.

I'd pay good money to see how Barry Humphries would deal with Claire! And John Barrowman's response to Raif?
"You're fabulous, fabulous, FABULOUS!"

Susiex

Fab review, Zettel! I'm hooked too, I have to say! Just to put you right about Rafe, though. In this week's Heat (I know, I'm sorry!) there was a photo of Rafe's house. Far from living on a country estate his family home is a very run down semi. Quite a disappointment! Heat quips that the family money must all have gone on his private education.

My least favourite contestant, personally, is Alex. I suspect he is one of those boys who, at school would cover his work with his hand because he thought you were copying. He'll be there to the end, I fear because he is an arse-licker of the first order. Even more than the others, I think. I think I dislike him more than any of the others because he gives the impression he's quite nice really, but he is always bad-mouthing them.

I agree. Unfortunately, Alex looks the double of my brother in law (well, one of them) so although I think he should get the boot, it's kind of weird seeing him on tele, so I want him to last another week. I don't like Michael or Helene - want them both to go next. Not bothered either way about Lee or Claire - both regular people, but I find Lucinda and Raif hilarious, so I want to keep them both in till the end. Unfortunately, Lucinda is useless.