RoyII

Is it me, or are this year's crop of contestants in the BBC1 series 'The Apprentice' even more Muppet like than usual? As well as exhibiting the usual traits of self delusion, megalomania and egomania, quite a high proportion of this years selection of business hopefuls seem to be, in politically correct terms, common sensually challenged, or if you want to be blunt about it, as daft as a brush.

                                               Muppet master?

For those of you unfamiliar with the programme, the wannabe apprentices of the title fight it out for the hallowed prize of a six figure salary, working in the organisation of the famously forthright entrepreneur Alan Sugar. Sir Alan, as he likes to be known, sets them goals in a business related task, in which two teams of contestants compete, usually to return the most profit. Failure is definitely not an option, as one of the losing team is fired each week. As you can probably guess, the last person standing gets the job.

This weeks episode showed evidence that muppetry was indeed afoot. The teams had to use their combined business acumen to successfully provide the food at a local pub for a day. The Project Manager of the boy's team, a hapless guy called Ian, demonstrated very ably that he couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, let alone sort out the food for one, and when he smugly announced at the start of the show that the word 'loser' was not in his vocabulary, the writing was on the wall. It came as absolutely no surprise that his team kind of ...er...lost. To be fair, he was not the only one. A fellow team mate believed that just because he had eaten out in a few Italian restaurants, he was a renowned expert in Italian Cuisine. The girls team, although slightly more organised, were not much better, muddling through despite loads of bickering and back biting. Basically it was a case of muppetry of the heinous.

As is the case with most of these shows, the contestants are probably not chosen entirely for their business ability - every show needs that element of entertainment value, and that is something that 'The Apprentice' provides in spades. The heady mix of failure in the face of adversity and the judgement day styli of the boardroom scenes make it compulsive viewing indeed, making it probably the best reality show on the TV at the moment.