Greed Is Good

I have a confession. It’s not actually as juicy or sexy as coming out of the closet or admitting that I have feelings for the neighbour’s dog. Although the latter would not strictly be a lie as I do have feelings for the neighbour’s dog and these border on sympathy (as the poor mutt’s cooped up in a small back garden barking at passing trains most of the day) and violent rage (as the idiotic hound also has a habit of barking at trains that are not passing, usually at about 3am).

My confession is that I love The Apprentice (BBC2). This isn’t a person but a TV show where a bunch of US wannabe business moguls compete against one another to win a mega-salary job with multi-squllionaire entrepreneur Donald Trump. The English version of this show was, of course, much more parochial and featured little Alan Sugar in the Trump role and featured a collection of foppish, ambitious and relatively unpleasant folk all fighting for the right to be taken under Sugar’s tiny wing. In the end, though, the UK version was won by a decent chap called Tim who won the right to be educated in the ways of business by the only former Spurs Chairman who could also double as Gimli from Lord Of The Rings without the need for CGI.

But episode one into the US version and there seems to be a distinct lack of decent chaps or chapesses. In fact a more hateful collection of self-obsessed egotists you couldn’t wish to avoid. If Phil Collins, Sting, Stalin and Saddam Hussein shared a room with these people they’d all be over-awed by the thrusting egos in front of them. If ever any Brit wanted a control group to demonstrate their prejudices against our cousins across the pond they’d be hard-pressed to beat this lot. Whooping, taking themselves astoundingly seriously, high fives, a distinct lack of irony, etc, etc...

Five minutes into the show and a chap called Bradford (real name apparently) was using baseball analogies when he volunteered himself to head one of the competing teams in the first task. ‘I picked up the bat and ran to the plate and stood up to be counted when the pressure was on...’ He may well have continued with ‘Then I took the bat, rammed it firmly up my arse and danced the can-can in front of that former Nazi who’s now the Pope...’ but I’d switched off by then as my brain stuck up the flood defences against a sea of inanity.

The real star of the show, though, is Donald Trump. He gets to decide who goes from whichever team has failed a task and passes judgement with the immortal line ‘You’re fired!’ Trump’s love for ostentation makes Elton John’s flower-buying habits seem reserved and everything in Trump’s world seems to be gold-plated. Some of the would-be apprentices got to have dinner with Mr and Mrs Trump last night and I was expecting her to descend down the staircase with gold-leaf skin. She didn’t but I bet she has done before.

But it’s Trump’s hair which is the defining feature of the man. Think Max Headroom meets the lead singer from A Flock Of Seagulls and you’re nearly there. It’s a hairstyle that is an accident between superglue and candyfloss and it dominates any time Trump is on screen. It has to be seen to be believed. It’s folicular genius.

Anyway I am hooked. A less mature version of me would once have just hated it and them and wished them all to die horrible, slow and painful deaths just for existing. But I’m a more mature man these days. And this lot are so far beyond irony that any ridicule or scorn on my part is utterly redundant. So enjoy...