Well I was told by my boyfriend that there was no point in me blogging the show when it's already been going two weeks - but heck I just can't help myself.

It's Day 13 and the housemates are nominating.

Angel - chooses Cairon - as he sleeps a lot and is a "weak opponent" for a noble warrior such as our loopy lesbot. She also picks Siavash despite thinking "he's very nice" - as he should be more entertaining as a "party agoniser" (I think she means "organiser" but she was right first time). I rather like Angel's tactics of getting rid of the nicer or duller housemates leaving her in an all out war against the uber twats.

Cairon nominates in gangsta crap - but I can just about make out that he picks Angel for eating raw things with her hands ("I cant be havin that dirty ass hygenic shit around the house") and Sree for "disrespec" and "talkin down on me" ("get the fuck out my face with that, man!").

Charlie does his retarded nice guy act ("Ah dunno um it's hard I havnet ad time to think " until a seriously pissed off sounding Big Brother gets him to stop faffing by threatening him with facing eviction, which gets him nomming suspiciously quickly. Surprise surprise one pick is Freddie for being "different" ("Ah keep meaning to say fuckwit" bleats Charlie charmingly - cos he's daft he is and not some sort of calculating wanktard.). Secondly he noms Marcus ("Cos I like him as well" - eh?) for arguing with Lisa.

Dogface plumps for Freddie despite (or because of) his creepy lovelorn stroking of her neck earlier in the week - because he wants to be an MP and she doesn't understand. Given recent events (and the fact Freddie is (spit) a tory) she may have a point although she manages to make the whole idea of wanting to take an interest in a world outside of fashion and beauty sound distasteful and wrong. She also picks Marcus for being tit mad (poor Marcus - it's like a porno Ancient Mariner "tits tits everywhere yet not a tit to grope").

Freddie picks Sree for being bossy and irritating and Lisa for "belittling" him in front of Charlie and Kris.

Karly fairly noms Freddie for having "orgasms" whilst eating his food ("Just shut up and eat your food"), and Angel for being a nutter. Again Karly shows some reason though as she rather sensibly disses Angel for her telling Noireen that she was "weak" for giving up on the hunger strike (over being forced to draw specs on her face by BB). Karly has a good point - associating eating normally with "weakness" isn't the healthiest of positions (mind you I like Angel and not for her healthiness).
nger strike which to be honest is resonable...

Marcus nominates Lisa and Freddie.

Noireen noms Freddie (we're not shown why) - and Cairon for being "lazy" and having nothing in common with her. As she doesn't nom Sree can we just assume that she's a retard?

Siavash wonderfully nominates Charlie and Lisa for being shitclowns or something.

Before Sree goes in to nominate he nicks Cairon's cornflakes prompting a four letter onslaught from the world's worst gangsta, which gives Sree the ammo to whinge about  Cairon's bad language before going in and nominating him ("In my charity and decent character I do not tolerate -- the F word" - how many other people yelled "Oh FUCK off" at this point. He also chooses Freddie for having gone to Oxford Uni "I also come from a good university.. I am president and recently elected".

We don't get to see Kris or Lisa's picks, but they're fucking predictable (Kris nominated Freddie and Angel, Lisa nominated Marcus and Freddie) - so as immature and uncouth as Cairon may be, only he's had the sense to pick Sree. Oh and I almost forgot about Rodrigo cos he's not real, but he went for Freddie and Cairon too cos he has no mind.

Sree manages to poison most of the people who didn't vote for him by giving them raw bacon sandwichs (to be fair, Rodrigo eggs him on by mistaking bacon for cured ham - "In my country they do not cook this"  - I actually know a mad German woman who gave raw bacon to her uni lecturers cos she couldn't find Serrano ham at Tescos).  I love the fact that Big Brother doesn't even bother intervening as a bunch of housemates are potentially given worms. Sadly Lisa susses it (bite of bread stuck in her mouth like Withnail in the Irish pub) and Sree's all justifying apologies ("I never eat bacon before") whilst Rodrigo's incensed that Sree involves him ("don't put the fault on me - people will think I'm crazy").

Noireen announces that she hasn't had sex "in seven months" to the amazement of Rodrigo and Kris. Noireen insists that she's not a slag like "English girls" (that will win you some votes when you need them Noireen) and she can't sleep with someone with a crap personality, but Rodrigo still can't compute this ("you can't sleep with a personality"). 

Noireen's clearly near virginal status draws Sree near like a rape moth to the flame. "You're my good friend here" he smarms as she contorts her body as far away as possible. It's like watching Pepe Le Pew in action. He then starts dragging her around in a "friendly" stylee, his hand moving disturbingly down her back, round her waist, fingers straining towards her bumcrack - and I pray for Big Brother to provide the poor cow with pepper spray. Noireen rather rubbishly plays along with Sree and puts make up on, whilst he wrenches his honeyed words into her ear. She tries her best to keep him at bat ("I don't want to lead you on"), but it's all too little too late and Sree ends up trotting to the diary room to request Big Brother's mediation in his imaginary love affair ("She thinks I'm superman, but I'm not.. I'm an ordinary man... Could you please talk on my side with Noireen?"). Oh god! Sree then worries that his Yoda like passion may be too much for the object of his stalky desires ("Scary person I am"). A nation subconsciously checks that their door and windows are safely locked - before deciding not to vote to evict him whilst he's up - just to keep him off the streets. Siavash just takes the piss when he hears that Sree has declared his lurve for Noireen.

In the lounge Freddie admits that his dream is to have a camper van with a horse in the back. A bemused Rodrigo shrugs "Oh yeah..is caravan with place for horse in back" as though in Brazil this is so common as to render any further discussion redundant. For some bizarre reason Charlie decides that the so-laid-back-he's-horizontal Freddie is "stressed out" so takes him outside to shout at him and calm him down. Freddie copes with this with pretty good humour, but Charlie's clearly so keen on relaxing our ethereal Tory boy that he and Kris decide to deprive him of sleep when they're all in bed later (knowing that sleep deprivation's the one thing that really stresses him out) by doing the goodnight sequence from the Waltons endlessly, and I mean endlessly so that any last vestige of humour there may have been in saying "Goodnight John boy" when one was a kid is ripped brutally out.

Siavash, Cairon and Marcus don't care - they're all snuggled up together - awwwww!


Day 14 sees the housemates attempting to organise themselves for a dance task, and Marcus already getting killy with Sree, who's predictably declared himself to be da greatest dancer.

In the Diary Room Marcus vents some Sree spleen ("He makes you so mad you just wanna punch his head in") before declaring himself cool enough to rise above it ("I'm cool... you can't get no cooler. I was born to be the man.. I breath cool, I eat cool, I shit cool- I'm Captain cool as fuck").

The dance training continues, and Marcus forbids Sree from arsing around and ruining the task. "Stop bullying other people" Sree whines at Marcus. "STOP RAISING YOUR VOICE" Marcus retorts, somewhat losing his "Captain cool" status. Freddie suggests they "be pragmatic" in their attempts to rein Sree in, by er.. getting Noireen to talk to him. Oh good thinking Freddie - send her to reason with her stalker - she'll thank you for that. Marcus tries to take over and counts in his beat, but of course Sree simply ignores him and counts himself in:

Marcus "One two - throw - three four"
Sree (on the very off beat) - "One two three - throw - four"
Marcus (in his head) "One two - stab Sree - four!"

Poor old Charlie has to break off from his macho posturing with Kris to practice being lead dancer and look foolish in headphones. He's all pretend eager and puppyish with Big Brother ("Ah'm just gonna practice.. Ah don wanna let anyone down - Ahm not one of these dancers ah didn go to dance skool"... giggle giggle "Ah can bend me legs an stuff like that - that helps") and the urge to bend his legs with a hammer rises. His task is made more difficult by every group being a bit shit in the practise session, but of course Sree's group is the crowning glory as most of them stop and argue about the timing, apart from the lovely Angel who does the routine, unphased that she is alone.

Marcus tries to impose his hairy will on Sree ("We're being judged on this"), but Sree argues back and flounces into the lounge where the other group are rehearsing claiming he wants some "peace" (Rodrigo "You want pease in the bath but not in here"). Meanwhile Marcus moans about Sree ("He's a fucking idiot") to a half oblivious Freddie ("I strongly agree").

The housemates gather round to hear who's up for eviction. There's no reaction to "Halfwit", but all moan and wail in shock when Cairon's name is announced. Siavash is almost in tears ("What the fuck am I gonna do") at the thought of losing his "homie". Cairon's a bit dumbstruck ("I'm decent!" - is he under the impression that people who get nominated are paedos or drug dealers ffs?) and runs around trying to figure out who nominated him, with a few of those very people (including Sree) rather disingenuously joining him. Perhaps Cairon was nommed cos in his official BB photo he's wearing a red hat - and all the other housemates have watched "The Wire" - or maybe it's because he's a bit of a nob.

Freddie's resigned ("I knew I'd be ev.. up for eviction a lot"), but his little dope-tarded priveledged mind seems to be ticking over asking what will endear him to the GBP, having survived two other eviction votes and worryingly he seems to think that going for full on exaggerated eccentricity will do the trick and bursts into a series of songs from the musicals to the bemusement of Angel. Later in the diary room he comes across as uncomfortably smug and confident that the public will keep him in. Oh well so Freddie is a bit of a cock, but at least he's not aggressive, or too rapey (now he's stopped stroking Dogface's neck).

Sree's decided that it's time to make Noireen jealous by playing hard to get. Erm yeah. "I told you I have a girlfriend leave me alone" he screeches at her when she politely asks him something. Yes Sree, inventing a girlfriend who you haven't mentioned for two weeks will have Noireen frothing at the gash in no time at all. I bet Sree tried to bring in a case full of rohypnol as his "luxury".

Kris and Charlie show what big brave men they are by dissing Sree out of earshot in the lounge. At least Freddie has the decency to be honest to Sree's face, when asked by Sree "Do you think I'm a good person?" (Freddie "There are definitely things I don't like about you..."). Sree, as usual, ends the conversation by getting all mock humble, stating worryingly "You are a flower in my rose garden" and Freddie's quick to pick up on the control-freakery inherent in this "YOUR rose garden.. you don't HAVE to be the boss". Sree rephrases "Or the flowers in my pocket". Oh yeah that's better - and not at all reminiscent of John Fowles's "The Collector".

Liking: Siavash, Angel
Conflicted by likings for: Freddie, Marcus
Not hating: Dogface, Noireen, Karly
Disliking: Lisa, Rodrigo, Kris
Really fuckin hating: Charlie, Sree

Well I've finally watched this year's Big Brother - after a monumental lack of interest in a show that started off 10 years ago as allegedly an interesting experiment (and an excuse to watch women lying around in bikinis in suburban gardens without getting arrested) and has morphed into an hideous collection of caricatures and soulless arsehats who have more in common with the annoying gits who twat around in the intro ads on Dave ("Oh look we're in a mansion in masquerade ball gear hunting a zebra - aren't we the fucking wacksters!"

Having missed the opening shenanigans cos there's far too many housemates to keep count of (so far we've lost Dana International or Beinazir, Saffia who rather rubbishly walked before Sophia was evicted (lets face it the name thing was getting confusing!) - we're left with the following runners and riders:

Angel. A skeleton Russkie lesbian boxer who looks like Shirley Henderson, or is it Bjork, or is it Helena Bonham Carter on crack, or Katherine Hepburn's skull, or is it Willy Wonka as played by Johnny Depp or maybe (insert your own emaciated mad cleb of choice). Part of me likes Angle cos she is so ethereally bonkers (even doing something normal like wistfully putting a moth into a jar and observing it closely - she seems sinister and Silence-of-the-lambs wrongmo - erm oh) and slightly sensitive (lots of random crying and she's on "hunger strike" at the mo). Part of me sees her as a terrifying crazy Putin-esque Bond villainess (villifiying a fellow housemate for quitting the hunger strike for being "weak"). Angel has self harmer written all over her, with pollonium coated stilleto blades. I'd bet on her to win any fight in the house.

Cairon appears to be the 12 year old ADHD offspring of Huggy Bear and Lawrence Fishbourne's character in "Apocalypse Now" who alternates between near incomprehensible faux jive and hip hop and annoyingly clearly crap attempts to chat up female housemates in a mock English accent. He's not a patch on lovely Science from BB6.

Charlie is an irritating Geordie cry baby with a line in faux naive pronouncements delivered in an earnest squeaky baby voice that reminds me of Monkey Dust's simpleton mass murderer Ivan Dobsky. (See Ivan here)

Freddie/Halfwit. Just to add extra confusion there's two people in the house with two names, and I still haven't worked out whether they've changed them officially by deedpoll or if it's some ultra dreary BB task. Anyhow I'm calling Halfwit by his original name - because he is more of a Freddie - often seeming to have less wits than a halfwit. Like some ever so slightly perma stoned, sometimes charming and mainly unknowing combination of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, Lesley Phillips and Vyv Stansall, (think "Yoiks! Ding dong! I say!") Freddie simply doesn't fit in into the thick globby cocktail of shallow hedonism that constitutes the Big Brother gene pool and I've warmed to him thusly, even if he will either turn out to just be a clueless eccentric Tory posho or master of manipulation (I wouldn't bet on the latter). He also seems to wind nearly everyone else in the house up - so keep him in for their incomprehending faces crumbling into despair and confusion gradually as he survives eviction after eviction.

Karly is a Caledonian "blonde" "babe" with a body off baywatch and a face carved with a rusty chisel off Bonnie Tylor. She's immediately become a part of the boys gang, due partly to her disgusted realisation that the other women in the household are all more attractive than her. Watch as her self esteem is chipped away as every bloke starts confiding to her which of the other female housemates they fancy.

Kris is a tousle-curled empty headed surfer type who clearly thinks that he is profound for having designer facial hair. He'll probably end up getting drunken blowies from most of the women in the house - before coming out of the closet after the show, and ending up joining his spiritual party on Dave intros ads (I hate those fuckers!).

Lisa is this year's "comedy" lesbian with self esteem ishues. Like a mohicaned clone of previous Big Brother geezer bird Tracey, she's the sort of woman who declares loudly how she takes no shit - whilst dishing loads of it out.

Marcus has come a long way since his starring role as "Oddbod" in "Carry on Screaming". Whilst I empathise with his impatience with most of the bullshit that emanates from his fellow housemates, he worryingly seems an anger management class away from going postal in there. He also apparently has Lad tourettes - prompting him to blurt out "Nice tits!" in the manner of Harry Enfield's Sarf Efrican gym bloke character whenever he is in any proximity with a WO-MAN. To be fair most of the women in the house have declared themselves to be glamour models, before getting all offended when Marcus asks for a free sample. They should have bought some copies of the Star in with them (I'm sure Karly's face has advertised a few wank phone calls in either the Sport or Viz) - or, as he's a carpenter they should ask him to show them his "wood" (or maybe not).

Noireen is Oirish, beautiful and apparently too nice to be true. Apparently she has "some pretty hardline views about sexuality". Hmm lets hope she tries to gaybash Angel.

Rodrigo is a Brazilian Tom Cruise - all pearly teeth and shiny skin but so devoid of real personality that he gives me the creeps.

Siavash seems relatively laid back and normal, with a fondness for winding fellow housemates up. I actually find him quite likeable, so he's bound to turn out to be a twat.

Sophie/Dogface. Let's stick to Dogface - she's absolutely beautiful and fresh-faced (and enormotitted, but the name is vapid enough to suit her to a tee).

Sree is thatlittle bloke from "fantasy island" but all growed up into a fucking sociopath. He's also a frightful prick, disguising his aggression and cynicism for others behind a mask of "innocent boy from India". Sree acts like he's Cliff Richard whilst having the inner psyche of a serial rapist. He has a nice line in bossing the other housemates around and using wounded passive aggressive whines about "respect" when he doesn't get his own way. He's also creepily stalking Noireen, who tried (rather ineffectively) to put him straight when he declared his "love" for her, only for him to horrifically redefine the term "lets be good friends" into "lets you only be MY friend and if you ever talk to ANYONE else that means you are disrespecting me".

So finally I got to see the final after a few extremely hectic days and week 12 kicks off yet again with Kate looking effortlessly smart casual in her pjs, whilst Yasmina bumbles round all flustered in her big towel. The girls are summoned to Bankside where they get to do a comedy school games style selection of former teammates from a raggle taggle assembly strangely not including Paula, Anita, Majid or Noorul. It gets down to Phillip, Rocky and Kimberley and it's Kate's turn to pick. She's already selected Ben and Debra, so surely it must be a tosspot hattrick, but no! In her eagerness to be percieved as uber professional she picks Kimberley - leaving her arsehat of a boyfriend looking like a spare dick. Sadly Yasmina takes pity of him and welcomes into her team of vaguely likeable people (James, Howard, Lorraine) - which has huge potential to backfire on her. Poor old Rocky takes his unwanted sandwich making skillz into Kate's team by default.

The task is to create some posh chocolates and an accompanying marketing campaign and then present it all to an audience of choccy experts. As my hormones are raging it's almost painful to watch the teams troupe round various chocalatiers (sadly not wearing flappy capes with accompanying accordiab music) as they work their velvety brown magic.

Almost immediately Yasmina must be tempted to find a chocolate river to dump Phil into where no Oompa Loompa will ever save him as he starts shouting the odds yet again, bizarrely buoyed by his conviction that Pantsman was an innovative idea ("People didn't get it at first - they will eventually.." he mutters darkly of us - the stupid public. Maybe he has a point, they say true genius is never appreciated in it's time - a bit like with Phil - as true cuntitude is never appreciated).

Ben meanwhile is smarming back towards the old "sex sells" adage, suggesting "sexual" (and it's not just Kate that cringes everytime he says that word) chocolates. "Why not shape the box like a 69?" is his response to Kate's idea of his n hers chocolate for couples, but Kate's had enough "Chocolates are about romance and passion... we draw the line at sexual acts". Ooh she makes it all sound so dirty! Debra and Rocky get to do the choccy tasting, and devise sweeties so yummy that Kate is easily persuaded by Debra that it would be "commercially viable" to charge £13 a box for them (50p per chocolate). Oh oh!

At least Kate has an intact concept, whereas Yasmina, having gone down the blind alley of devising chocolates for men, not realising that the only reason no-one else has exploited that gap in the market is because men couldn't give a monkeys about chocolates and only buy them for their girlfriends to get a bit of peace or a blow job. Eventually after talking to real people and not Phillip, Yas realises it's time to go back to the drawing board. She comes up with the idea of making "shocking chocolates" with zappy flavours with the strangely retro appealing name "Cocoa Electric" (sadly not "Shockalot" as James suggested). She comes up with a quite striking box with a pink lightning bolt that opens in the middle (I admit it - I grew up in the 80s) and they set about combining fab sounding flavours like orange and coriander with incredibly shit cheap chocolate so that they can flog it to the supermarkets for £5 to £6 a box (that's 7p a chocolate fact fans). Good old Yasmina and her quality control.

Kate seems to have succombed to Ben's obsession with genitalia by creating a box design that looks like it should contain a thrush treatment. It's even called "Intimate" FFS (Ben's suggestion natch!). Even Nick Hewitt, who one somehow feels shouldn't know of such things, feels that it "sounds like something to do with feminine freshness". Debra is more blunt ("It looks like a box of tampax"). Kate decides the name may be a turn off (no shit), so whilst keeping the cringeworthily "discreet" box design she comes up with "Choc Amour" - banking on the combined appeal of French sophistication and periods. Time to shoot the ad, with Kimberley (notable director of "Pantsman") given the creative role again on what seems to be a deeply unsexy mixture of the old Gold Blend Coffee commercial and 9 and a half weeks. For all her prudishness Kate eventually cracks and decides to spice it up by getting the girl model to smear chocolate over her face whilst trying out some light bondage on the boy model who writhes around and belms helplessly - his wrists bound by a tie, whilst she nicks the last sweeties. The end result has all the glamour of a dirty protest in Colney Hatch.

Filming her own ad, Yasmina realises that there may be a problem with her chocolates when the models start spitting them out - which is the nearest they get to looking actually "shocked". Even Margaret has to pull an extra stern face to avoid the gag reflex after a taste of the fab sounding but disappointing chilli and spacedust flavour ("I'm still waiting for the explosion.. no no I don't think I will try strawberry and basil thank you."). Yasmina gets Phil out of her hair by assigning him to put together a dance routine for the presentation, which of course he takes to with arrogant applomb (love the disdainful voiceover: "Coreographing is... estate agent Phillip").

It's pitch time and Kate is confident as she commits annoying phrases like "staying in is the new going out" (chocolates for agrophobiacs perhaps) to her memory bank.

Yasmina is more nervous, declaring "I'm not going to become Martin Luther King in the next few hours", and given her track record in presenting she probably has more chance of becoming Rodney King.

Kate whirrs onto stage to deliver a predictably safe and snappy (and slightly dated) pitch, with SirAlan happily tucking into the free samples (it would have been more fun to give him a box of walnut whips - like a bunch of Sugar mini-mes) until she mentions the price and he appears to choke on one. The chocalatiers are naturally concerned by the potential for profit, but Kate clippily declares herself to be "confident of making enough profit for everyone involved".

Yasmina's even made the effort to match her outfit to the box with a jaunty electric pink box, and her presentation room is decorated with lots of lightning balls (so I'm instantly rather childishly impressed). Phillip's dancers waltz and high step through the room to the sound of Electric Six's "Danger! High Voltage" -pausing only to pretend to eat the chocs - followed by Phil flouncing around like a rem. Yasmina starts off a little stilted and over-strident - practically shrieking non sequiteurs into the mic whilst tumbleweed floats past, but slowly she seems to relax, especially after the price is mentioned (although typically the chocalatiers then give her a grilling for being too cheapskate - tsk you just can't win).

So SirAlan has the choice between Kate's good chocolate but crap branding and pricing or Yamina's shit but cheap and reasonably packaged chocolates. Hmmm now what would Amstrad do?

Both teams troupe into the boardroom, where SirAlan ribs James for being so prescient about him being "Willy Wonka". "I think I've got Lorraine's gift" quips lovely James bashfully. Debra gives Kate some excellent bigging up for her Project Manager skills, but all of Yasmina's team back her up. Oh apart from Phillip - who's a knobhead, and shagging Kate.

Kate tries to excuse £13 for a box of chocs by explaining that she saw extra-posh-wanker chocolates in Waitrose at a similar price, but is scuppered when SirAlan points out that extra-posh-wanker chocs have had years building up their reputation as extra-posh-wankers who can charge what the feck they like. However SirAlan tries to keep us all guessing by dissing Yasmina's chocolates as shocking. James steps in neatly and suggests that the taste could be refined in kitchens, but that they had all but "nailed" everything else. The other team-mates are sent out as our last two candidates get their last chance to sell themselves (figuratively) to SirAlan. Kate unveils her glorious 10 year plan of becoming a "director" (SirAlan's unimpressed: "Does title mean a lot to you?" Oh now he's going to be LordAlan. The irony!). Kate also promises that she will not get pregnant and leave as her insides are made out of pure titanium. Yasmina goes for the rough and hungry angle (given she doesn't know the difference between gross and net profit that's all she can do) and although SirAlan pretends to be concerned about the 20 people she purports to employ at "her" restaurant (she reassures him that her brother will take over and keep them in work) and about depriving her of her chance to make it big alone (she clearly can't wait to quit the family business), it's all a rubbish double bluff and Yasmina gets the job and a nice rolls royce to ride home in. I almost feel sorry for Kate as she just disappears and doesn't even get the taxi.

So that's it for another year, and next year the lovely Margaret Mountford will no longer grace our screens in the actual show (she's finally escaping to do a Phd in ancient Egyptian paper (I'm not even going to try to spell her subject).

So all that's left for me now is the Big Brother antics of Fuckface and Chipmunk or whoever they are. Watched my first bit earlier and I warmed to the Wolverine bloke (Marcus) and the cut price Peter Bowles figure (Halfwit), whilst being slightly disturbed by the shouty dyke with pink hair that they seem to recycle every year (Lisa) and the plastic Spanish bloke who doesn't like sweary people - he must be the biggest cunt of them all.

It's a veritable "Apprentice" feast tonight with an hour long pre-amble focusing on the five remaining candidates.

Kate points out she's not a dumb blonde ("I'm a straight A student with a first class honors degree.") and I'm sure the nation warms to her.

Lorraine seems to have a life copied from a tragic Eastenders character. Yasmina conned her mum into funding her restaurant business, and the naughty BBC play "Smack my bitch up" over Debra's bits.

Nobody has a bad word to say about James, especially not his lovely Oirish dad, and we're treated to plenty more charmingly buffoonish moments (James trying to unravel a hose: "It's like blimming suduko or something."; James on escaping firing in Week 2 :"Unfortunately, there was a tiny bit of wee that happened" ), but James is aware that he hasn't got the best track record on the show ("I'm ready to make the biggest comeback since Lazarus rose from the dead").

So Week 11's episode starts and whilst Kate answers the phone in effortlessly smart casual jim-jams, we get a nice shot of a rumpled Yasmina lurching from the bathroom, baps nearly akimbo.

The candidates are summoned to Viglen for interviews, and only Lorraine and James seem to be vaguely trepiditious whilst the others smug on cheerily about how great and skill at interviews they are (Lorraine/Cassandra: "I sense they're in for a massive shock.", James: "The last thing I want is SirAlan in the boardroom kicking me so far up the arse I've got his toe for teeth".)

Kate likes interviews; "I like interviews. I like talking about myself. I only had one interview in life where they didn't offer me the job... but they were complete idiots." You're really reaching Kate. Bet you were head girl at school and everyone else was much crapper than you and you wondered why you didn't have any friends.

The candidates wait on red pvc sex pesty Viglen sofas whilst SirAlan's "trusted associates" smarm into town like the four horsemen of the global economic crisis.
There's beardy terrior Bordan Tkachuk from Viglen, jowelly licker of piss of nettles Claude Litner, allegedly dodgy dealing and annoyingly extra-"r"ed footy MD Karren Brady and SirAlan's former litigation partner and ginger Alan Watts.

Karren seems to be there to lull people into a false sense of security by flouncing fragantly into the interview room and then asking really shit questions in a slightly brittle manner.

Gordon's just there to sneer, which he does immediately at Debra's  suggestion that she has "raw talent".

Claude's definitely the uber cunt, making Lorraine stammer by randomly describing her as "delusional". James is next to stutter and blush under the Claudster's CV demolishing ("exceptional.. as in exceptionally bad... it's all gibberish to me").  To be fair it's not only Claude who has no idea what "rate busting MGM" is, although surely everyone who's ever despaired of corporate jargon understands what "SLA testing" is (and how utterly meaningless). In danger of being scuppered by a love of geek speak, James too apologetically admits he'd like to think "90%" of his CV is readable. Claude cruelly reverses that ratio. James's Apprentice application is next under scrutiny and it appears that for some reason James couldn't quite take it seriously.  "'I put a leash on people who spunk money up the wall'", Calude quotes thunderously, "do you really think that SirAlan would appreciate that language?" James points out that he just wanted to make himself "stand out"; "But not by being a prat" retorts our Claude, before quoting another corker, "'I can bring ignorance to the table'" ("A good style of ignorance!" James explains, but it's cutting no ice with Claude).

Poor old James looks an utterly deflated once mischievous kid outside the headmaster's office on the verge of blubbing as he waits on the stupidly small black leather chair outside GingerAlan's office for more abuse. Alan's also unimpressed ("You're 31 - you seem a bit immature")  and James is cracking, his voice all a tragi-comic wibble as he maintains that he doesn't like "being seen as some sort of joker". Aww James that's why people like you though.

Bordon lets Kate wibble on about how she's gotten promoted in the coffee company (probably a baby murdering one) that she started on with a graduate training scheme after her first class honours degree (did she mention that?), before getting all beardy with her ("So what are you doing here then?")

Claude congratulates Yasmina on the website for her restaurant ("It looks lovely... but (and that's a BIG BUT)..I don't know how honest a person you are", before reducing her CV claims of 4.5% gross profit to shitdust (Claude: "What's a 'good profit'"; Yasmina (confidently): "We made 4.5% of our turnover"; Claude "But you put gross profit"; Yasmina (less confident) "That was an estimate, I mean't 'net'"; Claude "But net is entirely different to gross... and you're talking nonsense according to your (RUH RUH RUUUH!) business accounts"; "Yasmina: "HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET THAT??!!" (well nearly); Claude "Ever heard of Companies House bitch?" (again I paraphrase). Yasmina's left flailing and it's evident she either doesn't have a clue what her profits are, leaving Claude the parting shot "If you dont know your turnover that's a pretty sad indictment of your business". She returns reeling to sofas (lucky they're pvc as it looks like a tiny wee may have escaped). "That went very well. It was actually enjoyable" she clips faux breezily. Later GingerAlan scents blood and picks apart the fact that Yasmina got her own poor old mum to remortgage her house to find her restaurant. "Why did you ask her in first place?" Alan gets amusinly ethical on her arse. "Because she knows I would work every day my life to pay it back" justifies Yasmina - and as long as her mum doesn't find out about how to get hold of public business accounts record then she'll get away that measly 1% share of the business her mum got in return.

Karren clearly thinks she's frigging Erin Brockovich as she cross examines Lorraine over her "intuition" ("Why didn't you use it to put your correct dates of employment?"). Next she tries to finger Kate (sorry) for complaining that she can't work with women as they moan and whinge (and no amount of frantically fluttering mascara can assuage them) by classily yet again bringing up Kate's appalling taste in men a la Phil (Kate (rather sensibly): "What people do in their own time is their business"; Karren "But aren't you now moaning and whinging, like all those women you accuse of moaning and whinging nyah nyah nyah!!!  Case closed")

Debra faces up rather stylishly to an array of righteous criticism from all of SirAlan's attack dogs (Claude: "I would struggle to consider you a team player" - Debra "I'm not ruthless, just determined"; Alan (reading the work references Debra actually chose) "These say you swear, you tell people to 'eff off'" (she rather proudly admits this); Karren (from the same references) "People at work have complained about you... I'm successful, no-one calls me a bitch") and suggests box-tickingly-tastically that she has learned how her personality impacts on other people through being an obnoxious cow over the last 10 weeks and as she's "only 23" she has time to work to transform herself.

GingerAlan picks up on Kate's fembot'ism "You're an incredibly competent interviewee, but there's no dynamics, no fire... you work within your comfort zone.. you're not passionate." Typically Kate adjusts her face clunkily into a fake grrrrrrr and retorts "I have been passionate... I was put in for the McDonalds Management Programme when I was 16". Easy tiger! I was turned down for a job at McDonalds when I was 16 as I had "too many outside interests". Fact. Now I know where it all went wrong.


The interviewers meet SirAlan back in the boardroom to complete the stitching up.

Lorraine's presented as a mentally ill mystic Meg figure (nice to see that Phil's influence still prevails). GingerAlan complains that he couldn't shut her up, whereas Bordon frowningly reveals that "She said she could read people's minds" and Claude just thinks that she would drive SirAlan "up the wall".

Claude praises Yasmina's "entepreneurial spirit" but decides that she's "not all that credible", although GingerAlan thought she "came over very well" but is confused as to why she needs to work for SirAlan with her own "successful business" (hmm there's an answer somewhere"). All apart from Karren get all scrupulous about Yasmina risking her mother's home and security for funding, but SirAlan points out that his poor old mum and dad stumped up all their savings to help him buy a car when he was starting out. Let's face it SirAlan's probably not that averse to creative accounting interpretations either (the most amusing thing about time I spent helping an accountancy student at lectures - apart from the repetition of "double entry" was the way in which introductory blurb to business accounts attempted to spin the worst financial year ever as "a reflective time of development and growth" and such bullshit).

Sadly but unsurprisingly nobody thinks that James gave "good interview". Claude dismisses him because he's not doing the things "a normal 31 year old who is interested in business would do and he said he hadn't read any books about business" (further proof in my eyes that James is not a total bellend).  Karren reveals that after an embarrassingly bad interview she offered James a chance to say one more thing to attempt to impress SirAlan. Cue magical cut away to James spunking his chances up the wall ("I want it to be like he's Willy Wonka and he's given me the keys to the factory"). Margaret tries in vein to stick up for her golden boy's good work in the past, but Nick coldly declares James "lucky".

Kate's impressed and chilled the interviewers in equal measure, and the word "robotic" keeps popping up (Nick (helpfully) "Maybe she hasn't got a personality").

Debra's references seem to have worked against her - who'd have thunk it. And GingerAlan's unconvinced that she's genuinely "learned" from the error of her ways and isn't jut spouting what people want to hear (not like Kate then). Karren just burbles on about Debra being "only 23 years old", although they all agree that she seems much older; perhaps she was only 23 when she was mummified. SirAlan's not sure "She's got some great things about her and some nasty ways" (and he can't tell the difference).

The candidates lurch back in, James looking like a pale and beaten man as he hesitantly advertises his "treasure chest of experience" to SirAlan. Quizzed about the application form gaggery, James again explains that he wanted to add some "character" as "Sometimes you can just be a miserable old sod" (oops). "What - like me?" barks SirAlan as Kate's mouth controls set themselves to shit eating grin. SirAlan's clearly also got a soft spot for James as he tells him to stop being defensive and explain why he should be the Apprentice, and James just can't stop his Colin Hunt tourettes ("Because you're not reinventing the wheel with me - you just need to fix a few spokes..." (K laughs bitchily, SirAlan grunts, James looks crestfallen) "...sorry". Too late James. Too late.

Kate apparently takes being called "robotic" as a "compliment" as it proves that she can "work well under pressure", and she refuses to apologise for "coming across in a way which is perhaps too good to be true". WHIRRR CLICK.

And so SirAlan turns to James with doleful Nookie bear eyes: "There's nothing wrong with making people laugh a lot..but you're a corporate man and that culture don't exist in my place so with regret (of course) you're fired". Poor old James looks gutted and sad violin music plays as he brokenly bids farewell "It's been brilliant". He'll get over it - hopefully the trip to the taxi will be an awfully big adventure to him. By now I'm resigned to the fact that any apprentice candidate that I can summon the ability to like - is assuredly toast.

The women are called back in and it's revealed that 2 more will be fired tonight, which is good news as I will probably dislike at least one of them.

Kate's already gasping for air like a porno goldfish so all encompassing is her fear of failure. "You're very serious" notes SirAlan, to which she fakes a mechanic laugh "No. Actually. I'm. Not".

Lorraine's under the cosh for "bleating" about her hard life (unfair) and making "after the horse has bolted statements" (ludicrously unfair - she did mention her concerns and ideas in every task but sadly didn't seem to have the confidence to have anyone listen respectfully to her). Anyhow it's all over for her and she doesn't even look surprised to be fired bless her.

Kate looks a bit doomed, as SirAlan focuses back on her and then puts her in the final as she strikes him as a blonde he can hire who is in no danger of getting up the duff and ruining everything (being pure machine as she is). "Thank you sirAlan you wont regret it" she beeps in astonishment.

SirAlan reckons there's nothing between Debra ("You wouldn't last 10 minutes in any company") and Yasmina who is a fraudster, so of course he fires Debra, who takes it with remarkable grace.

So we're left with a final that no-one will care that much about, although marginally disliking Yasmina less I'm hoping that Kate is blinkered by her sex robot programming and chooses Phil and Ben to be on her team - to see the woman who claims she can't work with women have her dreams destroyed by arrogant male incompetence would be just too delicious.

The final bizarrely is on Sunday - it must be something to do with sport - and I will be out filming at a comedy gig so will get to i-player as soon as I can afterwards.

Not really liking but could probably just about live with: Yasmina
Not really liking and would find incredibly hard to live with: Kate

Hoping he turns up as a Business News presenter somewhere and says things like "This week bankers have been mostly spunking money up the wall, and now for the Dow Jones index - what a lot of codshit" - James

A bit biased perhaps - as it's my other half's debut novel - but having done a lot of proof-reading and synopsis writing - without getting bored once - I can vouch for the fact that it's brilliantly mad - think Terry Pratchett meets Mickie Spillane meets crack cocaine!

You can see the publisher's blurb on Front List books

(especially pleased they used my "double crossing cross dresser" line from the synopsis :-) )

Anyhow it's out on 1st September and should be in Borders, Waterstones and on Amazon. And Paul will be utterly unbearable from then on ;-) (joke)

I missed most of this week's episode but the i-player re-cap of the Shopping TV task has left me in a haze of questions:

Questions such as were the candidates deliberately trying to stitch each other up with the items chosen (which the other part of their team had to sell)? Example number one, the rather bizarre polystyrene kitten and puppy craft sets chosen by either Lorraine or Howard for Kate to present. These involved sticking sequins over the polystyrene with pins, so whilst looking like something made in an old style special school they wouldn't have been safe enough - perhaps Kate could have spun them as pet voodoo kits. Example two was Kate's revenge; gold, silver and "bronze" leaf decorated leather jackets, showing that there is a thin line between tacky Essex bling and School panto Sergeant Pepper chic. Was Kate just assuming that shoppers at these channels have so little taste (clue Kate - there are not always real viewers buying the godforesaken tut on Bid TV's clothing and jewellery section) or was it all designed to get Lorraine into the least flattering garment ever (cue Kate saying unconvincingly "Don't you look lovely?"). Example number three the non-descript hair scrunchie clip combos chosen by Debra that looked like they'd fallen out of an Ethel Austin bargain bucket. Were they in fact revenge for the bizarre snoods apparently sourced from a mobility catalogue (where they could have served as handy neck brace cosies).

And then there's the Lorraine issue. Whilst I'm not sure whether I like her or she's a scary mental, I wondered if the Shopping Channel production team had been surreptitiously briefed either by the crew or her team members, as at one moment during Kate's piteous pitch for the needsie kitten, Lorraine merely seemed to be following the example of production lady by calmly asking Kate to mention the phone number and website, only for said production lady to snap "Don't shout at her!" (which seemed to be the whole point of the exercise). Plus when she genuinely made an attempt to compliment Howard on his decent (if dull) first pitch, he rather coldly shrugged off her rather cack handed but apparently genuine compliment, whereas Kate attempted to incinerate our specky Cassandra with her eyes (Lorraine: "Don't give me dagger eyes.", Kate (in headbobbing brittle bitch mode): "I will give you dagger eyes if you keep saying that..comments like that are disruptive to a team"). Does everybody actually just hate Lorraine for valid reasons (after all she may be the sort of woman who either wants to stick pins in a toy kitten or put a real cat in a toy tank), or are they really worried about her chances? Lorraine's still not being listened to (her suggestion that the uber cute toy dinosaur may sell was sneerily dismissed by Howard), but now because she's trying not to seem too confrontational and therefore doesn't fight her corner, she's being painted as "I told you so" woman by all and sundry including SirAlan. She's got "just can't win" written over her so many times that bizarrely she may just.

Perhaps being a real scary mental is ideal for direct TV sales, as Debra had a rather good week (even selling loads of the awful snoods to an anonymous audience clearly too terrified to resist), despite a typical early bitch fight with Yasmina, who dared to attempt to usurp her rightful role as queen bee by requesting (pretty please) to be team leader.  Meanwhile James and Yasmina forged an amusing yet useless double act (like a codependent Terry and June who were barely repressing the urge to hit each other with frying pans - my favourite bit: James "Have you done something with your hair", Yasmina: "Why thank you for noticing for a change", James "It's just that you don't normally look this cool"), although SirAlan watching on the boardroom big telly seemed singularly unimpressed.

Howard chose to present with Lorraine as she'd had a weak start ("selling" a sat nav with the claim "It will stop you having lots of crashes"), despite it being obvious that he would have been a far stronger solo seller than Kate (who froze like a bunny in the headlights of the car of the phantom bunny bummer before some faux wigging out with a rubbish toy air guitar), and he and Lorraine made a frighteningly unconvincing couple. Sadly they got so caught up in scoffing and waffling about the chips made by the posho deep hardly any fat fryer that they didn't bother describing how to phone in and buy it though mouthfuls of hot cremated spud. Ultimately Debs wins it for Yasmina's team and hurrah James gets to go on a groovy reward being flown around very fast and upside down in stunt planes whilst screaming hammily for his mum.

Lorraine decides to come over all noble in the cafe of doom and promises to go gracefully and not bitch about her teammates, who predictably blame her for everything especially chip-gate.

Kate gets a SirAlan slapdown for thinking she's the bees knees ("Nothing great has been won by enthusiasm alone"). He describes her presentation style prior to air guitar spaz out as "robotic" (My housemate funnily enough has been describing Kate as a "sex Robot basic pleasure model", although I'm not sure that this was SirAlan's point).

However it's Howard that goes for not being a risk-taker, due in no small measure for Lorraine highlighting his lack of dynamism and Nick catching this ball, running with it and scoring several touchdowns ("You're not a warrior", "you're not a big man"). So Kate and Lorraine turn to the house and James finds himself with a personal harem. "I feel like Hugh Hefner" he declares with wide eyes and Mr Tickle hands (he looks more like Tommy Cooper).

So the final question regards our James, who's soared from zero to hero (or "plop joke to top bloke" or "he's a nob to give him the job" etc etc) since the early weeks and now just makes me smile whenever his big BFG face appears. Is he being kept in just to be torn to pieces by SirAlan's craven posse of grizzled interviewers and CV disectors next week (example from CV number 1: "I put a leash on people who spunk money up the wall")? Hope not.

Liking: James
Wanting to like: Lorraine
Disliking: Yasmina
Loathing: Kate, Debra

Wk 9

It's 6am and Debra wanders to the phone with a big red towel wrapped round her head; looking like an angry matchstick, as the teams get their orders to hoppit to  University College hospital where they hang around shiftily in the maternity wing all sporting matching blue plastic shoe covers until SirAlan appears like a cut price hospital centre and they're tasked with buying 2 baby products to flog at the Earls Court baby show.

SirAlan mixes up the teams a bit, not that anyone's following which team is which anymore. Empire comprise James, Ben, Yasmina and Debra. Lorraine, Kate and Howard are in Ignite. SirAlan chooses the two actual parents from the candidates to head the teams with their parenting expertise and it's Lorraine and er James. Wow! James is a dad! That would be like having the BFG as a dad. James is aware that his card's been marked by SirAlan ("I'm prob skating on thin ice and Siralan's waiting for it to crack") and eagerly sets about planning his stragey. Only for Debra to ruthlessly walk all over it. Still James clearly has the team impressed with his baby rearing knowledge ("If a breastfeeding mum gets upset there's something in nature that switches off the tap in her breast."). Showing how keen he is to immerse himself in his role as project manager he even adapts a baby shitting stance in a rather industrial looking birthing paddling pool (£85) being peddled by a touchy feely yank who rubs her hands together in glee ("You are RILLY good!") at James's wide eyed enthusiasm, and claims to have sold £5000 worth of her product at the last baby show she exhibited at.

If Lorraine's not so impressed by the birthing pool, Howard looks more than apprehensive as the yank lady points at a plastic model of a pelvis indicating what space opens up during the birth process.

Lorraine aims to take one high end product and one impulse buy, and Howard and Kate are surprisingly supportive. She goes all gooey over a rather nifty looking baby buggy (£135!) that folds simply (we can see where this is going) up into a large awkward rucksack, so that people on the bus can get all tutty over the user being a clumsy backpacker rather than a clumsy parent. James is not so impressed ("It's just a pushchair that folds differently" he gripes, comparing it to a slightly different laptop case - missing the point that when you put a laptop baby, you're usually not juggling a baby with your other hand).

Next up is a baby head guard which presumably only already brain damaged babies would allow to stay on their heads for more than a second. Sensibly James declares it "codshit", and Kate from Ignite has her suspicions following the supplier's rather nightmarish pitch story involving taking her child to A&E after he fell in his head (Kate: "She's just playing on the guilt factor." Spot on! Doesn't stop her team choosing this as a product though.). Kate does pretty well this task, also shrewdly avoiding the tackiest looking baby ballet pumps for parents who want their child to look like rich slags. The supplier doesn't help herself mind ("Some people have said that these shoes are pretty disgusting.")

Debra becomes fixated on the hugely expensive (£1700 to £4000) rocking horses, maybe she had her first orgasm on one. I'm already unconvinced that anyone paying to get into the exhibition would want to fork out for such a niche item (I'm not even sure if rocking horses are for kids anymore rather than just weird retro ornamentation). Even Ben's seduced by Debra's savage rocking horse obsession, plus the fact the supplier wanks on about how they supply to "kings and queens" (cos there'll be loads of them ambling around Earls Court looking for freeby wetwipes). James calls in and asks Debra what she wants to go for. After hearing "rocking horse" screamed repeatedly for five minutes, he tries another tack. "We need to take two items.." "No ROCKING HORSE is all there is" gasps Debra (or words to that effect). James realises that it takes drastic measures to get through Debra's bizarre deformed Meryl Steep face, and very slowly asks "If you had to sell one other product or someone would shoot you", but she repeats that she could choose no other product, so James plumps for the birthing pool, cos it's the nearest he will get to playing on a personal inside out bouncy castle. Even Howard and Kate are tempted by the allure of the wooden pony, but Lorraine insists that her spidey senses are tingling for the buggy, and they decide to let the mad cow take the rap for her own decisions and of course back at the penthouse hilarity ensues when Lorraine can't fold and unfold the pushchair properly and Howard and Kate sit back trying to hide their smirks.

It's the day of the exhibition and James's pep talk is simple "Sell. The. Bloody. Rocking Horse."

Lorraine arrives to discover that despite being reassured by the pushchair man that she would be the only exhibitor with his product, that an independent retailer have got shed loads of them and they're only £100 (part of the task rules seems to have been that the teams agreed the retail price with the supplier before the exhibition and now cannot drop their prices).On top of this, a now flustered Lorraine is left to attempt flailingly how the pushchairs fold (Nick: "She's making a complete horlicks of it"), until a helpful passing bloke shows her how to do it properly.

The voiceover announces that "punters are steering clear of Debra's horse" (with the word "face" hanging unsaid immediately afterwards), as she terrifies browsers with her steely gaze from a stunningly bleak stall. One parent dangles his tot over the horse whilst Ben explains the price, and for a few horrible Michael Jackson balcony moments the child hovers frozen in mid air. Poor old Ben appears to be wearing the jacket of a snake oil salesman, and wonderfully even babies shake their heads in disdain at his increasingly pathetic "Do you want to buy a rocking horse"s.

Somehow Howard's been managing to flog the pushchairs (despite one pushy punter helpfully pointing out that you can get them lots cheaper a few feet away prompting Kate to prepare her boardroom attack on Lorraine), and even a few crazy babies decide they like the paranoid bonnet so much that their parents cough up the £16 "I'm a good parent honest" asking fee.

It's the end of the day and another exhibitor wants a rocking horse, but they want £200 knocked off the price. Debra all but offers them a blow job, unable to drop the price whilst James anxiously watches ("My arse is like THAT" - he indicates a very tight space), but cruelly they walk away leaving a mortfied Debra and Ben with no sales (James: "I feel like I've just been dumped").  James however has strangely managed to lure in the ladies pied piper style to buy the birthing pool with his gynacology skillz ("This bit here lifts up so the baby can jump out").

Back in the boardroom, Ben's quick to try to cover himself by slagging off James for not having much control as a Project Manager (or could it be that you and Debra were awkward twats Ben?), before trying to shift the rocking horse blame onto James. The lying get!

More positively, Lorraine's team back her up for once with even Kate declaring that there was "no conflict", although she does sneakily mention that Lorraine felt "passionately about the pushchair". Not that it matters as Ignite won the task by making £1606 profit, and are sent to the National Portrait to have caricatures done for them by Gerald Scarfe (their faces form a collective "Eh?" at the mention of the fabby cartoonist's name). He does a rather evilly accurate one of Lorraine (Kate: "That's your signature look")

Empire made £722, which means James must have sold 9 of those pools. See he is a secret genius. Although his justification for not taking the buggy doesn't cut much muster with Nick ("Everyone needs a buggy").

SirAlan wonders if perhaps um CERTAIN people were too obsessed with the rocking horse, and Debra's haughty horse face sets harder than a titanium Chuck Norris ("You're obviously directing that towards me.. I said we should have picked the pushchair" (ooh!)). James and Yasmina try to pull her up on her blatant fibbery, James recalling the "If I had a gun to your head conversation", but Debra's keen to ignore pesky reality and blame their failure on James for picking the birthing pool, which er he sold more of. SirAlan interjects with a very basic business lesson regarding her and Ben's failure to negotiate a lower price with rocking horse supplier, and both of them are pretty keen to suggest that they did try before SirAlan reveals that he does actually talk to the suppliers and ask them what happened after the task. Well duh! So both of them are shown up as porky pie purveying thickos as SirAlan has to point out very slowly and carefully to a still foolishly protesting Debra that people will not be tempted to buy something on the day if there is no special offer in place.

James brings back Ben and Debra ("If I could have I would've taken Debra in twice") and is it just me or is the "back in the boardroom again" music even more creepy than usual.

Ben tries to big up his achievements in previous tasks, and SirAlan somewhat sceptically reminds him that he was "Captain something or other?" so that Ben walks straight into his trap and proudly states "When I was Captain Sqwark" with apparently no sense of the irony. Ben's still convinced that he "can compete on a world class level" because after all he had a scholarship to Sandh..."DON'T GO ON ABOUT BLAHHDY SANDHURST AGAIN!" snaps SirAlan, bringing up the fact that the last Sandhurst bloke on the Apprentice was dimwitted toff Paul who "couldn't cook a sausage on a bladdy baked bean tin", before adding (to Nick and Margaret's smirks) "I was in the Jewish lads brigade Stamford Hill division - trainee bugler and I don't go on and on abaht it!" Although bafflingly SirAlan does comfort Ben with the suggestion that he does have potential ("there may be light at the end of the tunnel").

James rather weakly says that he should stay because he can get on with people, and that if Debra was hired "half the workforce would be on strike on the first day", but SirAlan doesn't know if there's room for Mr Nice Guys in Amstrad, prompting James to brag about the "MASSIVE BUDGET" he looks after.

Debra's not apologising for her "personality" ("I'm trying hard to go from a piece of coal to the diamond you want", SirAlan "You're a zircon at the moment").

An exasperated SirAlan wonders if anyone will take responsibility for the rocking horse debacle, prompting a lovely "I'm spartacus" moment where both Debra and Ben battle it out for the most damage limiting way to take responsibility.

So it's crunch time and SirAlan turns to James ("You're a nice guy, but...") and as James looks red eyed and beaten and I'm about to shout "NOOOO!" and Ben looks smug something wonderful happens as SirAlan continues .."I feel that the light at the end of the tunnel has gone out" and Ben's eyes widen in panic as he mutely starts to shake his head and SirAlan fires him, prompting him to do the most middle class bedwetty sofa punch on the way out. Hurrah! In the taxi of doom (and even on "You've been fired") he's still an appalling arsehat and declares himself to be "far better than James and Debra".

Next week it's the shopping channel task, which could be the making of or breaking of our James. Although the winner one year did make a total tit of himself on this very task, so fingers crossed.

Liking lots: James
Sort of liking: Lorraine
Will probably win: Kate
Not arsed by: Howard, Yasmina
Chilled to the very core by: Debra

wk8 - It's 5.10am and Mona stumbles blearily to the phone and the teams are summoned to the O2 dome, which SIrAlan points out has been famously rebranded from a shit attraction into a shit venue. So the task is all about rebranding - and the victim of the team's media makeovers is to be the dishevelled seaside town of Margate. Perhaps they could get in touch with Tracey Emin and turn the entire seafront into an art installation complete with burnt out buildings and Emin's used tampons on th beach. Oh hang on someone's clearly already thought of it.

The one-sided power struggle between Howard and Debra continues on team Empire as Howard eagerly puts himself up to be Project Manager and Debra completely steamrolls him out of it ("You can be SUB team manager if you like"), until he meekly caves ("I'm happy for you to be Project Manager", Debra (haughtily) "Oh Yippee!"). Howard suggests that they target the pink pound, and Debra and James are in agreement. Only Mona, who lives in Kent (albeit in that well known cosmopolitan mecca of Sittingbourne) is unconvinced that Margate would be ready to become a gaymotropolis, but Debra simply argues her down stating that gays "spend more money and go away more" (Yes to Mexico you Picasso faced freak).

Mona and James are despatched to Margate itself before they become too troublesome to "research" the gay market by talking to the UK's ropiest tranny. Mona here displaying a shockingly provincial upbringing in her sheer confusion of different sexualities, her identifying a bloke in a dress as "a gay" and her desperate fear of offending anyone ("Are you um a man or a woman" she stutters - with an unsaid "or an it" hovering nervously. When the friend of Dorothy Perkins reiterates that he is "mid op", she blurts out "Oh you can't tell" before fixing him with a rictus style and making her excuses, like the Queen having been forced to meet and greet a Big Issue salesman. Still sweetly out of touch she seems to choose the burliest looking man on the street to ask his opinion of the town's lavender rebranding (whilst James gurns ominously under a "Danger Men at Work" sign). "Oh yeah we ad one of them gay pride marches ere last year" the bloke on the street tells her. "And?" (Did he go out queerbashing?) "And it was alright. No problem" he deadpans pleasantly. Which is nice. Meanwhile Debra and Howard audition actors to play their gaymos, and Nick studies his fingernails or the outside of the window pain carefully as Howard issues directions for "touching".

Yasmina PMs team Ignite, and end up going with Lorraine's paedo serial killer theme ("I see Margate through children's eyes"). Having finally had one of her "hunches" listened too, Lorraine's surprisingly chirpy as she and Ben drive through Margate to do the research and set up a photo shoot. "I just love those buildings!" she waves at what looks like a boarded up bingo hall. Ben's less impressed; "It's not exactly the Seychelles" (or is that his slogan idea). Basically it's a dull family idea, which isn't so much rebranding as re-imagining the contents of most leaflets in Margate's tourist information office (do they have one?), but done less professionally. Ben manages to look like an even bigger massive arse than usual by insisting on "framing" shots in advance for the photo shoot using his hand (the same sorts of shots you find on postcards of Margate) - looking like he's trying to snog an imaginary woman in a burkha. Maybe he has to make a square with his hands because he has a weird shaped head? However it just makes him look like a tosspot. Meanwhile Yasmina and Kate ogle and humiliate the male models for their photos, whilst Margaret half glares (but sneakily twinkles) on.

The morning of the photo shoot arrives with a dense grey tupperware layer of fog, but sadly no-one thinks of really rebranding with "Come to Margate and get stabbed in the eye by ghostly pirates" - shame cos Ben's already proved he can "Yarrrr" with the best of them).

Mona and James aren't affected as they've found a really shit club to pose their models in and try to get them to gaybo and lez up. Even Nick thinks the result looks "stiff and wooden" and not in a good way. The fog lifts and James and Mona get some nice shots of gays on the beach holding hands and licking enough ice creams to fuel a squillion single entendres, whilst Debra and Howard pose, preen and point score back at the office of an unimpressed graphic designer.

Howard and Lorraine get some decent if dull photos of families playing ball on the beach and making pots, but Yasmina and Kate whinge that they's no space for text until Under the wacky notion that visuals should make a poster rather than being covered text (crazy huh? Oh) Lorraine gets arsey over the phone, guaranteed to put Yasmina's back right up. It gets worse when Lorraine rejoins her Project manager who asks proudly "What do you think" only to hear Lorraine's doomy "I don't like them." Yasmina cracks and starts getting bitchy and snappy, whilst refusing to listen to Lorraine's suggestions (" We can have this discussion when the deadline's passed... so you want me to change the poster now") until, in the face of Lorraine's persistence Yasmina yells "CAN YOU STOP SHOUTING AT ME LORRAINE..YOU'RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE!!!" ouch!

I sort of feel sorry for Lorraine despite her annoyingness, it just seems that a perception has been built up of her by the wrong people (Phillip, Debra) because she won't always quietly back down to bulldozing behaviour. Sadly once someone has sewed the notion into a group that someone who slightly doesn't fit in is a "mental", no matter how much of a twat the sewer is, it's very hard to get that idea out of the collective mind. So Lorraine's damned whatever she does now - I quite like the fact that she isn't taking it lying down.

With under 30mins to go Debra's team have only just started on the leaflet to accompany their poster. Well Debra and Mona actually, as Howard's taken his gaymo insights elsewhere and James is probably half way across the North Sea on a pedalo or something. Well make that Debra - because she doesn't like Mona suggesting they at least try to fill in the glaring empty spaces on the leaflet that Debra has time-managed into a terrifyingly bleak corner, Debra gets all huffy and decides to call it a day as they haven't enough time to do anything (who's fault is that Debs love?). Lovely Nick furrows his brow at the unfinished product ("what's that bit?",  Debra: "That would be a blank space").

Kate pitches the Children's Margate idea for Ignite, with pictures featuring infants being molested by paedos at the potters wheel or something, but it gets a bit ripped apart by the branding bods who declare that the images are hidden by the copy (Lorraine being annoyingly right again there - bet the teams despise her).

Howard starts Empire's pitch with a stoopid question ("Do you know margate", Branding Expert: "yeah"). At least Empire's pictures don't just feature the fecking beach and show boys and boys and girls and girls holding hands in restaurants. Sadly the comedy font and over abundance of word makes it look like a poster for a church jumble sale commisioned by a "trendy" but slightly dim vicar and the "rainbow map" of the UK showing Brighton, Manchester and er Margate is just embarrassing. Debra takes Howard's cue in trying to bullshit her way out of the semi blank leaflet fiasco ("We wanted to offer local businesses the opportunity to advertise", Unfooled Branding Woman: "It's not finished.")

And it's time for the teams to present their concepts to assembled Margate locals and bigwigs, including one conspicuous gay stereotype. The locals find Ignite's campaign pedestrian and safe (given the fact that Margate's violent and sex crime rates are above the national average you'd think that'd be a good thing). However local bigot woman is disgusted by Howard's pitch ("It's just DREADFUL"), before he manages to upset all the greys in the audience by stating that Margate is associated with "dull tired old people" (AND Only Fools and Horses! Oh) and even the token gaymo cringes at Empire's posters. The bloke who thought Ignite's idea was boring likes the rebranding "key messages" but wonders why it was limited to one community. "Where gays lead many others follow" explains Howard and I try to resist adding "in case they get bummed".

Both teams demonstrate that apart from Barbara from the League of Gentleman - no actual locals were consulted in the making of these campaigns.

So it's back to the boardroom, where SirAlan picks up on the visually bereft leaflets (Debra admitting that "That was the worst part of campaign" before trying to blame everyone else on her team), before accusing poor James of just going on a beano and building sandcastles and buying everyone equal opportunity icecreams.

Empire lose woefully with 4/10 from both locals and branding experts (compared to Ignites 7/10 from both) and Ignite get sent to race fast cars round the Lotus racetrack whilst Jame's heart visibly breaks a little bit and lips tremble at missing out on top boys own japes.

James and Mona pick up on Debra's timekeeping "skills" leaving them sod all time to do the leaflet despite James having rung his Margate research inspired ideas through to her, but she's not that easily ganged up on and prepares to lie and bully her way out of trouble.

SirAlan picks up on the fact that Mona had insider Kent knowledge and wasn't listened to, but sadly Mona digs her own grave a little by having an extremely annoying voice and by admitting that she was not "happy with the concept" - leaving it open for Debra to insinuate she's a great big homophobe (Mona "I did actually speak to A GAY PERSON" - oops!). Even James and Howard get stuck into Mona, mainly because they're shit scared of Debra, who looks like a wild horse who's had a stroke when she's riled.

Even SirAlan lets Debs get away with trying to bullshit him on top of the failed bamboozling of the ad-folks over the blank leaflet; although Nick ("You told them it had been carefully designed") and Margaret ("They didn't like being lied to") put the boot in helpfully.

Debra brings Mona and James back into the boardroom, and SirAlan vouches that Howard would have been safe this week in his opinion. James when asked who he would sack damns Debra with translucent praise ("She's a nightmare to work with and very aggressive and bulldogish but at least she's consistent" - couldn't you say the same about Hitler?).

Debra battles her corner, blaming the photos for their failure (er the photos were alright), but James isn't having it ("I'm responsible for 15 minutes worth of lousy posters, she's responsible for 6 hours worth" and even starts imagining that he came up with the whole gay idea in the first place. Eh?!) and she resorts to moody sniping yet again ("I wish I was you and went to Margate and did nothing and ate fish and chips!", Mona: "I'm glad I'm not you Debra!") However Mona clearly loses it and starts blabbering uselessly under SirAlan's scrutiny, so he fires her for showing no creativity and marks James's card for no apparently good reason whilst Debra gets away without any real SirAlan censure for her charming antics.

So in the taxi ride over the end of the pier poor old Mona comes across as a little bit dull and provincial. Meanwhile Ben's twatting on about how he hopes that James will go, and everyone but him looks happy to see the "village idiot" return.

Next week it's marketing baby products. Cue Ben in nappies and Debra for real selling poisoned baby milk to stop kids crying. Probably.

Liking: James
Not disliking: Lorraine, Howard
Disliking: Yasmina, Ben, Kate
Laughable hatred for: Debra

Week 6 - only a week late due to various comedy shenanigans and filming an extremely silly film with my other half.

Anyhow it all kicked off with a near naked Phil taking the phone call of destiny. Of course I hardly notice now - he's not getting round me that easily. The teams are whisked off to an auctionhouse in Chiswick and given a lot of random crap that looks like a slightly upmarket version of a Tracey Emin installation to sell. SirAlan drops them lots of heavy handed hints about it being about valuation and not taking things at face value that mainly fall on deaf ears as a slightly subdued Ben leads Empire on an insane quest to SELL SELL SELL (impressively as a Sandhurst wannabe he actually accidentally values a box of books pretty well) whilst the lovely Kate heads an only ever slightly more sensible Ignite and Margaret and Nick follow them all grimaces and outraged tuts.

Phil thinks the jewel in the crown is a rather unconvincing plastic life size skeleton that looks as though it was given out to self assemble with Junior Anatomist weekly and hawks it round pubs near medical schools touting for trade with Lorraine in tow grimly attempting to convince our Geordie-ish shitclown of the virtues of the rug (now that sounds more suggestive than intended) which of course turns out to be worth squillions, but no-one's listening to Lorraine. Eventually Phil manages to harrass a random bloke on the street into buying the cumbersome carpet for £50 (only a few hundred under it's true value). "That was the gem in the pack" mutters Lorraine sadly. "Yeah yeah" sneers Phil. Even Noorul correctly values the skeleton over on Ben's team, but as soon as the target of his specially set up sales "pitch", the oldest student in the world, attempts to plead poverty and haggle, Noorul goes into "does not compute mode" and his antennae start fizzing dangerously until Ben leaps in and offers it at a ridiculously low £60 which our crafty "student" snaps up. Still Noorul and Ben end up gormlessly flogging the expensive old shoes at a quid by the joblot in Greenwich market. Meanwhile on Ben's team; James and Yasmina eventually manage to flog their now despised rug in the most stereotypical carpet shop ever.

Back in the boardroom, everyone gets a growly bollocking from SirAlan for completely misjudging the task, and Margaret stands up for Lorraine under fire ("I think you're the Cassandra of this show" - causing even SirAlan to furrow their brow at the classical reference, until she adds something about Lorraine making prophecies and nobody listening. Both teams lose, but Ben's team lose by £130 more, so Ignite get to go truffle tasting and Phil all of a sudden gets to be faux magnaminous to Lorraine whilst drooling over the poshness of the truffle tasting restaurant which even has plates and doesn't serve lambrini ("There must be quite a difference between cheap wine and this!").

Meanwhile Ben's strange rhombus face seems to have aged by about 70 years as he contemplates his defeat ("I have erbsorlootly no probem fighting my corner"). It all develops into an "I sold more than you" willy waving contest with Debra which seems to be missing the whole "valuation" point. Noorul lurks on the sidelines like a spaniel's fart whilst things heat up, and Debs even has a pop at Nick and gets all potty mouthed before incurring the Nookie bear wrath of SirAlan ("I can't put up with someone with a mouth like yours" - slotted Picasso like onto her wicked witch face I think he means). Ben decides that Debs is way too scary to take on and selects JAMES to go into the boardroom, prompting an "et tu Brute" look of wide eyed shock and disdain from Debra ("Bring me in mate!" Cat got your bollocks etc), until he u-turns meekly and brings in Debra and Noorul and SirAlan gently sends James home ("there might be a village missing an idiot"). Noorul would do best to merely point out that Ben undercut his valuation of the skeleton, but instead he starts inappropriately claiming that he is da salesman and rather nastily bringing up all Ben's whispered confidences about "Heat magazine deals" until SirAlan notices that he's actually there and fires him for being a useless gimp.

So it's week 7 and the gang get on down to "London Gateway", Ben expecting it to be a trip to Umbria to sell balsamic vinegar (and inexplicably packing his flip flops and mankini) - only for it to turn out to be a rain-soaked Gateway services where Margaret and Nick wait under big black umbrellas like something out of Smily's people. SirAlan sends them all up North via the M1 to meet 12 designers and choose two products each to flog in Liverpool and Manchester with the warning that EVERYONE has to do theselling. Mona seems to doom herself by eagerly offering to lead an Empire of Howard, Debra and James, whereas Lorraine makes herself the sacrificial lamb for Ignite with Yasmin, Kate, Ben and Phil. Having gotten over of his disappointment of swapping Tuscany for scouseland, Ben sniggers with Phil about how much better they will be at sales than Yasmin, before Lorraine tries a friendly team briefing by warning them all that she will be sticking to her crazy gut feelings no matter what.

In the lovely angular glass monstrosity that is the Manchester Hilton, a parade of sub dragons denners flaunt their wares including a ball that turns into a seat, an OCD man selling something to catch drill dust before it contaminates everything, a strange S shaped coat rack, a sleeping bag with arms and legs which looks like nuclear safety gear but I reckon could be really useful (put in a pee flap and it'd be perfect for camping in winter). A strange obsessive man shows off his double handled dog lead "the lovers lead" which allows couples to walk a poor confused dog together in some sort of insane tug of mutual despair (even more disturbingly he designed it after being dumped - I reckon he planned to use both hands to walk his ex around with it). There's a nicer pet product in the form of the wonderfully wacky "Cat Playhouse" (believe me I know at least 6 friends who would buy this for their moggies) which seems to turn into a plane, fire engine, helicopter or armoured personnel carrier (maybe not the last one) - hopefully not with your favourite feline trapped inside it. There's also an expandable bag called "The Pod" which you can use to carry your shopping in on your bike, which worryingly, as Yasmin points out, only fits on one side, but the designer (of course) reassures them that the bike wouldn't topple over like this honest.

SirAlan's already got two leads for the teams to sell to; a hardware store in Liverpool city centre (I don't recognise it but apparently it's been running for centuries and doesn't just seem to be selling dodgy fairylights and scouser wigs - apparently it's "Lewis's" but looks nothing like I recall) and a posho furniture store in Manchester (are the producers trying to say something?)

In Liverpool, Lorraine's struggling to pitch the wonky bike "Pod", when scouseshopman points out that weight would not be evenly distributed (her "you might want to buy two then" earns an unimpressed look. Nobody likes a smart arse. When asked how many units she wants them to take, rather than ask what they envisage she seems to pluck the random figure of 5000 from behind her spectacles ("Do you expect us to sell 400 a week?" "Um well you're a big enough shop"). At least in the car afterwards Lorraine is big enough to admit that it was the "worst pitch..ever" and Yasmin does a wobbly "Pod" pitch to the posho Mancs (she probably just said "these were too nice for the scousers what do you think?") who are bizarrely interested.

Debra and Howard pitch both the sleeping bag and the dog lead (rather more sensibly they pitch the lead as possibly useful for parents with kids who want to feel that they're walking the dog too), but scouseshopwoman suddenly wakes up and starts asking awkward questions about how much more than a normal sleeping bag their product costs, which makes Howard go ulp and wee himself a little. They have even less luck in the Mancunian emporium who raise their eyebrows, point and laugh. Howard's understandably worried about selling anything, but Debra grits her teeth insanely ("we will sell tomorrow").

Now at this point it seems that both teams have organised the first day along similar lines, with two out pitching to SirAlan's leads whilst the rest stay at the hotel feverishly calling round to generate more appointments with retailers for day 2. However this doesn't seem to be working so well for Lorraine's team as we cut back to the Hilton where Phil and Ben are struggling to assemble the cat playhouse whilst Kate lies around simpering. Lorraine's not happy when Ben sheepishly admits they only have one meeting set up and asks how many calls they made, prompting three entirely unconvincing responses (Ben: "ten", Phil: "fifteen", Kate (of course):"I reckon about twenty"). Lorraine rings off in a huff. "What shall we do now?" giggles Kate. "Go to the pool?" suggests Phil.

Mona and James pitch the sleeping suit at the Modern Army camping store in Manchester and Mona does a surprisingly good job of negotiating with the publicity hungry proprietor. Oh. "That's awesome!" gasps the eternal boarding school boy James.

Oh dear. After doing all the work phoning for leads whilst their team mates presumably engage in petting and bombing, Lorraine and Yasmin end up bitch fighting over who's the best at pitching (whilst Nick looks on askance), when Lorraine says she wants to do the next one, and Yasmin on the surface feels patronised (and inside is worried about getting enough sales to survive the boardroom). Ben drawls down the phone that he's organised another meeting at a top pet store chain and then the cheeky twat gets them to agree to go to it before hanging up and declaring "Well it is a TEAM effort!"

Meanwhile Debra and Howard head to the very same pet store where their purchasing manager appears to prove that pet lovers are mentalists by ordering 200 of the "lovers leads" cos she's "never seen anything like it". Howard realises crashingly that he hasn't actually sold anything and begs Debra to let him have a go but she brushes him off icily and tells him to get his own leads. She even smirks evilly at his "kicked puppy" face. Muwahaha!

PhilKateBen saunter to their one appointment; a cycle superstore in Chester, having not learned that anyone with a passing knowledge of bicycling would not be impressed by "The Pod".Phil's forced to attempt to over-ride (he!) the bikebloke's logic by cycling round the shop clenching his buttocks round the frame to keep it steady before they are ejected from the store empty handed. Lorraine and Yasmin go to the pet store, where crazypetlady is slightly more difficult to please with the cat playground. She highlights that the designs are "focused on boys" (sexist bitch. Any gender would find a cat in a helicopter cute surely?) and Lorraine outrageously misses her point ("I'm sure whether a cat is male or female they would enjoy playing in it") and ends up with only 50 orders. You could cut the silence as they leave the store with Yasmin's "I told you I was better at pitching" sideways stare. Having ballsed up slightly, Lorraine devotes her attention to the utter failure of the other half of her team and hopes (rather green eyed monsterly) whether the boys have been distracted by "Kate's beauty" (on the contrary - Kate seems to be much shitter teamed up with the testosterone twins, and they all fuck up their last pitch before Phil starts ripping the cat playground to bits in the car). Lorraine tries to encourage them over the phone ("We could all be lucky and get a massive order from the other store!" "That's what I'm hoping for" retorts Kate before joining in with Phil's "She's doing my head in" unfounded cuntery about the unfortunately annoying specky one.

Lorraine and Yasmin fail to encourage a scouse pet shop owner who wants to go home to buy the cat playground and resort to one of the many Northern stereotypes that feature in tonight's show when he says no (Yasmin "Well wages are a little bit lower up here" - eh???).

In the boardroom SirAlan's not happy with Mona choosing two crappy products when he'd already arranged leads at two bigs shops, but she gets away with it when it's revealed that she made over £2000 of Empire's £4501 sales. Lorraine's team only manage £1302, and Kate's already tried to put the knife in by claiming that Lorraine's management style lacked structure (I'm sure it was there - oh you probably ignored it).

Empire win a helicopter ride into the London sunset (I am jealous) and James's little boggle eyed happy face is a treat.

Ironically it turns out that Yasmina, who Phil and Ben were dissing in terms of sales skillz remember? bought in the most cash. Rightly Lorraine brings Phil and Kate into the boardroom, recalling that Ben did in fact get the big lead although he was insufferably smug about it.

Phil tries to claim that he kept quiet in this task because SirAlan's biased towards Lorraine and it's not fair and wah wah wah! Kate goes all mental head-bobby which is actually not all that attractive and claims that it was too hard for her to get the leads. Margaret appears to have taken a dislike to our golden girl and snaps "That's part of selling getting your foot through the door" before pointing out that Lorraine and Yasmin faced the same obstacles. SirAlan has words with Lorraine for asking for the scouseshop to take 5000 "Pods" and she admits that she was pitching too high, prompting Phil the eternal arsehat to of course smugly chip in "What did your instinct tell you? eh?" before turning to SirAlan and telling him what an "offensive person" Lorraine is. Remember a few weeks back when Phil reminded me of an ex of mine - well funnily enough he still does. Ugh! Phil then claims that both Kate and Lorraine underachieved ("ooh you'll pay for that!" flash Kate's not so innocent eyes) but Margaret is unconvinced ("How do you know if you weren't with her?" "Ah joost kner")

Kate does herself no favours by slagging off the scouseshop for being too vulgar and Northern for her delicate sensibilities ("They were selling T-shirts at one pound each!" she gasps incredulously) before Nick pulls her up for being a stupid snobby Heather Mills-alikey ("They've been trading for 100 years, and you had the place to yourself" - TOLD!)

Phil starts crying like a toddler that "Lorraine gets away with murder" and bitches about her "mystic meg"  gut instinct style of management like a complete dickwad who's never actually managed to listen to another person properly in his life. SirAlan focuses on Phil's "arrogance, cockiness and control freakiness" which Phil acknowledges almost proudly whilst saying how great he's been at everything ever in the Apprentice before being wonderfully and efficiently silenced by Nick's cool barb ("Tell us about Pants Man" - I bet you Phil will be hearing that for a long time).

SirAlan's worried about how unpopular (and old!) Lorraine is, but Nick and Margaret both seem sympathetic with Nick seeing the KatePhil anti Lorraine alliance as a "pincer movement" whilst Margaret points out that Ben and Yasmin didn't seem so alienated (oh they probably will - when it suits them).

SirAlan sees Kate as having going from hero to zero (not anchor to wanker then. How about totty to botty?), prompting Lorraine to rather snidely and unnecessarily bring up Kate and Phil's "close friendship" and Kate drops Phil like a dodgy kebab ("I've got no loyalties to Phillip or otherwise"). It's just not Phil's day as he's double dumped by a SirAlan firing and sits outside almost crying. Lorraine gives him a kiss goodbye and Kate breezes chillily past him.

He doesn't have the time to learn any humility for the taxi of truth and just whines on bitterly about how much better than Lorraine he really is - ensuring that he shall always be remembered as "Pants Man".

Lorraine doesn't win any friends coming back and gloating in the house ("All I can say is don't underestimate me") and Kate truly has her card marked ("I am INSULTED that you could say my personal life affects my business dealings"... ooh scary self serving lady. I hope she doesn't win!)

Next time Howard tries to rebrand Margate as a gay mecca - if I was a shit Northern comic I would cue some sort of joke about fruit machines. I hope they do make Margate nice - I've been there once and it should be a fab place.

James looks like Bambi in the headlights and is obviously stuck with the task of creating an image and has two buff young chaps sharing an icecream on the beach ("Not too much suggestive licking guys. We're not doing a porno!"

Liking: James, Mona
Feeling sorry for but not warming to: Lorraine
Unsure about: Yasmin, Howard
Disliking: Ben
In the absence of Phil, really disliking: Kate, Debra

Hurrah it's the advertising task and the teams are dragged to the IMAX to be briefed by a giant projection of SirAlan, whilst Nick and Margaret lurk eerily in the mirk of the auditorium behind them, before popping up ("eek") to announce that Nick will "be watching" Ignite, whilst Margaret smirks and raises her eyebrows at Empire. The task is to brand a rather bland looking cereal making it attractive to kids and health conscious parents and make an advert featuring a character

Salad dodging septic Kimberly leads Ignite, dooming herself by announcing that with her marketing background it's her ideal task. Has she never watched the show? Phil loses any misguided liking I had for him by being a moody cockfarmer all episode, throwing his toys out of the pram if no-one listens to his somewhat inappropriate sub Viz ideas ("Has the 'cereal killer' thing already been done?" Hmm why yes Phil - you could put little fake blood capsules in to turn the milk red - the kiddies would love it). Perhaps Phil thinks he's so down with the kids because he acts like a petulant ADHD five year old on a Sunny Delight comedown - shouting down and bullying anyone elses ideas and constantly willy waving about how brilliantly talented he is(nt). Sadly Kimberly and Mona back down meekly in the face of his alpha maleness allowing him to steamroll in the wonderfully shit idea of Pantsman - a superhero who wears pants outside of his costume. I don't know what this has to do with cereal, and neither does Phil - but it doesn't matter as he clearly find pants fantastically hilarious. Why they don't send him on quest to find real magic pants whilst they do something that makes sense in his absence is beyond me. Only Lorraine is a voice of dissent, but she ends up being drawn into yet another shouting match with Phil, prompting Howard to rather creepily lecture them both on their interpersonal skills before going back to catching flies with his long sticky tongue. Soon even Lorraine is dragged into trying on oversized man pants in a shop - before a zealous shelf stacker gets concerned that the entire pants section will be left with whiffy gussets ("I hope you're going to buy those!").

Meanwhile Kate's Empire are having a more productive brainstorming session with James and Ben riffing off each other to come up with the idea that the fruit pieces in the cereal are treasure. Ben's pirate idea is trumped by James's more genius "parrot pirate" idea and Captain Sqwark is soon born, a giant blue sword waving parrot who Ben ends up playing in a suffocating outfit that makes him sound like an asthmatic west country kiddy fiddler. But then whoever thinks that paedos cant sell products to kids has never eaten a Captain Birdseye fishfinger. They come up with a rather jolly if over-populated box design cleverly associating bananas with gold dubloons, cranberries with rubies and crossed spoons in the bowls rather than a skull and cross bones (James's ideas as he explains he didn't want to put anything that looked like poison on the front of the box. After all they're not selling "cereal killer"). A rather ernest middle class woman who reminds me of Jessica (Stevenson) Hynes is hired to sing James's rather catchy shanty and poked with sharp sticks until she yarrrrs in an unconvincing lo-sodium salty stylee. James is overwhelmed by his role in the creative process ("I feel like a monkey learning to use tools!") and he and Yasmina trot triumphantly back to Kate, who's busy trying to direct the ad and force the brattish nut-intolerant child actor to eat some treasure flakes. She (rightly) decides a male singer would have been more appropriate and (weirdly) gives Ben a break from dying of asphyxiation under the bright lights in his Captain Sqwark costume so he can pant out the piratey song.

From shanty man back to shouty man as Phil decides to "sing" his excriating awful Pantsman song (ripping off Dick and Dom's "pants dance" song), now incorporating the ominous brand-name "Wake Up Call" whilst the jingle expert from the ad agency cringes. "One take that's what I do!" declares Phil apparently unironically, before Mona asks him tactfully to try it in tune. The ad man raises his eyebrows "He may think he's Bono" he observes (not even Bono thinks he's Bono, so I guess it was just clever ad speak for calling Phil a cunt). Kimberly in the meantime has managed to waste so much time trying to get her team to stop rowing that she's left sod all time to go through the box design and just phones the graphic designer from the agency to tell him to make the box apple green (Howard's brainwave) and er put some pictures of fruit and a bloke in pants on it. Brilliant! Bet she's got a fucking marketing degree and everything! The box duly turns up with a gratifying amount of green and very little else - looking like a dodgy excema inducing Czechoslovakian washing powder from Wilkos.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned Noorul, as integral as he always is to the plot. This week he's determined to prove himself by helping Kimberly direct the ad, as he does "amateur photography". Sadly his dreams are shattered as he's forced to hide in the garage next door before "bursting" (i.e. strolling with a slight limp) in on the unimpressed child actors who are beaten and forced to squeal with hysterical laughter at the concept of a man with all the charisma of a silent yet unscented fart dressed as a cartoonish pant freak. They manage not to cringe and whimper too much and the ad's produced and edited with slightly more polish than Kate's Tiswas'y pirate ad.

It's pitch time in front of a room full of ad execs, and sour faced Debra does a decent job with treasure flakes, although the adfolks are concerned about the lack of focus on the packaging (and Fembot Kate shows a bit of moxy by pointing out that surely it's better to "deliver on many levels").

Mona's pitch is a complete car crash, as she stiltingly lectures the bemused assembly about the exact types of fruit in the cereal and the fact that the box is green, whilst managing to patronise just about everyone ("See you're all really happy - now just imagine how a child would feel" is the most Brass Eye'ish line). Although when Kimberly was tearing Mona's pitch to pieces beforehand, Mona snapped back with an "if you're so fucking brilliant why don't you do it?" which strangely silenced the Team Leader. The ad-boffins suggest that it's all a big bag of bollocks, but Phil's cockily undeterred "So monkeys don't play drums to Phil Collins" until an ad-man shuts him up sharpish by pointing out that there's a thin line between being an edgy genius and a complete penis-head or something.

So we're back in the boardroom, and Phil's already toadying up to Kimberly by saying she was an excellent project manager. More shockingly even Ben's supportive of Kate as leader of Empire (SirAlan "You can put that on your CV, 'Ben said I was good'. Bloody hell!" Empire duly win to Phil's over-obvious chagrin, and are dispatched to a laughter yoga session lead by some money-for-old-rope spinning Guru Numb-bum type.

Meanwhile almost everyone in Ignite seems to have miraculously forgotten what a total arsehat Phil has been as they unite in scapegoating Lorraine for having wonky glasses and weird teeth. Insanely Kimberly brings Lorraine back into the boardroom rather than Noorul (perhaps she's forgotten he exist) along with Phil for the pants idea and it's an all-out bitch fight. Lorraine holds her corner well, pulling both Kimberly and Phil up on their insistence that she was both invisble during the task and only expressed her misgivings in the last two hours and yet she was also responsible for all the arguments that screwed Kimberley's timings at the start of the task. Kimberley starts gurning like a drunken meatloaf as she shits out scatter psychobabble (to Lorraine "I champion-eded you!") and turns back on Phil as she finally recalls his "tantrums" (Nick "he can have a little sulk now and then." Phil "It's called passion" - no it's called "being a Bono" in ad speak). SirAlan's had enough bullshit ("This is not a psychiatric ward") and fires Kimberley for basically having clearly told huge porkies about her marketing skillz on her CV (she's dead in the water anyhow from the moment she confesses that the reason she didn't do the pitch is because she's "not comfortable with presenting to huge groups of people") - and she's off spouting more yankee doodle mentalism in the cab of shattered dreams ("He will see! He will see!" - jesus love is that your new pitch to specsavers?). Back at the "penthouse" Kate idly wonders if SirAlan will fire all three, before they're faced with the disappointment of having Phil's psychotic cheery Geordie face back amongst them.

Next week it's valuing and flogging random tut including "A chair toilet!" (or to none retards - a commode).

Liking: Um er.. I'm actually warming to James after tonight. At least he makes me laugh
Not arsed about: Mona, Lorraine, Noorul, Yasmina, Kate
Disliking: Ben, Debra, Howard
Complete and utter u-turn into loathing on: Phil (well he is an estate agent - I should have known)

Yet again my life seems to be scheming against my enjoyment of this year's Apprentice - with loads of other important bill paying things to do last week and a bloody great thunderstorm killing my telly and wifi for most of last night!

Last week the teams had to design portable exercise equipment - Phillip (who I seem to half fancy in a whiny Paddy Considine sort of way even though he reminds me a bit of an ex) wants to create a square ball, but oddly everyone ignores him. Ben rather incongruously drags James's Empire down the "sex sells" route (sex doesn't sell in my book when it's being sold by a man who resembles a weasel on steroids channelling a Rainman version of evil David Platt from Coronation Street. Have I mentioned I think he's a dick?) by designing, um a wooden commode or something. Debra's "Ignite" come up with the body rocker and just about survive despite Debra and Yasmin having a major beeyatch fight. So James, Maj and Ben end up in the boardroom and James nearly blubs before everyone shits all over Maj and James returns home triumphantly, just as everyone's been slagging him off and calling him a loosah (again) so it's chins on floor time.

Last night's episodes saw the teams battle to design natural cosmetics. Science teacher and scary alien freak Nooral ineffectually led Ignite to create some tacky honey and seaweed products which he paraded round Bond Street tube (FFS what a sales patch) whilst dressed as a beekeeper (or a biohazard worker) presumably to make him less frightening to the female shoppers he approached with all the panache of a computer programmer fashioned from aluminium. Paula meanwhile was disarmingly mad and brummy but actually managed to make some nice smellies that I would actually buy - not least because she and Yasmina managed to confuse the lush and mahoosively expensive sandalwood oil for merely pleasant and cheapo cedarwood - resulting in an overspend of about oh a grand, not that Ben or Yasmina (apparently in charge of "costings" seemed to care - with the products still priced under a fiver - bargain!). Ben manages to confuse shoppers by apparently trying to sell them bars of "fresh soup". Hmmm. A slightly smug Nick peered over the top of his clipboard of doom to break the news of the sandalwood shitstorm and Kate made a face like a confused sex doll as Nick quipped "Anyhow I'll leave it with you" and magically disappeared again. Somehow Ben managed to survive the boardroom showdown when Empire duly lost (for losing 68p) despite again showing his arsehat credentials by boasting about his "scholarship to Sandhurst" as though eagerly anticipated being beasted behind a shooting range is something to be proud of. Sadly SirAlan gruffly wrongfooted us all by firing Paula for actually creating something decent but being team leader to a bunch of equally cost-clueless cuntmonkeys.

Liking: Whiny Phillip (who can blame him!), the rather vapid American woman
Unsure about: Heather Mills style sexbot Kate, Mona, Yasmina - looking like a lesbian bully out of a hollywood mental hospital
Fearing: Nooral, shouty Lorraine - like a female Napolean Dynamite on coke
Disliking: Sour-faced Debra - a woman who permanently has the expression of someone who's spotted a tramp having a poo in the street, snooty gollum Howard, James
Despising: Ben

Somehow I've managed to miss 2 whole episodes due to running classes on Wednesday nights, but now I'm freeeeee!

Sadly I wasn't there for episode one, where the boys and girls managed to choose even twattier names than usual ("Empire" seemed particularly inappropriate, until the girls hit back with "Ignite"... is it in the contract that they have to pick team names that sound like specialist condoms?) and then totally screw up a cleaning task, resulting in the firing of Anita, for looking like the bastard child of Oddjob from James Bond films with that squishy moonfaced woman from Everything But the Girl.

The following week saw both teams competing to poison the guests of accountancy firms in the city with their take on corporate catering. Empire chose an ill thought out 2012 Olympic concept, which would have been funny in a yah boo sucks way had the guests been French. In keeping with the spirit of the London Olympics site, the boys food looked like a bomb had hit it. Although they generously included "something for the Asians" in the form of Chicken tikka vol-au-vents. To avoid slow painful starvation the guests swooped upon the one edible item of food, the perennial 70s classic of cheese on sticks, discarding the cheese and eagerly sucking on the sharp pointy bits of wood for sustenance. The concept clothing (Grecian style um togas revealing spotty, doughy backs) didn't help although the weirdy beardy bloke looked wonderfully like an extra from 300. Team leader and Michael Owen-Wayne Rooney hybrid Rocky showed us some of the ambition that comes with being a Middlesbrough FC reject and North Eastern sandwich mogul by only charging £15 a head, and then losing lots of money for being crap. The girls decided to blind their clients with science whilst ripping them off, getting a shady twitchy Heather Mills lookalike to gain trust by wibbling on randomly about items of food ("I've heard of blinis" - cue Margaret clutching her head in her hands) before magically trying to transform lumps of bread and tomato with the power of a sea of olive oil and basil into "bruschetta". They lose lots of money for being crap too - but cos they've overcharged they get away with it - whilst Rocky is unfairly fired thanks to slimy Gollum Howard and potentially TVs most annoying man James (a cross between ubercunty faux cokernee wanker Maxwell from Big Brother past and the effeminate one with the teddy bear from Brideshead revisited). James is so utterly betrayed by being called back into the showroom (it apparently was almost as bad as when his cat died - ahh!) that he sticks the boot right into Rocky. And er Howard ("Fire the both of them!") before insulting SrrrAlan ("I don't want to have to sit here and see your face") but survives as he will be more fun to watch falling from greater heights. So poor ickle Rocky goes and to rub salt into his wound is presented with a football shirt on "Your Fired" after sharing his painful story of a career cut short for the smoggies due to arthritis.

So far I like Maj the strangely facially hirsute one as he seems to have a sense of humour - although everyone who's seen the full shows reckons he's a wimmin-hater. Still I bet he's no LEE MCQUEEN!!!!

I'll be keeping more up to date with the stripy suited shits in the city from now on - and giving a full recap of the runners and riders.

The booing twatclowns have already gathered at a freezing Elstree whilst we watch the highlights of Day 21, where the housemates have had their last supper. "That  was the best meal I've had in ages," smacks Terry in satisfaction, adding after a beat the ultimate Manc accolade to fine dining "I'm just going for a quick fag."

Big Brother manage to edit a Bergman-esque scene of massively discomforting proportions between Verne and Ulrika, left stuck at the table by the departing smokers. Ulrika tries to make conversation ("Maybe you'll get a NICE pudding." Oh FFS Ulrika he's not three!) before it collapses into silence, angry on Verne's champagne gurning side, sad on Ulrika's. She even takes to humming and sighing. It's like a family visit to a senile gran. Of course it's edited, as Big Brother later show Verne and Ulrika having a conversation, but for those few brief excruciating minutes of silence and sighs I bet Ulrika contemplated taking up smoking tabs. The housemates have a toast to their departed comrades (forgetting Lucy - ha!, and nearly forgetting LaToya except Verne lurves her), and Ben FINALLY shows some bollocks standing up to Coolio ("I don't need to learn from the shit that comes out of your mouth") before running away.

So it's time for 5th place, and to my non-surprise it is Ben. Can't believe the goons are booing, surely that's equivalent to booing a pot of yoghurt or a coat hanger? After a perfectly nice and reasonably forgetful exit interview and best bits it's time to release the housemate in 4th. To my HUGE SURPRISE it's not so big Verne. Obviously sex baby doll gate has hit him harder than I expected, although mercifully the endemol rentagoon crowd bawlk at booing a dwarf. The audience chant "FIX! FIX! FIX!" whilst Davina patronisingly tries not to patronise the little fella ("I'm going to let you walk down there and get your picture taken" oh THANK YOU!). I suppose she really can't help talking down to him, but it's a bit sickie making and he can't be arsed to play ball in the interview when he realises Channel 4 sent their shittest presenter to conduct it. She even starts gushing about his "new found celebrity" at one point, the thick cow. She also seems to be using every interview to slip in something about how Ulrika is really nice. This cuts no dice with Verne. "Sure Ulrika was bossy and took control of the house but that was good sometimes?" she digs desperately. "No." insists Verne bluntly. We're shown amusing clips of Verne being ritually stripped of any dignity he had (plus the doll-frenching incident WITH NO FUCKING WARNING - ugh!).

The audience deserve an act of terrorism tonight, so taken are they with shouting out like en masse retards. It's down to third place, and back in line with my expectations as Coolio's name is called, and he's all ready to gangsta shuffle down the stairs, but amusingly they make him wait around in the house like a lemon whilst channel 4 show a newish shitcom. When Coolio finally emerges he's booed by the hate mob (in fact all the top three are, unless they're actually moos and the crowd is comprised of CJD victims), but he puts on a show bless him. He also manages to utterly pwn the increasingly useless Davina, turning it very much into da Coolio show, and getting in a bit of politics about his great granddad having been a slave. Which of course pales in significance next to Coolio's CBB third place, what a journey indeed! He manages to potentially fuck up Terry by claiming that Man United fans have been voting for him (from Reading to Taunton), pretends to forget Ben's name and tells how when Verne visits his house that his kids always want to play with him and he has to explain patiently that Verne is a grown man. Ha! Big Brother try to scupper him by showing Michelle's teary face in close up throughout his interview and annoyingly HIS highlight clips (although they keep in his "bowling ball on legs" description of Tina - yay!)to remind the audience just what an evil bully he's meant to be.  Coolio's undeterred. "SHOCK ZULU" he yells triumphantly. "BOOOOOOO" go the crowd.

So it's down to the final two, surely Ulrika can't win. Oh yes she does and there's a mini earth tremor from the nations collective jaw dropping. Even Ulrika can't quite believe it. "It's a fix!" she explains. Terry exits cheerfully in second place and the most consistently good natured and likeable housemate is still booed by some dickheads, whom he acknowledges with a chirpy wave and a "That's really funneh!" No matter what people throw at Terry, you can just bet he's had worse. He's self deprecating and pleasant enough in his interview, where he reveals that he only brought in enough spare undies for a week, but seems a tad distracted and erm chemically enhanced. Predictably there's BOOS when Davina brings up the fact that he compared Big Brother voters to thickos whilst under the influence of "a few sherberts" ("They kept cutting off my supply"). Sadly no boos when he says Tina was one of his favourite people in the house, there's no justice. He starts describing his fellow housemates, and Davina points out they're all sat nearby freezing their arses off. "I'll say something nice about you all then" he laughs. Coolio reminded him of a friend who annoys everyone but whom he just finds "really funneh", and he good naturedly points out that "it's too late to start worrying" about being made to look a fool on national TV, before deciding to go for a drink ("Just to take the edge off" hmmm). His best bits are shown, reminding us that he's the best housemate to not win Celebrity Big Brother, and of the wonderfully 1980s phrase "lob on" which I aim to introduce into as many conversations as I can in the near future.

So Ulrika wins having gained 57% of the final vote (eh?) and the fireworks fail to drown out the sound of bovine boos. Davina tries her best to look after the strangely vulnerable Swedish milf. It's almost worth her winning for the look of stunned outrage on Coolio's face, even as Ulrika has just complimented him on bringing energy to the house and Davina's shrieked insanely "FANTASTIC HOUSEMATE!!!!" The crowd shout out something incomprehensible that sounds more like "Coolio" than "Ulrika" as the night fizzles out to a damp squib and I'm forced to consider turning over to watch Jonathan Woss for entertainment. So long and see you next year - if there is one.

OK I missed Wednesday night's, but never mind they repeated the important things last night.

Coolio scmoozes with the er famous LaToya: "When I get back to LA I might get to meet Janet or Michael .... or TITO!" Give her credit, her beautifully manicured face doesn't crack. They join each other on a stomach rending rendition of "Ben" - awww.

The housemates are given the opportunity to rise to secret dares given by Big Brother which are then broadcast to the rest of the house. Surely Coolio will be up for this first. Oh no it's Terry, who has to lick the armpit of a man who looks like the spawn of Catherine Zeta Jones and a sumo wrestler earning himself a shiny new token (it's just like "The Word" then. Whilst Terry shaves and bleaches his tongue Big Brother announces the second dare. Surely our man Coolio will rise to the cha...oh it's LaToya who has to lick a window free of gentleman's relish like she's on the Sunshine Bus (yet more food craziness from Big Brother - will the madness ever end!?). She hardly touches the fishy delicacy ("MMm it's so thick and salty!" will fuel a few twisted fantasies from now on though) before with her little cats tongue before Big Brother takes pity and declares her a success. Finally seventeed minutes later Coolio gets his chance to show the housemates how it's done. In the Diary Room, Big Brother tells him he must sit in a bath full of "gooey stuff" and submerge his head for 2 minutes. Our courageous rapper goes all "What you talkin bout Big Brother", claiming he won't do the dare without knowing what the gross things are and prevaricates for another seventeen minutes, surely knowing that the other housemates and us will be seeing this and mocking him. Finally he agrees and Verne counts him two minutes in the ("this shit is cold!") bath (vegetable soup, now Coolio flavoured yum!) whilst Verne counts him to two minutes. He gets his head under late, emerging with a carrot chunk bindi, but Big Brother aren't feeling mean so they pass him.  Ulrika licks a fishes eyeball (must be similar to getting off with Sven) and Tommy has to neck 3 Brainfreezes (which only Ulrika seems to have heard of. "He's in so much pain!" she laughs delightedly, which he fails and is sent to jail ("A victim of injustice and not for the first time!" he jokes whilst The News Of The World quake in their booties), before Terry shows him real solidarity ("Aww he's gonna have to sleep in there tonight", Ulrika "Only if he's not going home) and gets everyone out in the garden to keep Tommy company (poke him through the bars). Ben has to snog a real and very enthusiastic old lady who makes disturbing "Ummphh Umphhh Oomf" noises whilst eating his face.

Big Brother continue on their quest to kill a dwarf by making Verne blow a balloon up until it goes pop. Shit yeah! Collapse those little lungs, it'll be like punching two paper sweet bags. Coolio has to help him hold the balloon steady (prompting another Ulrika angst about what Verne does and doesn't need doing, forgetting that he's making it easy for people by ASKING when he needs help), but Verne makes it, through a series of gurntastic facial expressions, and the balloon blows up - sadly not in Coolio's ungoggled face.

Oooh there's another eviction. And it's LaToya surprisingly with less support than Ulrika or Ben, who leaves the house to refreshingly few boos (it would be wrong wouldn't it?) to I'm sure an intensive, searching and well pitched interview from Davina. Oh sorry I was on drugs then. Before she leaves LaToya shouts to Tommy "I'm gonna see you outside" and Tommy shouts "Of course!", adding fuel to Michelle's rumour, but I still can't see it. Maybe they've both read the script as Davina announces that it's Tommy who's next to leave less than 16 minutes later (some interview LaToya got!). It's meant to be a secret double eviction, but everyone's sussed already that the first person left too early for it to only be them, so the only surprise is the sheer level of booing for Tommy (unless there's just loads of weegies in the crowd and that's how they cheer). I'm sure Davina grills him about Marxist dialectic and I just missed this.

In the bedroom Coolio has a descreet gangsta weep, and why not, he's lost a "homeboy", he's lost a fellow septic and he might have lost his chance to meet Tito. Someone has to pay! He turns to Verne, "Ulrika was really happy to see LaToya go" he confides. Verne's little face sets solemnly. LaToya was his lady, the one woman in the house freaky enough for him to have a chance of doing sex with. Ulrika must pay. Too little too late?

Liking: Terry
Liking and thinking will win: Verne (yet more drunken whizzing around on his scooter may cleanse the viewers brain of him tonguing a Hamble doll)
Liking and third place all over them: Coolio
Liking and hoping she makes the top three: Ulrika
Sort of not minding and thinking he should do a cover of "Help the Aged": Ben

It's a quicky for yesterday's as yet again I'm in a bit of a social upheaval. :(

Verne has chilli shits, but joins in gamely directing the Big BrotherMovie (and filming himself go crazy apeshit in a baby's high chair which is just plain wrong.). Ben (resplendent in THREE scarves) is actually amusing, acting out his adulation of Coolio in a very lavender way. Coolio seems genuinely scared ("Cuz don't touch me!"). I think it's Mutya rather than Verne that's being represented by one of the baby dolls (is it Table?) but I can't be sure. Things get even wronger when he locks lips with the dolly later - it looks like a mini version of that Bjork lezza robot video. Ulrika also sends herself up well, limping around like mother courage, bewailing the absence of her "48 children". As does Terry by waffling on about the Romans "that's interesting that innit?"

Michelle gets evicted and wears a lovely white figure hugging frock,prompting the probably bulimic LaToya to whisper about how she's gained weight. Robbed of his house bitch, Coolio tries to switch his attention to Ulrika, saying he's always thought she was OK, but she's having none of it cos it's too little too late. Even if they are both Leos (change the record Coolio!).

Big Brother fucks around with the housemates giving them random tasks. Ulrika has to only speak in Swedish. Despite Coolio declaring it a "brutal" tongue she sounds pretty sultry and teaches Ben how to say "I have a big cock" which should really be in the Rough Guide.

The housemates play at doing fake nominations where Terry nominates the same two people for the exact same reasons.

Later Coolio and Verne swear to not be so starstruck about each otherand visit each other more regularly when they get out. Awwww.

Sorry it's short - not having a great day.

Liking: Terry, Verne, Coolio, Ulrika, even Boring Ben
Disliking: Tommy
Keeping a close eye on: LaToya