After years of being a telly addict, over the last few months my screen-watching time has decreased to an hour or two a week.

I’d like to pretend that I only get my square-eyed glasses out for intellectual programming, but on the whole I tend to favour reality rubbish that allows me to shout at the TV and roll my eyes a lot.

Imagine my glee when I found out that The Apprentice was back on (and on BBC 1 proper) this week.

Alan Sugar looks like how I imagine a koala bear would if you took away its eucalyptus, but underneath his grumpy façade it is obvious that he is softer than the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Old Shugs points his stubby finger and growls “This is the job interview from hell”. This is true if you agree with Sartre that hell is other people. And I do.

Already after one episode, there are 16 (well 15 now) people who truly believe that they are God’s gift to commerce; whining and screeching their way to the top.

They were the wheat picked from 10,000 “hopefuls”. Ye gods, imagine what the CHAFF were like.

The production crew must have a checklist:

1) Do you have a vague-sounding job title? Good examples are anything involving the word executive, communication or development. Oh, you’re a Retail Communication and Development Executive? I thought they called them Sales Assistants at Argos. One candidate’s “career” this series is “bankrupt entrepreneur”. Now, correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that a twisted way of saying, “broke failure”?

2) Do you have so much self-belief that everyone else just thinks you’re an arrogant fool? Step forward the guy who uttered the genius line “When you can break bricks with your bare hands, you believe you can do anything.”

3) Do you lack the ability to listen or make any sort of decision?
Watching the candidates shout at each other “ You’re not listening!” was comedy gold and the quantum physicist who hadn’t realised that milk increases in volume when it froths, defies belief (didn’t she look like Eddie Izzard as well?).

All these candidates apparently come from well-paid jobs that they’ve left to be on The Apprentice, but you’ve got to wonder if this mis-guided bunch of megalomaniacs really want to work with Shugs, or if they just want to be on telly.

On the up side you do pick up some useful hints about how to conduct yourself in the business environment – don’t volunteer to be project manager, blame your team and most importantly – as this week’s evictee Andy pointed out – “work until you bleed!!”