The Apprentice

I haven't watched The Apprentice for years, but last night they had a biscuit related task: as followers of my occasional biscuit blog will know, this is a subject close to my heart. So I watched it.  Well putain de merde (pardon my French) but this is an awful piece of broadcasting.

It's long been accepted that Big Brother and its reality-TV bastard off-spring are the modern day equivalent of the circus freak show, encouraging us all to laugh at the clinically confused.  Well I think the Apprentice is actually worse. Worse because it is held up by the BBC as a triumph of satisfying their 'educate & inform' objectives as well as being 'entertaining' in a notoriously difficult area to address, that of business.

Now don't get me wrong; it is entertaining (in a 'shout at the TV and laugh at the lack of self-awareness of these idiots' kind of a way) but educating and informing about life in business?  As Lord Sugar should say : 'Oh Fuck Off' (excuse my English).

Frankly 'Hole in The Wall' or 'Wipeout' (ridiculous competitions designed to make as laugh at the fools competing) are as representative of the struggles in real-life business as The Apprentice.  Actually no, they are better that the Apprentice; at least they have no illusions as to what they are.  The 'point the finger of blame' process that ends every programme is truly cringe-inducing; is this how we want to 'educate' aspiring entrepreneurs as to the realities of business life?  Do we want people to believe that to succeed in business you need to be good at bull-shit selling techniques and back-stabbing politics?  Do we think the more irritating candidates are kept in because His Sugariness thinks they are good candidates or because they make good TV?  Has a task ever involved understanding the economics of competition or being able to assemble a sensible business plan?  Does boiling the complexities of business down to a head-to-head win/lose scenario every weak help people to understand what it takes to succeed?

OK, rant over.

I'm sorry, but letting these people loose on biscuits was a step too far.