SPOILER ALERT! [if you don't want to know who was fired on The Apprentice, read no further]

The Apprentice returns
I'm hardly out on a limb here finding The Apprentice compulsive viewing. The interesting thing is that I missed the first few episodes of the first series last year, and, after a confident recommendation from my producer Leona, I caught up with it at about the third "You're fired." I was hooked. So there's a lot riding on the second series, which started tonight on BBC2. First up, they haven't done anything rash like change it. Good. It's still Sir Alan, looking like he's been created by CGI and playing up to his image of irascible East End boy-done-good who does not suffer women gladly, flanked by Margaret and Nick, who've been by his side for 25 years, you know. Anyway: 14 business hopefuls who range from appalling to teeth-grindingly appalling. Jo, 35, made redundant from MG Rover, has already crowned herself the new Saira. She keeps whooping and punching the air as if to prove to herself that she's still "got it" and was the only one to burst into tears in the boardroom when accused of being a woman.

Tonight's boys-vs-girls task - buy fruit and veg, sell it, make profit - gave early clues as the most venal of the apprentices. (Actually, the pre-task task showed the boys up to be po-faced, by-the-manual, flipchart automatons as they brainstormed what to call the team, while the girls were soppy but at least decisive.) Syed, 31, would definitely sell his own grandmother to make it. I found myself laughing out loud at his pronouncements - how upset was he that nobody else liked his suggestion of being called the A-Team? Every time he suggested it (they eneded up being called fucking Invicta), I laughed. Then, while winding up Sir Alan in the death, he was challenged to say what he'd do for Amstrad, in the unlikely event that he win, and he said, with a straight face (his only face), "Add value."

Anyway, the girls managed to get a vanload of rotten fruit for free and sell it at a profit of something like £1,100. Sir Alan accused them of buying "toot" and using their womanly charms, as if this was against the rules. (Hey, he made it by being an ugly man, he doesn't see why non-ugly women she have any advantage over His Struggle.)However, they won, and the boys' team leader, Ben Stanberry, an IT consultant who'd apparently "beaten" cancer that was diagnosed in 2001, was rounded upon by his team and got fired. He deserved to be fired. He was weak and reasonable. He wouldn't last five minutes. Also, despite his heroic efforts, the chemotherapy seems to have left him tired. He should use this opportunity to go home and get some real rest.

Syed's card has been marked. He will be happier when a few more people have been fired and he can be an A-Team all on his own.

My favourite is the only one yet to annoy me: Paul, 25. He's not necessarily my tip, but he's my favourite. He auctioned off an apple for £5. That's business acumen. But he seems less of a self-aggrandising prick than the others.

Glad to have you back, Sir Alan. You help to confirm that I hate business people with a passion.

Old Seinfelds update
Got back into watching old Seinfelds on DVD: The Cafe and The Tape from Season 3. Just for the record. Preferred the former, in which George sits an IQ test for his girlfriend and Elaine does it for him - something that, guess what, actually happened to one of the writers who wrote it. This show is a documentary. Episode-stealing Kramer moment: when he is handed the hot towel in the cafe and reacts accordingly.