I never much liked the Two Fat Ladies with their dirty fingernails and, at least in the case of Clarissa Dixon-Wright, the unsavoury views on foxhunting, but the Hairy Bikers - clearly forged on the same anvil by enterprising BBC producers - are a breath of fresh air. They are, as it says on the tin, hairy and they ride motorbikes. Simon King is the larger, bear-like, blond-bearded one from Newcastle (apparently a first assistant director and locations manager for film and television, recently working on the Harry Potter films), something akin to a Northeastern cross between Jerry off of ER and Chuck Aspegren, the real-life Pennsylvania steelworker cast in The Deer Hunter. David Myers is from Barrow-in-Furness, balding and slightly less beardy who, ironically, was a steelworker who joined the BBC as a make-up artist, specialising in prosthetics. They appear to be mates, but I'll be prepared to find out that they they'd never met before the pilot. They certainly have a matey chemistry as they ride around the world in search of local delicacies that they can rustle up in some tin cans over a candle on a plank of wood. Like all the best TV cooks, they love their grub. This week's episode in Turkey saw our boys knock up a Sultan's delight with stuff like char-grilled aubergines, Kasseri cheese, grated courgette, Yorkshire puddings spiced with cumin and allspice (Dave loves allspice), and a big old pot of lamb.

I can add nothing more profound to my appraisal, other than to say: it's nice when two new genuine enthusiasts come along. It's what the BBC does best.

The Apprentice: Week Eight

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

Down to seven, and one of the very finest episodes. Task: to choose two prototype product designs from some design hopefuls (no takers for the giant, fluffy banana hammock then) and flog to "the trade", just like Sir Alan's been doing for 40 years with his "ugly mush". Velocity - a sort of business-hopeful version of Tight Fit with Ansell flanked by Ruth and Michelle - picked what seemed like loss leaders to me: a Sputnik-style coat stand that fitted into a cardboard tube but had to be assembled in front of potential clients and an eighty-three quid concrete light. Meanwhile, Invicta - its gender bias very much in the other direction with Sharon taking up the "nicey nicey" slack against at least two bull elephants, Syed and Paul, and the "patsy" Tuan, who was later to admit to Sir Alan that he fills the jobs other people don't want to do - plumped for a revolutionary no-spill-no-overfill petrol can (which looked to me like the very fibreglass thing you see at product design degree shows that will never, ever feel the underside of a price gun) and a nifty looking shelf unit, or at least nifty if you just want to display a magazine, an air freshener and a candle. One priceless furniture dealer tore off the emperor's new clothes by saying, "It's bent metal." They had until a very specific 6.30pm to sell as many of these Wilf Lunn-style objets d'uselessness as their bullshit could carry to "the trade".

Syed seemed to sense that this was his last chance and threw himself into his specialist "skill set", ie. going for the kill, closing a deal and telling people he's from the East End. That, and being Syed, or "The Liar" as Sir Alan's aide Margaret christened him back at the table. He ignored Sir Alan's advice not to try to sell to the big retailers, targeting B&Q, Sainsbury's and Texaco, who, amazingly, told him to write them a letter. Eventually, he talked his way into some rich bloke's house in Lewisham, who put his name down for 300 petrol cans, lighting up the faces of Syed and Tuan like Victorian urchins at Christmas. Unfortunately, it meant that they didn't get back to base for 6.30 and the team were penalised by 25 per cent of their takings, despite Syed's convincing excuse of bad traffic ("all the roads were closed" - all of them?).

Velocity's gamble paid off, as well-targeted independent retailers on the Fulham Road for shoppers-with-more-money-than-sense liked the stupid coat stand and the lights that improve with being knocked about and chipped (a USP valiantly pushed by Ruth, who didn't believe it any more than we did). They only fucked up once, when thinking too big and being told by the owner of nine stores that he was prepared to take the hat stand but not pay for it, as the designer was lucky to have one in each of his shops. Michelle and Ruth called him a "wanker" as they left, when in fact they were the "wankers". I can't remember what Ansell did, but he did it, and the team won a day of facials at a "top" health spa. At least these three seem to like each other's company.

Unlike Invicta, whose internal animosity wouldn't fit on a dozen bent-metal shelves. Paul made the funniest faces in the boardroom and was rightly spared the final reckoning. That was down to The Liar, The Planner and The Whinger. (Only a woman, Sharon, would be accused of whingeing. If a bloke was doing it, he would be accused of interrogating an idea. Sir Alan really doesn't like women. He thinks they're nice and nice is for wimps.) It's easier if Syed thinks you're shit and tells you so in public. If he quite likes you, as he does with Tuan ("You were a soldier!"), the betrayal is more euphemistic and ultimately more depressing: "He can plan, but he can't sell."

I had hoped Syed was going. He caused Sir Alan to tell him to shut up three times, but walked away by dint of having less ovaries than Sharon, whose days have been numbered since the private jets. Sir Alan fired her because she is the wrong gender. Retaining her dignity, she did not whinge.

I loved it when Paul, having failed to shift some bent metal to a camp shop-owner who goes to the gym too much, observed that "these kind of people need a kick up the arse." Did he mean furniture retailers, Londoners or gays? Either way, "they're always reading books, drinking coffee and eating croissants." Not like back home in the North, eh, Paul, where people only read the Racing Post, drink beer and eat coal. Prick.

I hope Ruth wins. And if it's true that Michelle and Syed "got it on" during the filming of the series, she's off the bottom of my chart. I hope he gave it 110 per cent and proved that he is the best performer. Shut up! Shut up!


Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven

Thoughts on Chilli
The title quote comes from Ahmed, a Moroccan cab driver who often drives me home from Redhill station of an evening. (My routine is to walk to the station in the morning, a 30-minute walk, and cab it home after a hard day.) I get a cab home from Redhill so often, especially with working in London six or even seven days a week at a time currently, certain among the regular drivers know me. A handful, the friendliest, the ones who chat, ask me how I am, and I ask them back and we fall in to conversation during the five minutes the journey takes. Ahmed, whose name I only know because of his driver ID, is so familiar he seems professionally insulted if I tell him the name of my street. "I know," he will say, usually adding, "my friend," as that's the way he talks. I know he was born in Morocco as he was reminiscing about how much simpler life was then. About a week and a half ago, as we agreed that the longer daylight hours were good for the soul, he said, philosophically, "The seasons go and come." The phrase has stayed with me.

Chilli's passing, last Sunday, was all too sudden. The pain her absence causes just proves that for such a small cat, she exerted a massive presence in the house. (We knew this already, and didn't need her taking away from us to prove it.) Very few people really knew Chilli, as she was shy, shier than Pepper, although neither liked visitors much, due, we think, to being traumatised by lesbians as kittens. (No offence to our old neighbours when we lived in the flat in Streatham, but their love of cats led one of them to pick Chilli up while cooing over them, at which she leapt five feet to the ground and scarpered back to the saftey of the bedroom, scarred for life.) The pair of them would retreat to the bedroom whenever foreign voices entered the house. Especially if the voices belonged to children. Only Pepper might emerge, tentatively, hours later, but even she preferred it to be the four of us. As such, heating engineers or other single visitors might meet Peps, but rarely Chilli. She was not a lap cat. But neither was she aloof, just quiet, considered and wise. When she wanted a play-fight with her sister, or a mad moment in the garden, or a game chasing small, rolled-up corners of paper flicked by us, she would get it. And because she was less vocal than Pepper, any sound she did make was cherishable: the tuna song, the warning before she leapt up on the surface, the bird-watching chirrup, the occasional announcement. It's only now that she's been gone a whole week that we truly appreciate how big these small gestures were. We couldn't haved loved her more.

Showing no outwards signs of illness, it seems she had a heart defect of some kind, which caused the blood clot, which caused her to lose the use of her back legs, suddenly, on waking up from a serene, curled-up sleep on the sofa after Green Wing last Friday night. It was, of course, horrifying to witness, normality snatched cruelly away, confusion, distress. I won't detail her last hours, needless to say, the epilogue to a happy, loved and active life involved vets, intervention, hope and an unecessary drive (she hated the car). I'd rather not think about the Saturday and the Sunday, which is not denial, just a choice. Grief has brought with it guilt and anger, but these must fade. She was only ten, too young to die. We were counting on a lot more of her. Pepper is bearing up incredibly well, but still looks for her sis.

I have had to work every day since last Friday, whether broadcasting or writing a funny sitcom with Lee, and it's been hard. I have felt distant, disconnected and physically run down, tired, sore throat, mouth ulcers. There is a picture of Chilli on my mobile. Although you have to welcome distraction, it also seems somehow disrespectful for any kind of normality to be resumed. (Anyone who's been through the grieving process will recognise this.) I keep looking out at the willow tree, which has just started to show green. That's why I took a photo of it. Chilli would sometimes dash out, with the wind up her backside, as we used to say, and run straight up the tree. It was an incredible sight, reminding me of her adventurous spirit when we first moved to a house with a garden and they experienced the outside for the first time. Up the tree she went. I had hoped, and expected, to see her do it again now that the summer was approaching. But seasons go and come.