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The Apprentice
Rating: 
Bangers And Cash
Rating:
Solved! It's always been a mystery that Alan Sugar's acolytes are woken in the small hours by a jangling phone on The Apprentice (BBC1).
A disembodied voice warns them they have just half an hour until the cars arrive to take them to some swish London venue where the Baron's henchmen, Karren Brady and Tim Campbell, wait with their hands clasped like pub bouncers.
Yet by that time, it's always broad daylight. Those 30 minutes have stretched to four hours. What's taken this bunch of over-confident office juniors so long?
The answer is make-up. As the third task of the series loomed, the cameras took an unusually close look at the contestants during their beauty routines.
This series of The Apprentice, helmed by Alan Sugar (above), is sharper and more entertaining than it has been for years
For some, it appears to be a matter not of rouge and lipstick but of full-scale prosthetics. There's so much hairspray in confined spaces that breathing apparatus might be required. And that's just the boys.
This series of The Apprentice, the 16th, is sharper and more entertaining than it has been for years. Gone is the flabby camaraderie of the past few seasons, replaced by an eagerness to cut each other's throats.
Nick, this week's winning project manager, crowed: 'I had the vision, I didn't really listen to anyone else.' Loser Navid took a swipe at his team leader by seething to the cameras: 'Sophie is just a silly girl.'
They're all undermining their rivals without any pretence of co-operation. It's
