IT’S back and ten years older – but it is as fresh as ever. 

The Apprentice started up again on BBC1 this week and for the next six episodes – on Tuesday and Wednesdays – we at home can watch as deluded hopefuls sell themselves positively (or not) to one of the country’s most outspoken, self-made business entrepreneurs.

I am also a fan of the Young Apprentice, where we look on, open-mouthed, at the opportunists of tomorrow (aka. politicians) in creative combat.Lord Sugar presides over both these reality shows with a natural gift for sensible confrontation from the no-nonsense school of Jeremy Paxman presenting.

He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. MPs and councillors should be grilled in that style come next May.

We the electorate can - individually and collectively - point our fingers and say to whatever candidate of whichever political persuasion “You’re hired or you’re fired.”

So I have an idea for Baron Sugar (as he is also called).

How about “The Apprentice – Number 10 Special?” 

Bring in the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet and set them targets to make us feel we are hiring the best people for the jobs. Each week David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, the Green Party and a UKIP MP, along with Monster Raving Looney Party candidates and Independents, fight it out to be given the keys to 10 Downing Street.

The tasks could be:

”With a given budget can you maintain the NHS?”

“Tackle youth employment and sort out the confusion surrounding real life apprenticeship schemes.”

“Get to grips with patronising, out-dated job centres.”

Lord Sugar would ask the questions and demand an answer – no pussy-footing like they get away with on the Andrew Marr show. 

Arrogant MPs such as Boris Johnson, who refuse to answer any questions, will be given a hard time.

He could also set them targets to provide ways in which the taxpayers get value for money. 

His catch phrase is “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

And there could be a spin-off programme The Apprenticeship: Local Government.

He could ask our local councillors how they could save front-line services.

What will happen to Lollipop men and women, local libraries and special needs schools?

Lord Sugar, can I be your apprentice on this project? This is one programme I would work on for nothing.

No, I am not that stupid, I would claim the usual exorbitant expenses. 

And that’s another story.

 

DAD’S Army is being re-made as a film. 

No, don’t panic …it is …a re-make.

The original film version of the TV show.

Steptoe and Son, Porridge, and Dad’s Army featured the real cast in the big-screen versions of the small-screen TV classics – true to the cast and the writers and the initial inception.

Re-makes tend to be dead ducks. – - especially when it comes to films.Just look at “Arthur” – the first one with Dudley Moore was a comic joy.

The Russell Brand re-make was a tasteless, box office and critical disaster, just like his St Trinian’s versions.

Tom Hanks in the re-make of the Ealing comedy Ladykillers was another turkey.I don’t want film producers messing around with memories from my past. Aren’t there different songs to sing, different scripts to read?

Just one thing please don’t any ever re-make Harvey or it It’s A Wonderful Life.
 

A REPORT this week said that school children are discarding their homework to go on the internet.

I know this because I Googled it.

But it is a serious scenario when mobiles are becoming necessities in modern life.

I often speak in schools about communications. I always ask that the pupils put their mobiles on the teacher’s desk until the end of the lecture.

The last one I did they duly did this. Except at the end of the talk one of the phones went off, so I decided to answer it – buzzing and reverberating.

I decided to answer it.

It was a kid on the back row who said ‘gotcha’ Sir.

He had two mobiles – now he will go far.

 

And finally…The council’s street lamp luminaries have woken up and seen the light – shine on! Decisions can be overturned.

Plans to switch off street lights have now been replaced by installing alternative lighting methods – U can TURN the light off – but U can also TURN them back on.

Peter Grant