Sports Relief Does The Apprentice

I watched Sport Relief Does The Apprentice last night and had to chuckle to myself when Sir Alan Sugar introduced the 10 celebrity contestants. His summing up of Kelvin Mackenzie was ‘our paths have crossed before….I recall calling you on one occasion after being treated badly by you and your response was fuck off”. My unrestrained laughter was simply because for Sir Alan Sugar read Trevor Montague. Yes for several years I have felt a sense of indignation over the time I rang Mr Mackenzie’s TalkSport studio to enquire about an unpaid bill for some work I did for him only to be greeted with exactly the same four-lettered response and a further valedictory outburst of the most vile language I have ever heard. I was so shocked my first instinct was to report the incident to the police as an assault but after talking to my father and my friend Jeremy Beadle, who informed me that this was almost a term of endearment from the former newspaper editor, I realised this would be fruitless and perhaps I was being a bit of a wuss. The truth is although my sensitivities were undoubtedly offended I considered that if this man could talk to me in such a manner for no apparent reason then he could bully anyone in a similar vein and this should not be allowed. Anyway, it was heartening to know that the great business guru had the same experience of the man as myself and in a way it laid to rest any remaining feelings of violation I may have felt. Mr Mackenzie may be a foul-mouthed bully but at least he picks on the big boys on occasion!

I don’t usually like the idea of celebrity contestants or indeed charity editions of successful shows per se as they tend to be stylised (rigged) beyond the bounds of human tolerance. Sport Relief is not one of my favourite charities after I was forced to fight a two-year campaign on behalf of 30 local special needs children from Crawley College whom I had promised a trip to Old Trafford and a signed Manchester United shirt after winning this as a prize on a Comic Relief quiz show. Between the BBC and Comic Relief they had contrived to give my prize to 30 children in the north of England, or at least that was what I was told as there was absolutely no public accountability whatsoever. My prize was clearly for 30 ‘local’ children and it was only after I threatened to pay for the trip myself but publicise the reason why, did they finally relent and give us a coach to transport the kids to Manchester. We never did receive the shirt, which I could have auctioned for thousands of pounds at one of my quizzes, but the children did have a day that they will never forget…………….and so did i. I fell asleep on the coach going home and woke up with one of the boys giving me a French kiss! I’ve never been confused!

Anyway, Sport Relief Does The Apprentice, was unusually good value. Of course it would have had its usual remit of trying to keep it real but with the characters chosen this was achieved quite naturally and Phil Tufnell and Hardeep Singh Kohli in particular were very funny and would make a great double act.
The premise for the show was that the five men and five women had to beg, borrow and steal items to be sold by them at a celebrity bash for exorbitant prices.
It was never in doubt that the more organised women were going to win, despite Bernie Ecclestone’s doubling of the men’s takings, but with Mr Mackenzie’s natural propensity to offend coupled with the equally natural juvenile humour of Hardeep, Tuffers and Nick Hancock, the result seemed incidental.
My favourite one-liners included Tuffers calling Sir Alan, Sir Sugar and Hardeep replying to Sir Alan’s story about a chapatti that disagreed with him ‘It’s your chapatti you can cry if you want to’. The award for quick wittedness also goes to Hardeep for his magnificent retort to Mr Mackenzie’s earlier reference to him being like Hitler (this prompted Hardeep to resign as team leader after 45 minutes in the job). In Sir Alan’s final summing up he told Hardeep not to expect a Christmas Card from Mackenzie to which Kelvin responded “quite right, where do you live” and quick as a flash Hardeep replied “just outside Berlin apparently”. Inspired!

Who’ll be fired? Be interesting to see if Sir Alan harbours a grudge against Mr Mackenzie. I know it’s only TV but it does add a certain edge to proceedings : )