YOUNG APPRENTICE

BBC1

You have to hand it to Lord Sugar. As the man says, he’s been at the top of his game for 40 years, but still nothing gets past him.

“You’re young,” he observed shrewdly, as he eyed up the teenagers assembled before him.

“Don’t think you know it all. If you do, it will be embarrassing, as embarrassing as me and Nick putting on a cap and doing a rap.”

Now wouldn’t you pay money to see that?

Of course, Lord Al always goes easy with the youngsters, why he even started last night’s show by telling them he loved them.

Urggh. Give me “the job interview from hell” any day.

The Young Apprentice is like the grown-up show, only turbocharged. With a big spoiler on the bootlid.

While the adult contestants are not known for their subtlety, the teenagers lack even that modicum of self-awareness which might (occasionally) make the grown-ups bite their tongues.

Take Harry Maxwell, a 16-year-old schoolboy from Oxfordshire with a Boris Johnson barnet: “In terms of my intellect, self-motivation, confidence, and business instinct for my age, I am unrivalled. I have a pure entrepreneurial gift waiting to be unleashed and harnessed.”

Or 17-year-old James McCulloch, from Northern Ireland: “I have integrity, but when winning gets in the way of integrity, integrity goes out the window.”

Hmm. You’d buy a used car off him, wouldn’t you?

Gobbiest of the girls was 16-year-old Gbemi Okunlola, who described herself as a diva, but sounded more like the “Am I Bovvered” Lauren off the Catherine Tate Show.

With his bling watch and Don Johnson suit, young Mahamed Awale seemed to fancy himself as a bit of a bad boy. Trouble was, for all the posturing and patois, his pint-sized stature made him look more like Arnold out of Diff’rent Strokes than a street-savvy guerilla of the business world.

The task was to make and sell “frozen treats”. The boys hedged their bets, going for vanilla and cookie-flavoured ice creams, plus a marshmallow-and-watermelon flavoured yoghurt which didn’t go down too well in Southend.

The girls tried fruit-flavoured ice creams, but ended up throwing half of it away because they hadn’t bought enough fruit.

Even with the help of an electronic calculator, the girls were unable to work out their costs – “Three fours are… 28,” ventured one member of the team, before correcting herself. Not a great advert for today’s education system.

Perhaps more by luck than financial acumen, the girls came out on top, making £708.34, to the boys’ £559.25.

Mahamed, who spent much of the show bickering with James, was the first to be shown the door, but lost little of his swagger as he reclined in the back of the boss’s Roller.

“I think Lord Sugar is going to be the one who regrets it,” he said, with almost a hint of menace.

Yet, for all the bluff and bravado, one thing nobody can take away from these youngsters is that they all worked hard and made good money – an average of more than £100 each. For a day’s work in the present economic climate, that is not to be sneezed at.

They may lack modesty, and some of them may look as if they have raided their parents’ dressing up box. But these kids could teach many of today’s grown-ups a thing or two about ambition, energy and hard work.