Sir Alan Sugar has found a new generation of B'Stards

Cross purposes: Parker’s six-year-old son can look more like a daughter
12 April 2012

Ben Clarke, the squat, brace-wearing yuppie parody of The Apprentice, is, at 22, too young to remember the film Wall Street, which was released the year he was born. But the spirit of Gordon Gekko lives on in him, as it does in almost all of this season's vile bodies.

As a defining characteristic, these candidates' vitriol is second only to their stupidity, and I can't be the only viewer hoping that in the final episode, Sir Alan fires the lot of them, calls the Jobcentre and gives his six-figure-salary prize to someone more deserving, like an axe murderer.

Far from being a figure of hate, though, Clarke enjoys a rabid fanbase. Internet chatrooms are a-twitter with glee over quotes such as "I'll bite his bloody teeth out". The general consensus seems to be that Ben is in it to win it; that there is nothing wrong with being aggressive if it gets you what you want.

Some critics felt The Apprentice might suffer a backlash, its format rendered woefully out of date because it shamelessly encourages contestants to be hard-nosed business people, and hard-nosed business people have been discredited by the bottomless pits of greed displayed by Sir Fred Goodwin and Bernie Madoff. Not so. In fact, the contestants seem to think that modern life requires a nose so hard that it could drill teeth.

In Ben Clarke, we see the ghost of that old Eighties anti-hero, Alan B'Stard. Even Clarke's dress sense is a tribute to the Masters of the Universe. Little wonder that Wall Street 2 is in the pipeline, or that the libertarian Guido Fawkes is suddenly the hottest political commentator in town. The Spectator's cover story this week? Greed Is Still Good.

Well, of course. For a generation of twentysomethings desperate to find their place in an ever-shrinking workforce, greed is as good as it ever was. Greed is the new green. While those in their thirties are still dutifully recycling wine bottles, their twentysomething counterparts are a more pragmatic breed.

Perhaps they feel they have to be. Disillusioned with Gordon Brown, they are rejecting the cloying, touchy-feelyness of New Labour in favour of the Tories.

Just as the generation that grew up under Thatcher reacted by voting in a New Labour government that promised to be more caring, so the generation that has grown up under Blair and Brown has reacted by rejecting political correctness.

This could have implications for the Tories, though whether they are bold enough to act on them is another matter. This sharp new breed of cut-throat twentysomethings doesn't want to hug a hoodie: it wants to succeed.

David Cameron needn't worry about the Tories being seen as the nasty party: he should simply make a virtue of what was once seen as a vice. If Ben Clarke is anything to go by, the bastard is back, and now he's more heinous than ever.

SJP's got the boy/girl thing

That Sarah Jessica Parker is overjoyed to be expecting (in the loosest sense of the word) twin girls is a no-brainer.

Obviously, a healthy baby is a gift from God whatever its gender but Parker clearly belongs to that cabal of mothers for whom life just isn't quite complete without a daughter.

How to spot this breed? Easy: they're the mums whose sons have Rapunzel-like hair.

One look at Parker's six-year-old boy tells you all you need to know about her biological urge to play dress-up: cute as a button, yes, but with a lustrous, shaggy mane that would put Elle Macpherson to shame. Thank heavens two baby sisters came along before mummy started putting him in Louboutins.

Save my new fishy friend

Some people punctuate their working days with coffee. Mine is broken up by the dry, staccato crunch of crisps.

My all-time top five: Tyrell's Ale and Cheese, Cheesy Wotsits, Cheesy Quavers (you may be noticing a theme here), Walkers Pickled Onion and Walkers Fish & Chips.

The latter is one of six new tastes dreamed up by the public as part of a competition to find a new flavour, with the winner netting £50,000 and a one per cent stake in all future profits.

As you can imagine - or perhaps you can't - the news that Fish & Chips flavour will disappear from our shelves unless the public votes for it to stay strikes fear into my very heart. This cannot be allowed to happen. Voting closes today - today! - and I urge you to cast yours now.

Text "FISH" to 51199 before the face of civilisation is forever reduced to a bland, salt and vinegar tang.

Not for the first time, life feels like an episode of Brass Eye.

Obviously, when I succumb to swine flu, the joke will cease to be funny any more. But in the meantime, to quote the late, great Kenneth Williams, "you've gotta laugh".

And then you've got to buy some Tamiflu. For who can afford the luxury of a day off work?

Happily, I am now a fully paid-up member of the Pandemic Influenza Management Scheme. But I didn't order Tamiflu because I'm a pompous twat who thinks she is far too important to get sick.

I ordered it because £56.35 seemed a small price to pay for the hilarity derived from participating in your very own Brass Eye sketch.

Google "buy Tamiflu" and you'll see what I mean. Laugh? I nearly sneezed.

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