Dear Alan Sugar

Dear Alan, Lord, Sir, Del Boy,

Generally, I am stuck for jokes. I write a piece about modern art, say, only to end up forcefully comparing Damien Hirst’s latest oeuvre to a pickled turd. Artful journalism it is not. But then, once a year, The Apprentice shows up and the jokes write themselves. So, hurrah from me.

However, I am not writing to praise you. Rather, I want to complain about your disagreeable work ethic that goes along the lines of: “Don’t expect me to do all the work. I don’t expect a sleeping partner. I’m not St. Alan, the patron saint of bloody losers. If things are going wrong, I’m going to put your back on the rails, and if things are going right you’re not going to get a pat on the back, you’ll be told to do it even better still. You can look at it a bit like an uncivil partnership.”

That is business, that is.

One can almost sense, between your gay innuendo and tough talk, how hard it must have been to refrain from blurting out, all Michael Caine-esque: “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.”

I fear hard work at the best of times, with my lazy disposition, so a job with you – a rather vile, University-degree hating-Eastender – is something I would not touch. No, I just could not do it. If I had been in the boardroom – with its grim air of depressing loneliness, drabness, and greed – at the time of your pep talk, I would have gladly been taken outside and shot, there and then.

Who would be naïve enough, credulous enough, desperate enough, to want to work with such a miserable bastard? Well, as you have already taken part in the first two shows of the series, you will know.

People whose entire project management plan is to “roll with the punches.” People with nasal voices that whine “Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the Moon.” People that think mentioning good looks is necessary on a job application form. People who, if they actually put their money where their mouth is, would choke to death.

On the basis of the show’s candidates, Michael – sorry, Alan – I am afraid you really are the patron saint of losers. I know you say you are “sick and tired of this moaning culture”, but I am sick and tired of the same old reality TV twaddle being churned out year on year in the full knowledge that you are not as big as Richard Branson. Could you not at least go around with a silly quiff Trumpeting for David Cameron to disclose some pointless document?

I have never had my ‘own’ anyone. And although I do see the merits of a tailor, valet, and driver, I just cannot fathom how you feel an apprentice is something one cannot be without. Especially when we are talking about the heinous, sickening swarm of self-important little accountants and “entrepreneurs” that want your prize. Sure, they look nice. In their red ties and light grey suits, they look the part. But it is just a sign of their preposterous vanity. Their business acumen is putrid.

And why do you make a big song and dance about these pathetic little tasks and then judge someone’s entrepreneurial sense on their ability to use a fruit juicer? You have taken dim-wittedness to the extreme. You are no better than your gold-digging minion monkeys. It makes me ill. And to call the whole thing a “Process”. What is this, a Morcheeba track? The vanity!

Oh, the wretchedness of it all. Ever since Margaret left the show, nothing has been the same. Please end it all. Before someone makes the pronouncement: “I’m in it to win it.”

And I wonder if you know that it is rude to point?

Yours firedly,

Charles.