APPRENTICE: KATIE

Whoah. What a dramatic denouement to this week's show. Wow. For those of you who saw it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who didn't...we'll come to bit that at the end shortly.

The interviewers then - the same three blokes I believe that were used last series. Old golfing buddies of Sugsy, no doubt. I do question their ability, their expertise to interview at this level. One of them, called Paul if I recall directly, I thought was blatantly inept at the job. I found him implausibly rude, and unprofessionally vulgar. He kept cutting over the answers the candidates were giving him. Hello? Earth to Paul...you're actually meant to be listening to what they're saying, not hogging airtime with your own pithy come-backs. Idiot.

And what of the apprentices? Who performed the best? Well, I'll be honest. I thought Lohit gave some of the smartest responses, seemed most at ease in the interview chair (from the footage shown, that is). A very cool customer. If I'd been one of the interviewers he would have been one of the two favoured candidates.

Tre was Mr Bull****. Sadly. Over the last eleven weeks I've really grown to like Tre. But unfortunately it seemed he was all hot air - working from his 15 different international bedrooms...sorry...offices.

Simon, I loved Simon...ohmyGod, he was like Dustin Hoffman in RAINMAN, rattling off those factlets about Sugar - a monotone stream-of-consciousness of jibber-jabbered facts, with an obessive-compulsive leg twitch that had him almost shuddering off the chair onto the floor.

Kristina, the tangerine-coloured Oirish feckin' bulldog. Yes, very reliable, and from the first few moments of tonight's show I was certain she'd get through. Oh yes. She's this year's Badger alright.

And then, there was Katie Hopkins. Yes. This takes me to tonight's startling ending. For those of you who missed it...here's what happened:

About halfway through the making-your-mind-up session in the boardroom, ol' Sugsy comes out and says, 'Katie, you're going to be one of my last two'. Katie rather oddly, doesn't leap into the air, doesn't even smile. She just flushes and looks down at her feet. Alan then goes onto to deal with the other candidates, and then after a while, realises she isn't behaving like someone who's won. He comes back to her and asks what's going on....at which point, she announces their might just be some personal issues with her relocating.

And here's what she does.

She falls on her sword. She announced that in all fairness, she couldn't rob the opportunity from the remaining two (Simon and Kristina) and offers her resignation.

Leaving, I thought, Alan looking a little bemused and off balance. How ironic, that Katie, the one candidate that everyone has been describing as brutally ruthless, without a moral center, was the one person in this entire series to to push her chair back and walk away from the table....to demonstrate at least an ounce of selflessness.

After the other two - Simon and Kristina - had left the boardroom as winners, Alan and his two cronies then discussed Katie, deciding I thought rather unkindly, that she was just 'playing her own little game'.

That's truly ironic really coming from them.

After all, the Apprentice ISN'T a job interview, not really....it's a game show. It's peepshow TV.

The job isn't for real. I don't think for one moment Alan spends any real time with the winner. He/She will basically get the £100k cheque, will go through the motions for a few months, and then we'll read about them in THE SUN parting company from Alan in about 6 months time.

Katie 'playing her own little game'? ... they're the ones 'playing a little game', I believe.