"I HAVE," one female hopeful declares, with precious little trace of irony or self-awareness, "the energy of a Duracell bunny, sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit, and a brain like Einstein."

Speaking as someone who long ago accepted that he has the sex appeal of Einstein, the brain of a Duracell bunny and the energy of Jessica Rabbit, I can only look on in wonder, and not a little envy.

Another contestant says: "I'm an alpha male; I always get my own way and know how to make people do what I want." A third says of himself: "I'm a 'Great' of my generation. I'm an innovator and leader in business. I take inspiration from Napoleon; I am here to conquer."

All of which means: Oh God. The Apprentice is back.

Next week it returns for its ninth (ninth!) series. There really can't be a more pointless and unattractive show on television than this.

Like Big Brother, it was a novel idea. Back in the first episode in 2005, watching the grizzled and forbidding countenance of Lord Sugar as he surveyed his contenders' ineptitude was a reasonably funny way of spending half an hour.

That was then. As the programme has ground on, series after series, firing after firing, it has long since passed the point of self-parody. "Contrived" doesn't even begin to describe it. The grossly over-inflated egos of the hopefuls is spectacularly off-putting. Seriously, if someone told you that his business model was Napoleon you would assume he was fit only to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic.

The contenders in the new series are full of such sentiments. You know that the show's producers are banking on the pronouncements – "I just feel my effortless superiority will take me all the way" and "If somebody crosses me, it's game over" – intriguing and appalling us in equal measure and consequently making the programme unmissable. But, really, where's the appeal in seeing yet another wave of dead-eyed cyborgs in business suits being repelled by a crusty, bad-tempered panto villain and his fellow judges?

And if you think "cyborg" is too harsh, then look at how one contender describes herself: "I'm half machine. I can process things at a speed that is out of this world."

Reality TV has to lot to answer for. The listing for last night's Embarrassing Bodies chirruped gaily: "Another chance for viewers to share their most intimate problems with Drs Christian Jessen and Dawn Harper via webcam." I'm not sure which is less attractive: that, or The Apprentice.

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