THE APPRENTICE, BBC1, 9pm

We greet the new series of The Apprentice with mixed feelings: there’s joy that we can spend the next few weeks marvelling at pompous, squabbling, self-important buffoons but there’s also the sad knowledge that the beginning of The Apprentice means the end of the Bake-Off. We’re swapping sweetness for bitchiness, soggy bottoms for sharp suits, and it just might take us a while to adjust.

Eighteen candidates are now installed in a posh London townhouse waiting to show Lord Sugar that they can apparently give 110% and that winning the show is their ultimate goal. They are almost outdoing The X Factor contestants in terms of gushing and hyperbole.

One of the candidates, 21 year old Elle, describes herself as “a little insane”. Another chooses Posh Spice as her business role model and one is a former Miss Jamaica. Amongst these dubious qualifications are candidates who seem, at this early stage before their hideous personalities have leaked out, impressive, such as Vana who speaks five languages and used to sell her toys on the streets of New York as a seven-year old entrepreneur. But so far my money is on 31 year old Richard, purely because he describes himself as “a Swiss Army knife of bouncy skills.”

I’m pausing to work out what that could mean and I’m pleasantly baffled.