For some of us it’s choosing, if able, to shop with local businesses over the big supermarket chains. For others it’s seeing the sense in taking a short-term hit on that pricier but more robust ironing board because you really don’t want to have to buy more than one of those ludicrous contraptions between now and death. There’s a lot to be said for playing the long game with consumer choices, but while Lost in Showbiz is relieved to finally be justified in its 18-year-long pre-emptive boycott of Amstrad’s E-m@iler “superphone”, how disappointing that this stance should be vindicated by something so grotty as a racist tweet. A racist tweet over which very little has been done.
Alan Sugar did, eventually, apologise for comparing players in the Senegal World Cup team to people selling counterfeit bags and sunglasses on a beach in Marbella, in a tweet containing a typo. If only this owner of a global network of massive public TV screens had some way of broadcasting his apology more effectively. But by the morning after, it was business as usual. Sugar then took the opportunity to tweet out a message plugging the most appalling partnership of his Apprentice career: Sweets in the City, a brand of repackaged sweets sold at a markup so egregious that it pulls off the impressive feat of making Odeon pick’n’mix look reasonably priced. Achieving an impressive 21 retweets in four hours from Sugar’s 5.4 million Twitter followers, the message’s replies fell into two camps: those from people making race-related “jokes” even more unpleasant than Sugar’s, and those from people calling out Sugar on his previous tweet. When you think about it, this charmless man has built quite the fanbase: people who have lost all respect for him, and people who think racist comments are A-OK.
But how fitting that this star of The Apprentice, a show ostensibly built on the premise that it would educate a generation of future business moguls, has finally (and it’s only taken 13 years) provided some solid advice worth following: don’t be racist. It’s so simple when you see it written down, but here we are. Is this a business rule, or just the best way of getting through life? Hey, maybe it’s both. But in short, there it is: don’t be racist, and maybe don’t let your chairman on Twitter if you think his tweets might be.
That said, what long-term business lesson will actually be learned from this? There are no signs that the BBC is intending to follow in the footsteps of US network ABC, which cancelled Roseanne within hours of its principal star sending a racist tweet which, like Sugar’s was presented as an attempt to be amusing. In fact, there are no signs of the BBC even following in the footsteps of the BBC, which only six months ago allowed the presenter Reggie Yates to “[take] the decision to step down” from hosting Top of the Pops following comments made in a podcast interview. A BBC statement at the time noted that “we take these issues very seriously and Reggie is in no doubt about the BBC’s view of his comments”. Flash-forward to this week and the BBC’s apology generator has thrown out a slightly different set of words – “Lord Sugar has acknowledged this was a seriously misjudged tweet, and he’s in no doubt about our view on this.” There is no indication of whether Yates was jumped or pushed last year, but at the time one or both parties clearly took the situation seriously and acted accordingly. With the Sugar debacle, there’s no sign either party will do so. Maybe Sugar just shouts louder in meetings than Yates ever did. That’s what we learned from The Apprentice, isn’t it? Loud people win.
Either way, the BBC has been presented with an opportunity to send the surely-not-controversial message that tweeting racist jokes in 2018 is not on, by binning off a show that is already beginning to leave a somewhat unpleasant taste in the mouth and a decade from now may be regarded in the same way we now view Miss World and the Minipops. Most reality shows exploit contestants in one way or another, but only The Apprentice breeds a toxic culture where contestants are judged on how well they can in turn exploit the public, invariably rewarding (usually with treats worth about £12 on Groupon) the very worst side of human nature. Even with format changes aimed at softening the show – introducing partnerships rather than jobs – there is no hiding the darkness at the heart of a format that has always been about trampling. Glamourising all that is one thing, but The Apprentice’s real legacy in the UK is Katie Hopkins, and across the Atlantic it’s Donald Trump. It’s hard to think of another TV format in history that has played such a devastating role in amplifying hatred, and conjuring hatred where once there was none, on a global scale.
So let’s just say the BBC did follow ABC’s lead, or took cues from its Reggie Yates episode last year, and let’s say it threw the bathwater out with the shouting manbaby. How different would the world be without another season of The Apprentice? What would be lost? Well, think of the Trunki ride-on kids’ suitcases you see at every airport, and the Tangle Teezer brush, and those omnipresent disposable whiteboard sheets that adhere through static. Mate, those are all from Dragon’s Den. Instead, without The Apprentice we might just have to make do without one extra recruitment company or one more brand of toenail clippers. Or, based on Sugar’s current partnership, one more company selling plastic cups full of other companies’ sweets at what would appear to be a 500% markup – a product that, in these times of both the sugar tax and the public’s swing against unnecessary packaging, feels about as tone deaf as, well, an Alan Sugar tweet. We’d probably cope.
If you can’t escape your past at least enjoy it
Uncomfortable scenes this week on the Good Morning Britain sofa, with a clash between Piers Morgan (obviously) and celebrated cyclist Andrew Ridgeley. You may recognise the latter’s name – because doesn’t this cyclist share a moniker with that guy who used to be in Wham!? And yes, you’re right, but that was the problem on Wednesday: Ridgo was on the show to talk about having recently raised £1.5m by going on a charity bike ride, but Morgan was more interested in Wham!. It all got quite frosty. Morgan called him an “insufferable dick” afterwards. The usual.
On the same day, 4,336 miles away, it was a different story. Over at Orlando’s Universal Studios you would have found Ariana Richards, who was 12 when she took the role of Lex, AKA Terrified Child, AKA Grandchild of Attenborough, in the first Jurassic Park film. Pictures from Wednesday show Richards, now 38 and an artist, having what appears to be the time of her life at the theme park’s Jurassic Park ride. There’s a great photo of her doing a cheery “hiya!” wave at a velociraptor and another where she’s pulling a “wahey!” pose with two pretend gamekeepers. Does she go on the log flume? Too right she does – rewarding photographers with a tremendous “I’m soaking wet LOL” pose as she gets off.
Now let’s take another journey: 460 miles north-west of Orlando, to an old airstrip in Roswell. It’s there that we’ll currently find a clapped-out private jet. It hasn’t seen much action in years, certainly none as exciting as in its heyday, when it belonged to Elvis Presley. After months on sale there are no takers for the plane, noted the author of the Jalopnik.com blog, who spotted its listing on an auction site and wrote about it in a poignant post titled “Nobody Wants Elvis Presley’s Sad Old Airplane”.
Fame is hard work. Dealing with the period after fame can be even harder. Did Ridgeley get it right on the GMB sofa, by standing his ground? Or did Richards strike the right pose, by striking all the right poses? Each to their own, but one day all those who briefly enjoyed or endured fame will leave behind their own versions of a derelict jet; and maybe, once all this nonsense is over, it wouldn’t hurt if there were a joyful “hiya!” velociraptor photo stuck in the pilot’s sun visor.
