Back trouble can continue after healing
Winner and losers line up for latest Apprentice
PEOPLE suffering from lower back pain can continue to experience discomfort even after the initial injury has healed.
Researchers looked into acute back pain, which lasts for less than six weeks, subacute pain, between six weeks and three months, and persistent back pain, which lasts up to a year.
Professor Lorimer Moseley, from the University of South Australia said: “The good news is most episodes of back pain recover. The bad news is once you have had back pain for more than a few months, the chance of recovery is much lower.”
THE Apprentice is returning, the egos have landed and the boasting has begun.
The 18 winners and losers – but mainly losers – have already set out their stalls and made early pitches for Lord Sugar’s £250,000 investment and guidance.
One modest hopeful describes himself “a selling machine”, while another made a pact with herself when she was 13 that she would become a millionaire.
In their first task they are heading to the Scottish Highlands where the men will challenge the women to lay on successful high-end away-days for corporate clients.
It is The
Apprentice’s
18th series but
Lord Sugar, 76, has lost none of his enthusiasm for the process.
He is happy to carry on for years but pointed out his contract only currently extends to series 19. He was confident about a 20th anniversary series but said: “It’s the BBC’S call. They’re the ones that will decide whether the programme has got longevity beyond 20 series. I’m pretty damn sure that I’ll ask them to do it and we’ll do it. Me, personally, I love it. I love doing it.”
One thing he could do without is all the shouting and noise early on as candidates desperately try to avoid being fired.
He said: “A lot of the candidates in the early stages simply don’t get it. And that’s why I let them go. Do you get it? It’s as simple as that. I have to shut them up. Just be quiet. They just start screaming. It’s not good.” He said he gets his “dry humour”, which he uses in boardroom putdowns, from his late mother. The wannabes will compete in a series of challenging tasks, scrutinised by his advisers Tim Campbell and Baroness Karren Brady.
One features a virtual escape room, another is creating children’s cereal, the discount buying task is in Jersey, and a tourism challenge in Budapest, Hungary.
Candidates include two men who own pie companies, a music producer, jeweller and a boutique fitness studio owner.
Confident pharmacist Amina Khan says at 13 she made a pact with herself to “do whatever it takes to become a millionaire”.
Wellness brand owner Dr Asif Munaf boasts: “I’ve got an extremely high IQ, an extremely high bench press. And to top it off, I’m quite good on the eyes.”
Sales executive Oliver Medforth, says he will “prove to Lord Sugar I am a selling machine”. Music producer Virdi Singh Mazaria calls the other hopefuls “just extras on my journey to the top”.
While music entrepreneur Tre Lowe says: “I am going to change the world and create a legacy that reverberates through time.”
■ The Apprentice, BBC1 and iplayer, starts February 1, 9pm.