Fastest pun in the West!

SORRY, but if I were either Kathryn or Harpreet, those being the two candidates who’ve made it through to tonight’s final of THE APPRENTICE (BBC1, 9pm), I’m not entirely sure I’d want to win.

All right, Lord Sugarplum will invest £250,000 in the winner’s business, which I dare say will come in handy. But you can win that much just by going on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and naming the planet that takes longer to spin on its axis than it does to orbit the Sun (which is Venus, obviously), and on that show the prize money comes with no ties.

The contestants don’t get told: “Congratulations! You’ve won a quarter of a million quid! Oh, and Jeremy Clarkson is now your 50/50 business partner...”

Not that having Lord Sugarlump on board with you would be a bad thing, business-wise.

Of course not. No, it’s just those relentless, painfully unfunny puns of his that I personally couldn’t cope with. Week after week, he comes out with the darned things. And does anyone ever laugh? Of course they don’t. Because puns are not funny. Ever.

Did you hear him at the end of last week’s episode, while he was still trying to make up his mind as to who to put through?

“I’m not sure if this is ‘night night’ from me as far as pyjamas are concerned,” he told Kathryn (her business being one that sells nightwear, get it?!).

“Harpreet, your dessert business,” he went on, “is it going to be Sugar-free or not..?” Good heavens, will the man ever stop?

Of course, the dynamic will change a bit once he and his winning candidate are on an equal footing. So I guess the winner can finally say what they’ve been reluctant to say for the past 12 weeks. Something along the lines of: “Give it a rest, matey.”

As for that winner’s identity, it’s whoever does the better job this evening of launching her bran-noo business.

For this, each will be assisted by some of the candidates Lord Sugarloaf sent packing earlier in the series.

Lucky them. Elsewhere this evening, there’s a new documentary series about Cornwall. Going out at 8pm on C5, it covers aspects of the county that haven’t already been covered by C4’s Devon And Cornwall, or by BBC2’s Cornwall: This Fishing Life, or by Rick Stein’s Cornwall, or by Cornwall With Simon Reeve, or by Coastal Devon And Cornwall With Michael Portillo, or by Cornwall And Devon Walks With Julia Bradbury.

This one is called CORNWALL: AYEAR BYTHE SEA. It’s narrated by Fern Britton.

Yes, it’s the same Fern Britton who had a C5 series of her own last year.

Remember that? It was called My Cornwall.