AT 74, I AM A PERFECT SPECIMEN
Lord Sugar back... and as modest as ever
FITNESS nut Lord Sugar is back in the saddle, fired up about the new series of The Apprentice and looking as well as ever... if he says so HIMSELF!
The tycoon swears by healthy eating and an exercise regime and scoffs at the notion he might be tempted to try Botox or any form of plastic surgery.
He declares: “Nah. What do I need to do? Look at me, I’m a perfect specimen of a 74-year-old.
“I’m thinking about having my teeth bleached a little bit because they look a bit brown at the moment from drinking too much coffee. But my wife said to me, ‘You can go and buy these things in the chemist shop and stick ’em on your mouth’ – and I can’t be bothered.”
We catch the tycoon after he has flown in from Australia – following a series of The Apprentice there – to his home in Florida.
Despite just one hour’s sleep, he is raring to talk and bubbling over with opinions.
Vegans get an ear bashing, his on-off TV friend Piers Morgan gets a reality check, Twitter trolls are hit for six – and there is a strong defence of the BBC licence fee.
But back to health,
Lord Sugar of Clapton puts his longevity down to working out and good genes from his mum.
“I think it is my mum,” he proudly declares.
“My mum is a very strong lady, physically strong and that’s where it comes from.
“I do keep fit. I do a lot of cycling, I play a lot of tennis, I moderate my diet
– I have a low fat diet.
“I’m not a vegan and all those bloody nutcases that do all that vegan stuff. I just have a proper, nice balanced diet and tend to watch and make sure I don’t stick on any weight.
“And if I do, I knock it off as quick as I put it on, I suppose.”
It’s this candour which has made Lord Sugar telly gold – especially when he despairs of candidates before delivering the inevitable: “You’re fired!”
The Apprentice returned on Thursday, with another 16 business wannabes vying for Lord Sugar’s £250,000 investment. But in these times where celebs can find themselves “cancelled” for an off-the-cuff remark or ill-thought-out tweet, has he pressed the self edit button on his own caustic tongue?
“I am very conscious of saying things in a correct and proper manner, but on things that I disagree with I will say it as I want to say it,” he replies.
Idiots
“If it’s something that I don’t agree with I will say what I want to say. The young actually encourage me to say even more.
“What you have is a lot of trolls on Twitter and places like that, that hang on every single word that you say.
“And if I said to you on Twitter, ‘Would you like a nice vanilla ice cream?’ someone would come on to me and say that’s racist because vanilla ice cream is white, why can’t I have a chocolate ice cream? So you get idiots like that
On things I disagree with, I’ll say it how I want
to say it
who will turn a story and make it into trouble.”
Speaking of which, was he ever tempted to ask TV’S Piers to stand in for Apprentice aide Claude Littner?
He exclaims: “Oh my God, can you imagine? I don’t think so. I’d have put him under too much pressure and he’d have ended up walking out on me like he did on ITV.
“We’ve made up our feud, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to stop keep criticising each other for our stupid remarks.
“He thinks he’s entitled to a knighthood, honestly what a joke...”
While aide Baroness Karren Brady is back on our screens, Claude is missing after suffering a terrible leg injury in a fall from an electric bike.
He is replaced, temporarily, by 44-year-old Tim Campbell – the show’s first winner, back in 2005. Of course, Lord Sugar could have considered
his original sidekick, former Countdown host Nick Hewer, 77. But of that, he jests: “It would have been a nice idea but I’d have to get him a Zimmer frame to walk around with, or one of those mobility scooters.
“Look, it was an inspired move to bring in Tim because, unfortunately, Claude had a terrible accident. I had to come up with something and get hold of somebody who not only is a very nice fella – and a very bright fella – but he’s also sat on the other side of the desk, so who better to have in there? He did very, very well.”
Before our meeting, father-of-three Lord Sugar had toyed with other journalists about setting future candidates the task of arranging his funeral. “It was a joke!” he says several times.
But is he aware of his own mortality and does he fear not achieving everything he wants?
“No,” he says matter-of-factly. “Look, a lot of my contemporaries have died, my brother died last year, my sister died two weeks later and they were sick. They were ill and my priority is my wife and I – and my family – to remain healthy and that’s what we do.
“We are very health conscious. I think a new generation of people need to do that.
Defence
“I’ve said it many times, wealth is my family, my health and that’s my wealth – that’s it.”
Speaking of wealth, the BBC has come under fire in recent months from critics seeking to scrap the licence fee or slim down the broadcaster.
Lord Sugar quickly springs to the corporation’s defence. For years the licence fee hovered around £144 – 12 payments of £12.
But it has crept up and now costs £159 – which is still great value, Lord Sugar says.
He insists: “The BBC is brilliant at what it does. It cost the licence fee holders £12 a month. It’s exceptional value for money.
“Consider what you pay for your internet connection, consider what you pay for your mobile phone. If I was the BBC and I was the boss at the BBC I would be advocating to stick that up to £20 a month. They are under tremendous pressure to try to produce programmes within the budgets that they have and I am really annoyed with people that criticise them.
“The people that criticise them don’t know what they’re talking about half the time because prices and costs of everything are going up tremendously – and yet they’ve got to put on these programmes where costs are escalating.
“I’ve got tremendous sympathy for them and I say stick the price up. It should be £200 a year.”
The Apprentice is on BBC1, 9pm, Thursday Emma Bullimore on TV: Page 29