Midlanders fail to clean up on The Apprentice

SO, it's one down and four to go.

I thought it was too good to be true, having so many Midlanders on this year's Apprentice.

Last year we had none, this time a third of the candidates are from the region.

But one of the five has gone already. Poor, glum Anita Shah, from Birmingham, was first to be fired.

I worried about our representatives when Walsall's Paula Jones was the first to say something stupid. "I wonder if you can clean people?" she mused.

Majid from Coventry wasn't much more intelligent. "It sounds like a coffee, man," was his response to the suggestion of Carpe Diem as the boys' team name.

It's a shame the girls fell out so quickly. When they were in the boardroom, it descended into a battle to put the blame on someone else - and I reckon Anita only went because she was too nice to do that.

As much as I warmed to her, especially on BBC2's You're Fired when she admitted she was a 'muppet', she was deluded with some of her comments.

She wondered whether, in 10 years time, Suralan will think he'd made the wrong decision. Sorry, love, but he won't remember you next week, let alone in 10 years.

I'm not sure what most of them do. What is Anita's job? She's a lawyer but now works as a "business strategist", whatever that is, using her "rainbow of skills".

At least I know what Philip does - he's an estate agent - but I can't understand half of what he says with his Geordie accent.
I think it was him, though, who came out with the catchy phrase "turnover is vanity, profit is sanity". Oh dear.