Business! Business, business, business. It's the new sex, apparently, if you're one of these people who hide their Financial Times in their Razzle (Hi Ben!) or tickle your nipples with £650,000 cheques while staff at the bottom of your company's food chain clear their desks and wonder how they're going to feed their families. Business, eh? Cooorrrr! Look at the low share price on that!

You may by now have guessed that I am not one of the people described above, and find the topic about as knicker-throbbing as the sweat beads on Alan Sugar's forehead during the Apprentice titles card. And, judging by his lack of temper this week, the man himself is becoming increasingly less turned-on by the whole thing too. It's episode two of The Apprentice, everyone. Pack your Gaviscon. You're going to need it...

- Take a look at AOL's recap of the show in pictures

It's 7am at Repossession House and Mona, still trembling and teary-eyed from the week before, is trying to work out how to reply to Frances the secretary's email using, of all things, the telephone. Sir Alan, you see, is on his way to the apprentices' quarters for a early-morning briefing that will comprise several tortuous analogies and a ludicrous catwalk entrance that would make him look like Tyra Banks if Tyra Banks wasn't quite so surly.

"I hope you're all enjoying this luxury penthouse I've got for you", he snarls, as Paula and Lorraine place their feet squarely over coffee rings and Majid holds a defaced portrait of Margaret Mountford behind his back. "This is the type of place that city slickers tend to hang out in," he continues, "And your task today is all about supplying a service to these city workers. They're hungry for business, but also hungry for their lunch!"

He pauses, a second, to give everybody the opportunity to chortle, slap thighs and wipe mirthful tears from each other's cheeks. Instead, everybody pulls faces like they're being held at gunpoint by Ian Beale mid-nervous breakdown.

Yes, what with the increasing popularity of Masterchef and Come Dine With Me, Apprentice producers have decided to regurgitate a slice of the cookery programme pie and make us all endure yet another hour of morons grating their fingernails in prime time. Not only does each team have to sell lunches to office workers, but they also have to cater for two events of around 50 people each in the same evening. So what's on today's menu, then? Hearty doorstep sandwiches with a range of meaty fillings? Light, crisp, organic salads? Delicate, flavoursome canapés lifted straight from the pages of Larousse Gastronomique? No. By the looks of it, the menu created by this shower is going to start with egg (on face), followed by humble pie, and will be rounded off with a choice of fool – one of whom will get fired.

- Read part two of Joe's blog...