As far as I'm concerned, 5.55am phone calls should be the preserve of Samaritans volunteers, world leaders and anyone unfortunate enough to have recently dumped an insomniac who just can't come to terms with WHY. But when permanently cheesed-off PA Frances gets on the blower and starts dishing up instructions before out-first-post, it can only mean one thing – and that thing is a queue for the shower which must rival the one at Brixton prison when it comes to surliness, bad-tempered squabbling and towel-flicking.

- See this week's show in pictures

Sir Alan Sugar, a man who's famously hard to like, has summoned his 13 remaining candidates to an east London athletics complex in order to brief them on this week's task. And, in the car, James is already whimpering away like Paula Radcliffe might after losing a race through a haunted forest. Ben, meanwhile, is brimming with bravado - as well as one or two typically unsavoury analogies. "Whoever comes up against me", he boasts, "their arseholes are going to be twitching like rabbits' noses." Oh Ben, please! I've not long since had my tea, and frankly that's no mental image to bestow on anybody – especially when I can guarantee that somebody out there will have taken inspiration from your endeavours in episode two and has only just managed to finish off that plate of congealed, week-old fusion tikka vol-au-vents.

This week, the teams have to design a piece of cut-price keep-fit equipment and pitch the prototype to three different retailers. "Fitness is big business", Alan Sugar explains, before going on to say that "people can hardly afford to pay for memberships at fancy gyms" at the moment. Hmm. So would I be right in thinking that it's no longer big business, then? Maybe, maybe not.

But what I do know, having taken a cursory glance at the dog-eared CVs on offer, is that none of this year's applicants have any kind of background in design or sports science. In fact, the closest most of them have come to either is by occasionally thumbing through the IKEA catalogue or once having planned the quickest driving route to Virgin Active. The only jobseeker who, at a stretch, might have a little useful knowledge in this field is occasional egg-chaser Ben. But then again, what equipment do you need in order to play a game of rugby - other than a squashed ball, a strip of grass, and an inordinately low IQ that you won't mind damaging further in the name of violent competition?

- Read part two of Joe's blog >>