i do not love justin bieber & this week i have been mostly watching...

First, for the preliminaries. I have long been of the opinion that Twitter is stupid, but tonight I took it upon myself to make an account because I’m a rotten traitor. There was just one problem: I couldn’t. The username ‘spauren’ (a combination of ‘spaz’ and ‘Lauren’ bestowed upon me at the age of 14 or thereabouts) that I habitually use has already been taken. By this person. Needless to say, I'm horrified and would just like to clarify that I do not, I repeat do not have an obsession with Justin Bieber. And that's not me. 

Chris Bates, 100% charisma

In other news, thanks to The Apprentice, I now know that it’s possible for a man to survive a traumatic full-body hair gel immersion and go on to do great things. Charismatic contestant Chris Bates this week shined in his sales role, pitching a glorified beach towel to a series of underwhelmed business types. In fairness, it didn’t help that the towel was hilariously named ‘Cüüli’. Yes, spelt like that. No, really. It’s wreaking absolute havoc with my Spell-check. 

Chris somehow managed to drone, stutter and even sap all the humour out of the charmingly whimsical product concept, which was brimming with potential. Oh my god it’s a rolled up towel?! With a cool box in it for my water bottle?! And it comes in that stylish blue neon-nylon combo, with cute little bonus patronising umlauts? Get out of town! And buy me three while you’re there!

Ill-advised though they may have been, this woeful performance paled in comparison to the all-woman team ‘Apollo’, who richly deserve a resounding chorus of ‘bitches be crazy’. Never has so much hair-tossing and shrieking been witnessed since two days ago on America’s Next Top Model. 

On a more positive note, Channel Four's Phone Shop is a refreshing and genuinely hilarious piece of comedy, though one wouldn't expect less with Ricky Gervais as script editor. It blends realism, farce, and some wonderfully tragic characters to deliver a fairly authentic (if exaggerated) glimpse into the retail experience. After watching two epidodes I feel faintly ashamed of my sucker 24-month contract now. Oh well, at least I got too much flow for Pay As You Go. 

Phone Shop, C4