Paper Monitor
10:12 UK time, Monday, 8 June 2009
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Every television critic circled this day on their calendar long ago, in fluorescent pen.
The morning after The Apprentice Final is one of those television events that requires a witty commentator to apply that first medicinal dose as fans enter the early stages of Apprentice Cold Turkey.
Usually languishing on page 28, today the TV critics are centre-stage to deliver their verdicts.
The Times is Sugar-coated, with on Sunday morning providing a sweet appetizer to The Apprentice climax that night.
Two TV spoonfuls of the millionaire means the paper's first page not covering the European elections is devoted to him. First up, his interview with Marr, which prompts this wonderful description of Sugar by the Times's Sam Coates.
"How Gordon Brown must envy him. He doesn't have charm. There's no sign of any emotional intelligence. His sense of humour is oddly stunted and he's stubborn, arrogant and mouthy. And yet the public not only love him but back him in their millions with their remote control."
Sir Alan told Marr his appointment as the new so-called enterprise tzar was "politically neutral", to which Coates had one mischievous riposte.
"'I don't see this as kind of a political thing,' opined the personal friend of Gordon Brown who has just accepted a government job and a Labour peerage."
The Times take on the final itself is that the identity of the winner is irrelevant, overshadowed by the news that Sugar's lieutenant Margaret Mountford (below) is leaving the show to write a PhD on papyrology.
"What? No more frowns, eye-rolling, eyebrows shooting skyward and withering glances? The Apprentice is only bearable because of Mountford, and Nick Hewer, and their caustic shepherding of the contestants. Can PhDs in papyrology be fast-tracked?"
Writing in the Daily Mirror, Hewer reflects on the "heartbreak" of life post-Mountford, but it's his insights on events off-camera that give his column a spark.
For instance, he reveals that no-one on Kate's team knew the French for "love" and had to ask him before they picked a name for their box of chocolates, Choc d'Amour.
And Philip was "humiliated" to be picked second-last in the teams contesting the final, and snubbed by his girlfriend Kate in the process.
Sir Alan's new apprentice features on the front pages of the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Daily Express, although interestingly there's no mention of the show in the business Bible, the Financial Times.
The Mail calls her "the new Sugar babe" and revels in the clash of what it calls the Alpha Females.
The Daily Mirror and the Sun both claim to have exclusive interviews with the winner, who now has a job working for Sir Alan's new digital signing company, Amscreen.
And in this iPlayer-sensitive age, that was an Apprentice-themed Paper Monitor with no spoiler.
Aren't we nice?
The 
