When the clash of civilisations comes, will it be on the desert plain and feature two armies, fiercely held beliefs and bone-crunching weaponry? Or might it come in a Moroccan souk, and feature Michael Sophocles, “a nice Jewish boy” who turns out to be “half-Jewish”, trying to buy a kosher chicken from a Muslim butcher and have it blessed in the name of Allah? The exchange with the butcher – “Who blesses the chicken?”; “A holy man”; “I have to have that chicken blessed” – was, like much of last night’s The Apprentice (BBC One), funny and very wrong. Perhaps it will be spliced into an al-Qaeda training video.

Staggering ignorance notwithstanding, this was the best/most compulsive/did-they-really-just-do-that? episode yet: the two teams had to buy a list of items supplied by the Chief Growling Gnome. It shows how extreme this series has become that what would once have had me punching a cushion – Lee McQueen’s catch-phrase “That’s what I’m talking about” – is subsidiary buzz to the lip-smacking warfare. For all their battle talk, the contestants are strangely meek: Michael bangs on about destroying any foe that dare cast a shadow over his Palm Pilot, but when confronted over a misdemean-our his wounded belligerence is less Gordon Gekko, more Scrappy-Doo.

This week, Jennifer, principally known for being Irish and wearing a hideous shiny mustard blouse, led the losing team. She didn’t check the provenance of two tagine pots (tut tut). The Berber bedspread, bought under a ruse that Alex and Claire were boyfriend and girlfriend, was too expensive. Alex’s tentative grip of French – “ Je voudrais le petit déjeuner” – would have made his fans sigh dreamily. Can the nation get over Alex please: for “brooding hunk” can we substitute “duplicitous whiner”?

Jenny (and her python-swallowing-mongoose face) tried, and failed, to bribe a man stringing tennis racquets into not stringing the opposing team’s racquets. Lucinda ran around in an impractical pink pashmina. The drama pounded relentlessly on, until the climactic boardroom in which two people were fired. Nick Hewer couldn’t understand Michael Sophocles’s faith-based ignorance – “He’s a bright lad who read classics at Edinburgh” – which led to Margaret’s brilliant: “Edinburgh isn’t what it used to be.” Sir Alan suggested he judge Michael’s half-Jewishness by making him drop his trousers. Racy.

Jenny said it was her 36th birthday and got, as a present, fired for general snakiness – and, I reckon, being horrible to Lucinda. The tartan beret will always get you. Jennifer first tried to blame Claire (“she’s a Tasmanian devil”) and then Michael for the team’s loss. She said if Sir Alan wanted a liar, meaning Michael, she’d rather not work for him. Bad move: he fired her. His remark to Michael – that his “overenthusiasm” reminded him of himself at that age – recalled his misty-eyed identification with Syed a few seasons ago. It’s a very weird form of retro-narcissism. Could Margaret have a word?

One day, instead of consolatory hugs and kisses, fire-ee and survivors will punch one another out by Frances’s desk in reception. Claire says her inner rottweiler is stirring (she’s hardly been a docile labrador). Raef has mutated into the Noël Coward of spreadsheets, dressing-gowned, quiff at full height, and given to lilting soliloquies about “integretaaaay”. A mystery: the contestants’ house seems huge, yet the boys sleep three to a room. It’s either a reverse Tardis or Raef is starting a secret quiff sex cult. More, more, more!

There was a scientific point to Sir Robert Winston’s Child of Our Time (BBC One), I’m sure, but there was also an element of “Children Say the Strangest/Funniest Things”, about owning pet frogs and being fat. This BBC version of 7 Up, with the BBC following a bunch of children as they grow up, revealed depressing stuff we probably knew: very young girls want to be thin, boys want to be rich. One on one, girls gossip, boys are silent.

Winston’s point was that in a postfeminist age when most parents proclaim open-minded parenting, the reality is that little boys like things in blue and little girls like stuff that’s pink. Only one boy bucked this trend, but he was bound to grow up interesting – his parents, though separated, still lived in the same house. Despite his dad’s admirable right on-ness, he rode a black bike not a pink one.

Out of the box

— Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, the first person to get fired in this series of The Apprentice (fish task, claimed class discrimination), has a show of paintings at the Arndean Gallery in Mayfair which “reflects on themes such as betrayal and heartbreak”. The most “relevant” piece is “Nicholas in the Renaissance”, which deals with his time on The Apprentice. “All the works have Pre-Raphaelite-style meanings which gradually expose the fascinating mind and innocent vunerability of this highly creative academic,” apparently. Stop laughing.

— The prestigious Golden Rose awards of Montreux have been awarded and Britain pretty much cleaned up: Strictly Bolshoi, Kombat Opera Presents, Skins, Hider in the House, The IT Crowd, and Peter Serafinowicz all scooped prizes. Good for Blighty, but what dross is the rest of Europe sitting through?

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