Why would anyone want to work for Sir Alan?

At the end of the first episode of The Apprentice, the victorious girls' team was ticked off by a furious Sir Alan Sugar for using their womanly wiles to flog fruit. The cheeky use of melons made Sir Alan nervous.

As a young lad in the East End, Sugar would have sold his own pancreas to get ahead, but he doesn't care for such blatant behaviour from the ladies.

In a later episode, when the teams were working in Topshop, cocky Syed complimented a female customer on her legs. Paul smarmed: "Buy a coat and I'll marry you." Did Sir Alan tell the boys off for using their gentlemanly wiles? He did not.

A clear, direct descendant of Blokersaurus Rex, Sir Alan has a bit of trouble with women altogether. That is what makes tonight's final of The Apprentice so compelling. Whatever happens, Sir Alan has no choice: The winner has to be female. The Lady is a Trump!

For the benefit of readers who haven't been watching, the big news is that the testosterone-charged contest to win a £100,000-a-year trainee job with Amstrad has come down to a cat-fight.

In the Persian kitten corner sits Michelle Dewberry, a 26-year-old blonde telecoms consultant who has kept her whiskers clean throughout the series and remained unknowable.

Pale and pretty, Michelle could be played by Amanda Holden, though her spookily flat delivery and blank gaze also suggest she might be possessed by aliens who accidentally landed in Hull.

Michelle made it through to the final not because she excelled at the tasks — often she has barely registered — but because her rags-to-riches tale of holding down three jobs in her teens and surviving a poor, fatherless family warmed the cockles of Sir Alan's sentimental barrow-boy's heart.

In the other corner is Ruth Badger, a 27-year-old sales manager, who is not really a cat at all. More a bouncy inflatable Tigger trapped inside the body of a Sports Utility Vehicle.

It came as no surprise to learn that she is divorcing her hubby after deciding she was a lesbian.

And how was Ruth at the tasks? Put it this way, if they'd sent the Badger in to liberate Iraq, those insurgents would have picked a fight with somebody else.

Ruth's relentless self-belief, delivered in a Wolverhampton accent so thick you could cut it like slices of Parkin, should make her thoroughly dislikeable, yet there is something about her almost childlike eagerness to be Sir Alan's apprentice that banishes cynicism.

Unlike most performers on TV, the Badger is not capable of being anything other than herself.

Both girls barely had an education. Both have modest northern backgrounds that have driven them on to better things. Michelle looks the softer and more vulnerable one, but I suspect it's the other way round.

So who is it to be — the Blonde or the Badger?

Me, I want the Badger to win because, quite simply, she deserves it. I have talked to hundreds of women who have gone believing that merit will reward. If they work like stink and deliver the goods then they reckon they'll get the promotion. Or the bonus.

But it doesn't work like that. Other factors often come into play: Good looks, submissiveness, a willingness to adopt the Tracey Temple position in negotiations.

All too often, I have sensed those standards in The Apprentice. Early on, Sir Alan fired the beautiful lawyer Karen because he seemed threatened by her poise and intelligence. It was grotesquely unfair. But as Sir Alan once boomed: "FAIR? The only bloody fair you're gonna get is your train fare!"

The biggest joke is that anyone should want to work for Sir Alan Sugar, a self-styled ogre whose views are as outdated as one of his clunky old computers.

If he hires Michelle tonight, as he probably will because it's easier to love Cinderella than the ugly sister, I hope the blonde pauses, curls her lip and fires back: "Thanks, but I've got a better offer."

I'm in love with an 80-year-old

Is it an offence to be in love with an 80-year-old? If so, I am guilty, because for most of my life I have had a crush on this older man, an adoration that only deepened when, nine years ago, he took me on a hot date in the rainforest.

Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Our small plane ran out of fuel and we had to make an emergency landing on the Colombian border, only to be surrounded by gun-toting teenage soldiers. My hero smoothed his silver hair, strode up to them and said: "Good morning!"

Danger doesn't faze him. Neither does discomfort. The rainforest was hell. It was 90F in the shade with 95 per cent humidity. I didn't just act like a wet blanket, I was a wet blanket.

Removing clothes was out of the question because any exposed skin would be bitten by something with purple fangs. Remember the useless blonde journalist in Crocodile Dundee who squealed at the creepy crawlies? That was me.

Still, it was worth it just to be there when they hoisted him in a bucket through the canopy of leaves. From 120ft came The Voice. "And here in the tropical rainforest, the birds..." Both urgent and soothing, The Voice is crystal clear without being cut-glass. Even declaiming from above the treetops, it retained the intimacy of the best doctor's bedside manner.

Is it any wonder that Sir David Attenborough is the man British people say they trust most? I was lucky enough to see him filming a fragment of The Life Of Birds. Through that and his other landmark series, he will be immortal so long as there is television and an audience to appreciate the best that it can offer.

Unbelievably, the eternal Boy Wonder turned 80 this week. He was an eight-year-old in short trousers when he became obsessed with nature, and he is still brimming over with astounding things to tell us about the world. Personally, I hope he lives for ever. Happy birthday.

On friday, I had one of the best nights of my life and here's the extraordinary thing: I was at the opera. I don't often go to the opera, having a chronic allergy to large women shouting at each other in German for five hours. But for once, in the case of English National Opera's Madam Butterfly, the staging was as beautiful as the music.

The secret, I suspect, is that it was directed by Anthony Minghella, who made The English Patient. As filmgoers, we are so used to being amazed that dusty old theatrical tricks leave us cold. An opera has to be as gripping and as overwhelming as a great movie. And this one was.

There is a backlash against fathers being present at the birth. Women are vying to tell stories about useless husbands who were a waste of space in the delivery room. Why?

We expect men to bond with their children, but then we humiliate them by downplaying their involvement in those first precious minutes of life.

When I had my first baby I felt as though I was going 12 rounds with Mike Tyson, but I hung in there because Himself was in my corner, interpreting my feelings to the staff (minus the four-letter words, obviously). He even made me laugh by reading out bits of our insanely optimistic Birth Plan. Instead of Candle-Scented Meaningful Experience, we got the bloody Battle of Arnhem.

Admittedly, he did take himself off for a full English breakfast at one point — "To build up my strength for the final stretch."

Still, the first face my daughter saw was her daddy's and I sometimes wonder if she will ever love another as much. The moment we became a family was a miracle and I wouldn't have wanted to do it without him.

Beckett deserves a dunking, not a place on the global stage

In other circumstances, I would be cheering the appointment of the first female Foreign Secretary. Less than 50 years ago, women weren't even allowed to be civil servants overseas because it was felt that they could not properly administer the rule of law nor embody the sovereign authority of the Crown.

So a woman at the helm of that great liner of state should be good news. But honestly.

Hands up anyone who wants to be represented on the world stage in a time of war by Margaret Beckett — a Rich Tea biscuit in human form.

As her haughty appearance last week on Question Time showed, Mrs Beckett is about as charming as Dracula's maiden auntie.

She is head girl of the school of thought that says: Repeat The Policy Until They Lose The Will To Live.

Mrs B has wasted no time in befriending her glamorous and formidable US opposite number, Condoleezza Rice.

What an historic encounter that must have been yesterday: The Terminator and the hostess trolley.

Poor Condi must have thought she had hit rock bottom when Jack Straw gave her a wet weekend in Blackburn. Now the poor woman may get an invite to go caravanning up the A1 with Margaret. At least Condi's punishing dawn exercise regime will mean America's Secretary of State is flexible enough to squeeze into the top bunk.

Margaret Beckett got the job because she does what she's told. Wouldn't it be great to have a woman Foreign Secretary who was more than just Her Master's voice?