Listomania

I love lists. There, I've said it. Shopping lists. Lists of clothes and electrical items for the next holiday. Christmas lists. Plant lists. You name it, there's a list.

To indulge my passion, here are a few random lists. 10 x 10!

1. 10 FAVOURITE DAVID BOWIE SONGS
1. Life on Mars
2. Starman
3. Lady Stardust
4. The Dreamers
5. Sweet Thing
6. Slow Burn
7. Hello Spaceboy
8. Modern Love
9. Wild is the Wind
10. Word on a Wing

2. 10 FAVOURITE FILMS
I'm afraid these are not very high brow. A lot of my favourite films are associated with happy times / memories and family catchphrases. You won't find any Ibsen or Ingmar Bergman here. Surprisingly, for someone who hates musicals, there are two musicals!

1. Some Like It Hot
2. Mrs Doubtfire
3. Frankie and Johnny
4. Carry On Camping
5. Jean De Florette
6. Manon Des Sources
7. The Sound of Music
8. Oliver!
9. Life of Brian
10. Ondine

3. 10 FAVOURITE ROSES

1. Gertrude Jekyll
2. Rambling Rector
3. Scept'red Isle
4. Ena Harkness
5. Queen of Sweden
6. Olivia Rose Austin
7. Zephirine Drouhin
8. Jude the Obscure
9. Princess Alexandra of Kent
10. Iceberg

4. 10 FAVOURITE BOOKS

1. Jude the Obscure: Thomas Hardy
2. Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte
3. Silas Marner: George Eliot
4. 1984: George Orwell
5. The Snow Goose: Paul Gallico
6. Great Expectations: Charles Dickens
7. The Women's Room: Marilyn French
8. Never No More: Maura Laverty
9. The Skin Chairs: Barbara Comyns
10. I Sent A Letter to My Love: Bernice Rubens

5. 10 FAVOURITE FOODS
I'm a little astonished by my own list. I've dined at many fine establishments but the tastes that please me are traditional and hark back to my roots.

1. Vintage English cheddar
2. Quiche
3. Lamb rogan
4. Avocado
5. Cream tea
6. Pasty
7. Cheese omelette
8. Poached eggs on toast
9. Cheese and tomato sandwich
10. Kettle chips.

6. 10 DISLIKES
Not a heavy list ---- ie, global warming / Nigel Farage etc.

1. Goat's cheese
2. Rocket
3. Raw celery
4. Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
5. "Les Miserables"
6. Simon Cowell
7. Films featuring swords and round tables, Jedi, light sabers, hobbits
8. Costume dramas
9. Jane Austen
10. People who text in restaurants

7. 10 RANDOM LIKES

1. The smell of sun cream on holiday
2. Scented stocks
3. Cup of tea
4. New car smell
5. Pink sky at night
6. Cats
7. Glass of champagne
8. Deserted beaches
9. Beaches in winter
10. A hot bath and big dinner after a Lake District walk

8. 10 FAVOURITE PLACES

1. Bournemouth, UK
2. Munich, Germany
3. Skiathos, Greece
4. Sri Lanka
5. Clovelly, UK
6. Exmouth, UK
7. Kefalonia, Greece
8. San Francisco, US
9. Polperro, UK
10. Borrowdale, UK

9. 10 PEOPLE I'D LOVE TO HAVE AS FRIENDS

1. Marian Keyes
2. David Hockney
3. Dr Sue Black
4. Ruth Goodman
5. Carol Vorderman
6. Julianne Moore
7. Johnnie Walker
8. Julia Bradbury
9. Monty Don
10, Vivienne Westwood

10. TEN RIDICULOUS PEOPLE

1. Donald Trump
2. Kanye West
3. Kim Kardashian
4. Simon Cowell
5. Jeremy Clarkson
6. Russell Brand
7. David Starkey
8. Donatella Versace
9. Karl Lagerfeld
10. Chris Moyles

Celebrities + Apprentice: great combo

Comic Relief has featured a couple of episodes of Celebrity Apprentice. But these were only shorts. What's good about the series being shown late on BBC1, on Monday evenings, is that it's a full - length series, Celebrity Apprentice USA.

To start with, I didn't think I would be grabbed. I've heard of about 5 of the participants - Stephen Baldwin, Gene Simmons, Nadia Comeneci, Lennox Lewis and the ubiquitous Piers Morgan - but the rest were unknowns. 

But get all those egos into one show, and make them deliver on real challenges, with the proceeds going to a charity each week, and it becomes a winning combination.

In the second show, the two teams had to produce a TV advert for Pedigree pet foods promoting a homeless dog scheme.

In the men's team, Gene Simmons (Kiss) and Stephen Baldwin decided to run the show single handed as project manager and director, and sent everyone else back to the hotel. Except for their acting talent, our own Lennox Lewis. The idea was that you have a big heavyweight boxing champion going all soft and mushy over a poor unloved pug dog.

So convinced were they of success they didn't even take the brief from the client, and managed to offend one of the judges, Trump's daughter Ivanka, in the process. (Both judges are Trump offspring. Isn't nepotism great?).

So you were imaging they were setting themselves up for disaster and the women's team, led by a TV executive with a most peculiar face (the effects of botox) would cruise to victory.

And quite the reverse happened. Lennox was so engaging in the ad, and it was so simple, everyone adored it and Pedigree will now use it on TV.

I had to smile because the lessons learnt from this episode are not conventional:

• get on with it if you have a great idea and don't bother consulting with clients or colleagues
• it's OK to ruffle the feathers of people you don't think are that important (Ivanka Trump) if you're convinced you're going to succeed.

Just a pity that Nadia Comeneci was fired. The women celebrities are all a bit nicey-nicey with each other and the one that should have got the boot didn't even get nominated.

Worth setting up your Sky+ folks. Catch the first two episodes on iPlayer.

The Apprentice loses its bite

The Apprentice, UK version, has moved to mainstream television on BBC1 and, regrettably, is running out of steam.

What was unmissable TV for the first two series is now formulaeic and tired. Clearly, most of the challengers were chosen simply to create good TV rather than be taken seriously as talented businesspeople. I'm horrified at the low standard. The guy who was evicted last week was a car salesman: nice enough but with no strategic vision or leadership qualities. The bankrupt entrepreneur Rory, who was evicted this week, was a prissy lecturing headmaster who was so obsessed with reining in the show's inevitable loudmouth Tre that he forgot about winning the task. Meanwhile another contender evicted this week had kept quiet about the fact he was a product designer because he was "having an off day" and missing his family. He should have resigned rather than been fired, having deprived someone else of the opportunity to take part.

The problem with Sugar and the UK format is that he's nothing more than a box shifter and what he's looking for is someone who's tactical, a salesperson and mild-mannered. Someone like Tim, who won series one after being invisible for most of the show. Any candidates with a marketing or legal background are there just for TV impact, because Sugar is not looking for impressive brains or marketing acumen.

The tasks are mostly sales focused and becoming dull: sell coffee in central London? I watched the US version when it was shown late at night on BBC2 recently and the tasks were more interesting because Donald Trump is looking for more of a visionary achiever. There were fewer of these "sell as much as you can in 10 minutes" type tasks and more around marketing and advertising.