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Donald Trump is flying in the Trump helicopter towards the Trump tower. The music is a mixture of grandeur and high anxiety that sounds like an off-cut from Orff's Carmina Burana. Trump-world is the only place to be.

The last episode was twice the length. Bright-eyed Bill won out over laid-back Kwame. Bill's prize is to oversee the building of a new Trump tower in Chicago. It will set new standards in architecture.

They say there's going to be a British version of the show. I don't suppose it will feature Trump himself. He is too fabulous, too orange for us uptight little islanders. The British way of handling business success is to apologize for it.

The only British businessman with anything like Trump's degree of celebrity is Richard Branson. But the style couldn't be more different. Trump is the orange emperor, Branson is the world's best mate- a kind of plutocratic Jesus in beard and jeans. Trump has hair, Branson has teeth. The teeth are fixed in a perpetual grin. Please love me; please forgive me. Trump calls his empire Trump. Branson wriggles uncomfortably and calls his Virgin.

(It's a joke. I'm just playing at this, see. Such fun. And now come and watch me set a ballooning record.)

Whoever they get to front it, the British version will be a fascinating exercise in compare and contrast.
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I hadn't realized the Apprentice was such a big deal. Here in Britain it's playing on a minor channel. It hasn't caused a stir and it probably never will. It's too American for us. Last night Trump took the winners to see some football manager no Britisher will ever have heard of (sorry guys) and they hugged and Trump said "you're a special guy" and the football manger said "you're a special guy too," and they were effusive and sentimental with one another to the point where (if they'd have been Brits) I'd have been expecting them to rip one another's clothes off. It was all very foreign and embarrassing.

So too is the emphasis on winning, winning, winning. Here in Britain it's still the case that we love a good loser. Bragging makes us wilt. Self belief is all very well, but you're supposed to muffle the edges with ironic humour.

We're more devious, more dissembling. Look at Blair- the shit-eating grin, the catch in the voice, the doe-eyed modesty- that's the British style. I'm not sure I don't prefer American braggadocio. You got power? well enjoy it, radiate it, be what you are!

But here's one piece of cultural crossover. When Trump says "you're fired"; I'm hearing the governessy tone of our very own Anne Robinson. "You're the weakest link; goodbye!" Oddly enough, where she's sarky and dismissive all the time, he does his best to massage the self-esteem of his young people and it's only the final line that's so frosty. I find, to my surprise, that I'm liking him. But what's with the pompadour? So far as I can make out he's combing it forward from way back then fixing it with spray- oh and dyeing it bright orange. Why would anyone in their right mind want to look like that?

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