The Apprentice. Depending on your perspective, it's Britain's weirdest game show or its funniest sitcom.
And it's a comedy where all the funniest lines seem to be improvised. Every year the show's producers manage to find a rugby team's worth of hopefuls who have apparently never seen the show before and therefore have no idea how their bombastic mission statements will come across to the general public.
Or, for that matter, their special boardroom 'business talk.'
We've collected ten of the strangest, silliest, most surreal statements from Apprentice candidates over the show's 14-year history and assembled them into one perfect storm of business bollocks.
1. "I think outside the box. If I was an apple pie, the apples inside me would be oranges"
Season six candidate Alex Epstein disappoints pie fans everywhere with his recipe for success.
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2. "And here is the River Thames, the second largest river in London."
2010 candidate Jamie Lester still works in property, but has yet to reveal what the capital's biggest river might be. Londoner Jamie nearly earned a second slot on our Top 10 with the impressively accurate: "Straight ahead of you we've got Big Ben. The face of the clock is twenty diameters in width."
3. "Karmically, they'll be retributed."
Season six's Melissa Cohen would never use an off-the peg word when one of her bespoke linguistic inventions was available. It's hard to pick just one favourite: 'no room for manoeuvrement' and 'I find it difficult to conversate with her' also made the shortlist.
4. "My first word wasn't mummy, it was money."
Another Series 6 favourite, Shibby Robati, gave us all a warm fuzzy feeling inside when she said that.
5. "I'm not a show pony, or a one-tricky pony. I'm not a jack-ass or a stubborn mule, and I'm definitely not a wild stallion that needs to be tamed. I am the champion thoroughbred that this process requires."
Jim Eastwood – Jedi Jim – was a particular favourite from season seven. He's mainly remembered for his spooky powers of persuasion, but he also showed us that he could talk like a proper Apprentice candidate with bons mots such as this.
6. "I have the energy of a Duracell bunny, the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit and a brain like Einstein."
Season nine runner-up Luisa Zissman has a rare attack of modesty here.
7. 'Business is the new rock 'n' roll and I'm Elvis Presley.'
For sheer self-effacement, though, you can't beat underpants dancer Philip Taylor from series five. Pretty sure The King didn't dance around in his boxers though. Actually, no, he probably did.
8. "I can taste success in my spit when I wake up"
James McQuillan, Series 5. What more needs adding?
9. "What's your name? Anthony? Hello Anthony, nice to meet you Anthony."
A bit of context: in 2014, James Hill made it all the way to week eight. He did that partly by charming the suppliers of the best products for some of the tasks. The chap with the hot tubs they all wanted was called Anthony. James gave it the full Dale Carnegie: gripping the chap's hand, he said the line above.
That's exactly how they teach you to remember a new contact in business school. You can tell that it works too – James remembered Anthony's name right up until it was time to say goodbye, when he said "Nice to meet you, Derek."
It's important to remember that James did go on to win Celebrity Big Brother in 2016. While he was in the house, he remembered everyone's name.
10. "I'm not a one-trick pony, I'm not a 10-trick pony. I've got a whole field of ponies waiting to literally run towards this job."
We saved the best until last. No list of this kind would-be complete without at least one quote from the man, the brand, Stuart Baggs.
Stuart sadly died in 2015, but in The Apprentice's sixth season he was a one-man gag machine – popping out at least one superb line per episode. Who can forget "Everything I touch turns to sold," or: "Come on ladies and gentlemen, fancy a taste of my jellied eels?" or: "I don't want any arse-covering. I hate that as a practice. No arse covering – happy days!"
Let's commemorate Stuart's time on the show by running up to at least one complete stranger today and shouting "Excuse me, Sir! You look like a sausage connoisseur."
One last quote: "Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput." – Alan Sugar, February 2005.
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