When the opening minutes of the Apprentice have candidates declaring themselves “the Godfather of business”, tweaking the English alphabet (“How do you spell entrepreneur? M-E-R-G-I-M”) and claiming “You will see my name in lights”, you know it’ll be a brill-iant series.

And on a fish task, there was even more pollocks being spoken than usual.

The Apprentice (BBC Pics)
The Apprentice (BBC Pics)

Here are the best moments from the first episode:

1. Hugh Hefner fan Joseph Valente on his life goals:

“I want the cars, I want the girls, but most of all I want the power.”

2. Lord Sugar when introducing Claude to the candidates:

“You think this process is tough, it just got a whole lot tougher.”

3. Lord Sugar on how he wants candidates to approach the process:

“I’m sure you know of my reputation – I don’t like people to suck up to me, because if I wanted to be loved I’d go to Tinder.

4. Sam offering his tips on how to sell the calamari:

“I’m a wordsmith… my advice when you’re talking about the calamari is bring out the spicing of the cayenne, the sourness of the lemon, the crunchiness… really kind of set their sensual taste buds.”

5. Mergim trying to sell his team’s final lot of fish finger stock to a vegan restaurant:

“I’m going to offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity… fresh fish!”

6. Ruth goes for all out flattery to persuade a potential customer into a sale:

“Gosh aren’t you solid? Aren’t you lovely?!”

7. Scott’s last ditch attempt to sell his team’s remaining stock:

“I’ve got some fresh fish fingers, I practically scuba-dived and got the fish from the sea.”