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by Johnny Bull
March 26th, 2009

You see that sleek gentleman I’ve drawn for you? Do you recognise him? You should unless the drawing’s at fault. It’s Nick from The Apprentice which has just started its fourth series on BBC2 I think. I’m not sure, I’m too terrified to watch and have been ever since the first time I looked in and noticed my old mate Nick Hewer. He looked a trifle, you could say, solemn. He didn’t used to.

He used to be a client back in the Eighties and a very good one too. He worked in a fairly scruffy PR office in London’s Covent Garden (can you imagine a scruffy office there now?) and would visit our studio in Charlotte Street, always in a rush, sometimes beating the traffic on a tiny fold-up bike. Before he’d brief us from notes in a battered Filofax there was was always a story that would make us laugh, usually at his own expense and usually about the baroque complications of his schedule or his horrible, demanding new client (not really).

He was great fun, hyper-active and intelligent. Over the odd drink he’d tell us about his days as a Catholic schoolboy in Ireland, and once he looked quite shocked when I said I hadn’t read Charles Lamb’s Essays of Elia.

But he’s now a bona fide telly star. Almost a household name. Before we know it he’ll be presenting the Baftas (if there’s any justice. He was way funnier than JR), and doing it very well. I don’t suppose he’s still got his fold-up bike, but I’d like to think he’s still got his crammed Filofax and that he makes Sir Alan laugh now and again.

Comments (4)

Absolutely right Johnny. His hair’s less impressive than it once was – almost an afro when freshly washed – and he appears to have lost that manic energy, but then again, which of us hasn’t? Nice likeness BTW; the drawing, as always in your case, is not at fault.

Posted by Paul Rodger • 27 March 2009, 11:35

Like you nipper, have never watched more than about 15 consecutive seconds of Sugar Daddy, lest I get hooked, ( I have always regarded any tv series as, basically, heroin and since Jack Regan hung up the keys to the Granada , have never dared go anywhere near a second episode of anything) I am still feeling pangs of guilt for being somehow complicit in the downfall of Jane (sic) Goody just for hunkering down for Big Brother 3 , or was it 5?. Anyway I never met Nick and I haven’t seen his current wave of glory, but the drawing is dope, as we say here in Squatney, but just for a nanosecond as the page sprung open, my good retina registered the harrowed mug of Jack Straw, who, incedentally and according to some old lefty mates who were there, tell me was a top bloke and first in line to heave a brick at old bill when necessary. Oh yeah,I have never read Essays of Elia either.

Posted by chris dorley-brown • 27 March 2009, 18:02

I wish to apply for membership of the “I have never read Essays of Elia” club, but have to confess I would almost qualify for the “I have never seen The Apprentice” club. Tried to watch it once, but found it really scarey, and had to hide behind the sofa every time AS shouted “you’re fired!” Had always thought he must be a bit of an odd bloke ever since I bought one of those Amstrads. Good blog though.

Posted by Disaster Historian • 28 March 2009, 07:57

My mum, occasionally given to moments of Catholic piety would have said without much prompting, “It just goes to show money doesn’t buy you happiness.” especially the intro where The Shoog sits atop a white motor yacht, a sort of five-storey floating fridge, scowling expertly – probably working up a bollocking for the chauffeur – looking every inch the niggled and narked man he appears in his ice palace of punishment.
Mum had a point though: I think I’d rather be bust than have to hang in Monte Bleedin Carlo.

Posted by chuck loyola • 28 March 2009, 11:52