Feb 16 2005
By Barbara Davies :
Daily Mirror
I T IS hard to find anything sweet about Sir Alan Sugar. "I'll shove it right up your bloody a**e if it doesn't work," he booms.
"I don't like bulls******s, schmoozers, liars or cheats!"
Thankfully, it's not not me on the receiving end of Sir Alan's furious tirade. The voice booming round the multi-millionaire's office is coming from an enormous TV screen at one end, not from the intimidating figure at the other.
Sir Alan, for decades a giant of British business, could be on the verge of becoming a giant of British TV.
Judging by his on-screen performance, the 57-year-old grandfather and Daily Mirror columnist will make Simon Cowell look like a master in the art of "breaking it gently".
"I do come across as pretty nasty," he says. So is this an admission that he's an old softie at heart?
No - as he says, moments later: "The beauty of the show is that there's no act whatsoever. It's for real."
The Apprentice, which starts tonight on BBC2 at 9pm, is a kind of Pop Idol of the business world, featuring 14 of Britain's best prospects competing for one "dream" job - working for Sir Alan for a £100,000-a-year salary. "When they watch the show, people are going to be thinking: 'Who'd want to work for him anyway?" he says. In fact, at his Amstrad headquarters there are several who have worked with him for more than 30 years.
Each week, the ambitious contestants will be split into two groups and given tasks to test business acumen. Every show will end with Sir Alan ruthlessly dispatching the poorest performer by pointing his finger at them and rasping: "You're fired!"
In real life, he says, it's not like that. "I've very rarely had to violently sack someone. Usually it's an accumulation of events and you end up saying: 'I'm sorry. I'm going to have to let you go.' I don't enjoy doing it, but if it has to be done, it has to be done."
T HE BBC series follows the success of The Apprentice in the US, where it was fronted by tycoon Donald Trump.
Sir Alan was the BBC's perfect choice, and not just because of the Essex mansion with eight acres or the Rolls-Royce with the number plate AMS 1.
His hard-nosed, straight-talking, aggressive style is legendary. Aged 13, he was already earning more than his father Nathan, an East End tailor.
Long after his mother Fay had tucked him up in bed at their council flat between Clapton and Hackney in East London, he would be toiling away in his bedroom, making rolls of black and white film to sell more cheaply than in the shops.
His endeavours were a direct reaction to his father's experiences. Some days, he would return home without any work.
"I suppose you would call it poverty now," says Sir Alan, "but that's just the way it was. But from a very young age I knew I wanted more than that.
"My objective was to make some money - make more money than my dad. That was all I ever set out to do. I didn't want to rely on anyone else. I didn't want a boss. I wanted independence. I wanted to control my own destiny."
The success of his camera film business spurred him on at Brookhouse comprehensive school, where he sold the produce of a mini ginger beer plant he set up at home.
He started business at 18 with £100, buying a second-hand mini-van for £50 and spending the rest on aerials to sell to the trade. As profits grew he expanded into audio equipmen and then computers.
In 1968, aged 21, he founded Alan Michael Sugar Trading or Amstrad. It became a household name when he launched Britain's first affordable word processor in 1985.
More recently, his e-m@iler, a phone with email, has taken consumers by storm. His holding company Amshold also owns the IT firm Viglen. He is the 45th richest person in Britain and has a fortune of more than £700million.
When the BBC approached him to be the big boss in The Apprentice, he he didn't hesitate.
"I really wanted to do it," he says. "I think it's a great concept. It also falls in line with the Enterprise work I have been doing with the government and the Daily Mirror to promote business. What most people don't realise is that business isn't about the big corporations. It's about Harry, who's got 10 blokes who work for him at the garage round the corner. We have got to encourage young people to be more enterprising."
And though cynics will see his show as just the latest of a wave of reality TV gimmicks, he genuinely hopes The Apprentice will provide him with exactly that.
W HILE the prize is a year's contract, he says: "I hope it's not just for a year. I hope whoever wins stays with me for ever.
"I'm getting a bit old. As you get older you start to lose your touch with design and innovation. You need young people around you. You need to mould them in your ways."
Despite that, he insists he has no intention of retiring.
"I never think about it," he says. "I still think I'm 18 years old. I keep going like a bulldozer." He has written a book to accompany the show called The Apprentice: How To Get Hired Not Fired. Its chapters have such headings as How Hungry Are You? and Do You Think Like A Winner?
Sir Alan sneers at suggestions that, hot on the heels of "nasty" stars such as Simon Cowell and chef Gordon Ramsay, The Apprentice may transform him into yet another anti-hero.
"I have control of that," he says swivelling in the giant, JR-style leather armchair behind his desk. "I'm not interested in fame." He has already had a bitter taste of that.
During 10 tumultuous years as chairman of Tottenham, he was vilified by fans after a series of rows and business wrangles which forced out the then manager, Terry Venables. At one stage, there was a website dedicated to Sir Alan's removal from the club and his private mobile number was posted on the net.
It's hardly surprising, then, that the prospect of a few members of the public shrieking: "You're fired!" across the street at him holds no fear.
"I won't repeat some of the things that have been said to me in the street over the years," he says. "I've been spat on and called all the names under the sun. Compared to that, this will be like a walk in the park."
"Anyway," he adds, "people become stars only because they want to be. I don't. I've been around for 35 years. I've been to all the bashes and the lunches. I prefer to be at home."
There, it seems, he is something of a pussycat with his wife, Ann, 56. When he met her she was a 17-year-old hairdresser earning more than he was.
"She's the complete opposite to me," he says. "She never cared about money. She just wanted the family to be comfortable."
Their elder son Simon, 35, works in the electronics business, Daniel, 33, is in property and Louise, 30, judging by the wedding photograph set in a frame engraved with the words "Daddy's girl", is the apple of her father's eye.
She is currently "babying", he explains proudly. Sir Alan has five grandchildren in all. Talk of family softens his furrowed brow. It leads him into another of his personal adages.
"Put your loved ones, not your profit margin, centre stage," he says, and something resembling a smile appears to flit across his face.
