Oh the joy of encountering children who use phrases like “broad skill base” and who think Synergy is a good name for a cheese stall. Yes, BBC1′s Junior Apprentice is here to rock your faith in the essential goodness of humanity once again, and here is our (slightly belated) guide to the little Beelzebubs who are infesting this series. Are they truly the tycoons of tomorrow, or just eye candy for Amstrad’s pederasts?

Zoe Plummer
Boxer-nosed blonde Zoe runs her own vintage clothing stall on Greenwich market, selling mummy’s cast-off Chanel handbags for 10p. I’m picturing her trotting around in over-sized high-heels, batting her mascara-caked eyelashes at shifty middle-aged men, who willingly hand over their life savings for a fleeting, sad moment of contact. Expect her to soon branch out into radical couture by scrawling “POO” in felt tip all over her My Little Pony pyjamas.

Kirsty ‘Meat’ Cleaver
Self-confessed “sports fanatic” (enjoyed solely from the couch, one would presume) Kirsty has to be the world’s foremost Janette Krankie lookalike, so if she fails to win over Lord Sugar she can rest assured that a career as an impersonator awaits. Intelligence clearly isn’t one of her assets (she’s currently studying modern studies, drama and business management), so she’ll need some type of gimmick if she is to earn enough to one day pay to lose her virginity.

Adam Eliaz
Little Adam Eliaz has the cocky demeanour and foot-wide Windsor knot of a Chelsea reserve player. He says he’d do “anything for money”, a claim that’ll be tested to breaking point later in the series when the contestants are asked to gnaw the dead skin and fungus off the feet of Sir Alan’s former sidekick Margaret in return for whatever change she can find down the side of her floral-print couch. He’ll get his bus fare to the local hospital to have his stomach pumped at the end of it if he’s lucky.

Arjun Rajyagor
By the sound of him, twitchy Arjun has already started hitting the ol’ business chalk. He asserts, bizarrely, “Everything is becoming robotic – even your house”. Clearly the only thing he knows about business is how much chisel it takes to power a bullshit-suffused blue-sky suggest-fest in Shoreditch House. “How about we project the Amstrad logo onto the moon?” he’ll propose, out of the blue, in a meeting with Sir Alan in week 5, before shuffling off to the toilet snatching at his hooter.

Emma Walker
Emma’s a clever little girl because she sold some eggs wot her widdle chickens laid when she was 13 and made lots of pennies to fill up her piggy bank. Forgetting her cutting-edge business acumen for one second, I can’t help but notice that whenever she opens her slanty gob to speak she looks like a cross between a fish gasping for air in a toxic sauna and someone having a minor stroke. What comes out of her mouth, rather than pained murmurs for help, are inane diatribes like: ”I’m passionate about changing the world… ‘cos I get angry at stuff.” Hey, at least you’ve got your chicky-wickens to cheer you up!

Hannah Cherry
Dopey Hannah Cherry thinks she has a “fun personality”. Having seen her in action, I’ll wager she meant to say she has a “personality comparable to that of a pot of crème fraiche”. In her audition tape, she bangs on and on about this stupid invention that’s locked safe in her warty gonad of a head. What’s the betting that it’s something totally ridiculous like a wind-up jumbo jet?

Rhys Rosser
Public-speaking champion and miniature Goebbels-o-gram Rhys Rosser reckons he has his finger on the pulse and wants to start his own brand of cafes “for the young people”. What will that involve? A free Vera Lynn 78 with every latte and daily live readings of Mein Kampf by urban poets?

Tim Ankers
Scruffy soap-averse Tim says, “I can shear my own sheep. I can shear other people’s sheep, I can go to any location and shear sheep.” Honestly, Tim, who gives a fuck? I can have a wank at home. I could wank someone else off. I could even go to Hampstead Heath and wank someone off there. But who fucking cares? How many millionaires made it off of wanking? A shedload more than off sheep-shearing, I’ll bet.

Words by Jack Savidge