This week on The Apprentice we have seven people left and two weeks to the final. Next Tuesday there's a "Final Five" special on BBC1. What could possibly be about to happen? ( Spoilers for Week 10 )

This week on my Twitter feed, texted tweets have been taking hours to appear which has got me irritated, then I was irritated by an overdose of Jesusy theatre, and arriving for a show to find the website had given me the wrong start time was quite irritating. Basically I've been quite irritated this week. At least I was only at home for one of The Voice episodes this week, so there's marginally fewer tweets about that.

Why didn't my Sleb Spot of Christopher Eccleston pushing a pram last night show up on Twitter? That's four Doctors I've spotted now.
10:30 AM - 17 May 12 via TweetDeck

Argh tube problems! I thought travel to Narnia was by wardrobe?
6:39 PM - 17 May 12 via trill

I think I might have scheduled too much Jesusy stuff this week #intervaltweets
8:51 PM - 17 May 12 via trill

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This week on The Apprentice, it's sort of the Margate task but with fizzy wine. Nobody suggests English Sparkling Wine should be rebranded for The Gays, which is a bit of a disappointment. ( Spoilers for Week 9 )

This week on my Twitter feed it's been mainly The Voice livetweeting again, although I did find some time last night to commentate on some Olympic-standard queue jumping at the Royal Court.

I hate to tweet about the weather but FFS, it's May. If Mr Jesus is real, can someone please tell him to check his diary?
12:42 PM - 9 May 12 via web

This is so Twin Peaks I'm convinced Bob dunnit #intervaltweets
9:27 PM - 10 May 12 via txt

Staying for post-show Q&A meant getting home after midnight, so review will have to wait till tomorrow. Sleepytime now.
12:20 AM - 11 May 12 via TweetDeck

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I had a dream last night with a surprisingly coherent storyline, told in the third person, very much like I was watching a fantasy movie. When I was a kid, our cub scout meetings were in a disused old school; the classroom where we met was the only accessible part of the building, the rest of it was out of bounds, and through the windows you could see tables and chairs stored away and covered in dust. In the dream a family was living there. They were living in the room I was familiar with, but the rest of the building was also open to be wandered around, tripping over huge cobwebs - the dad of the family had some kind of job there, I guess they were a bit like the family in The Shining. Except there were other people working there as the dad's employees. Or at least there were to start with - every night at least one of them would die (I'm not sure if they were just disappearing or bodies were being found the next day, but the impression was definitely that nothing good had happened to them.) With all the employees gone, there was only the family left, and deciding that the building was in some way cursed the dad finally got them all out of there, hurrying away. Even as they went out of the door a whole new family with their own employees pushed past them and moved in - for reasons known only to my subconscious they were all Italian. As they left the truth about the building became known to me: It wasn't the building that was cursed but the woods surrounding it. At night the dad would turn into a werewolf and kill people. His family had been kept safe because while they slept, the spiders would make webs around them, forming a cocoon that the werewolf couldn't smell them through. In the morning they'd break out of the cocoon and forget all about it, which is where those piles of cobwebs came from. As they drove away from the building it was clear the dad was no longer under the influence of the woods; but the Italian family were presumably about to go through the whole thing from scratch.

I'm familiar with Michael Moorcock's name as a legendary fantasy writer but haven't read any of his books. His writing a Doctor Who spin-off novel was considered a bit of an event though so I gave The Coming of the Terraphiles a go. It features the current team of the 11th Doctor and Amy (not even the slightest mention of Rory so I can only imagine it takes place during those few episode where he never existed; far be it from me to suggest the writer hadn't quite got himself properly up-to-date with the series) and takes place in the far future, in a number of holiday resort planets loosely modeled on Edwardian England. It features a rather vague threat to multiple universes that can only be defeated through winning a futuristic sporting tournament, and retrieving an enormous stolen hat. I'm afraid I can't say it's likely to lead me to any more of Moorcock's work - much of it is like a Wodehouse pastiche with the jokes left out, it's rather reliant on technobabble and heavily features an overly complicated, made-up sport, which worst of all is based on cricket so it was never likely to get me on-side, and I found the book a bit of a slog all things told.

This week on The Apprentice it's the "art gallery" task they do every year except this time it's TOTALLY! DIFFERENT! because the art is question is "street art" or "graffiti on a canvas" which will allow Tom to unleash previously unheard-of levels of hipster pseud.

( Spoilers for Week 8 )

This week on my Twitter feed I was online during both parts of The Voice so you would have been subjected to all my opinions on how it's totally not like The X Factor in any way, except for the ways that it is. Plus I had a cold, so you got me complaining about that as well.

Dear Marina & the Diamonds: I don't know if you've noticed, but your roots are showing.
10:08 AM - 2 May 12 via txt

A young man in tighty whities? Who on earth could they be trying to appeal to? #intervaltweets
8:24 PM - 2 May 12 via txt

Ugh. This constantly-changing weather has given me my first cold in ages.
5:30 PM - 3 May 12 via TweetDeck

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This week it's The Apprentice's "smelling what's selling" task, in which LdAlan says "smelling what's selling" a couple of hundred times, then Barren Krady says "smelling what's selling" as well, and finally Adam thinks he might have worked out what the task's about, and it might be about "smelling what's selling." How he hasn't just automatically won the whole show from that glorious bit of insight is a mystery. ( Read more )

This week on my Twitter feed the first couple of tweets make it look like I'm just some big perv or something. I mean, IMAGINE.

Well it's a bit understated but there's cocks on display so *scales gesture* #intervaltweets
8:42 PM - 25 Apr 12 via txt

Cute lad in changing room, dancing wrapped in a towel when he thinks no-one's looking = priceless.
11:33 AM - 26 Apr 12 via txt

It's good to see other companies get into the spirit of the place #intervaltweets
9:06 PM - 27 Apr 12 via txt

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I don't want to be one of those people but this really isn't a great Apprentice year is it? I'm struggling to write these things, honestly. I mean we've already had a Food Task but only just halfway through the series and we've got a second. Had not enough of the population been poisoned first time around or something? ( Spoilers for Week 6 )

This week on my Twitter feed I throw shade on the celebrations for Shakespeare's birthday, make smutty comments about The Voice and discover a new form of theatre audience rudeness.

What an, er, glorious day to be traipsing round That London's theatres.
2:26 PM - 19 Apr 12 via trill

Sleb Spot: Hannah Spearmint watching Someone Who'll Watch Over Me.
4:41 PM - 19 Apr 12 via txt

"silly" is the only appropriate word, really #intervaltweets
8:51 PM - 19 Apr 12 via txt

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The annual Mark Billingham novel is Good as Dead, this time around setting Thorne against the clock to reinvestigate a murder that had been written off as suicide. A corner shop owner suddenly snaps and takes two of his customers hostage, demanding that Thorne find his son's real killer. It sort of marks a crossover with Billingham's one-off novel In The Dark, as one of the hostages is that book's heroine, Helen Weeks. I seemed to race through this one which has to be a good sign; and as ever in among the dark subject matter there's a few remarks to make me chuckle as well. Although I did predict the minor twist that happens in the book's epilogue. And I wish the series' titles (the publisher's suggestion?) hadn't got so generic in recent years; I guess people just don't know it's a crime novel without the word "dead" on the cover.

So, what I want to know is: Was this week's Apprentice episode instead of the advertising task, or will there be a proper ad task as well? 'Cause it was pretty damn similar. I could use the opportunity to wonder whatever happened to the home shopping channel task while I'm at it, but I think we're all resigned to the fact that it got ditched for being too entertaining. ( Spoilers for Week 5 )

This week on my Twitter feed Les Mis builds a barricade in Greenwich, and I spend Sunday up some trees.

Today my iPod is particularly keen on the London Road soundtrack. EVERYONE IS VERY VERY NERVOUS!
11:00 AM - 11 Apr 12 via txt

Sleb Spot: James Fleet, Shaftesbury Ave.
5:54 PM - 12 Apr 12 via txt

To be fair, with a sister like Roseanne no wonder she went on the morphine #intervaltweets
8:49 PM - 12 Apr 12 via txt

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Another theatrical dream, although this time I wasn't on stage; I might not even have been in the audience, the third section in particular felt like a film or comedy sketch about a disastrous school performance. The beginning's a bit fuzzy but it involved some kind of controversial political piece, which some members of the audience weren't responding to very well. There was some muttering of disagreement to whatever point was being made, until one member of the audience, who I recognised as an actor I'd seen on stage before, loudly quoted a very melodramatic speech which he clearly expected would turn the audience back in favour of the play, and which ended with his dramatically announcing "and I had to sell my son!" Unfortunately the result he actually got was a man laughing loudly as if he'd heard the best joke ever. The actor was upset by this response and his girlfriend, also an actress I recognised, had to take his hand and lead him out.

The middle section of the dream was a big musical number, and was mainly a bit of a transition from this studio theatre to a big sports hall, like in a high school, where the kids were gathered to watch a performance.

The final part was the one that felt like a comedy sketch, as the kids were sitting surrounding the sports hall (maybe basketball? It was a wooden floor) and a teacher was getting the kids on one side to bring their chairs closer to the playing area, a bit more, a bit more, until it was a triangle poking out into the stage, with one embarrassed kid out on his own at the front. A single actor wearing armour came on and stood right in front of this kid and prepared to do his speech. From somewhere else in the hall though kept coming the sound of a teacher saying "John! Sit down!" "Lucy! Sit down!" Every time the actor tried to start his speech the teacher's voice would interrupt, ordering another kid to sit down. He never did get to do the speech.

This week on The Apprentice it's that task with buying and selling rubbish, which I didn't like last time. Except it was slightly different this time, so I didn't mind it so much. Oh, I have to write more than that? OK then. ( Spoilers for Week 4 )

My metaphorical dreams of working in theatre were never particularly centred on acting myself, and now I no longer want to make that my job anyway. Nobody seems to have told that to my actual dreams though. Last night I dreamed that I was on a large stage, possibly the Lyttelton. I wasn't doing much actual acting though, I seemed to be one of those people the National casts in some of its larger productions to act as pretty much background atmosphere. In fact I seemed to have my back to the audience for the entire play, hunched over a table or bar to the side.

As a cast we seemed to be aware that the play were in wasn't very good, but didn't know quite how bad until it came to the bows, at which point almost all the audience had either left already, or rushed out now to avoid applauding. Having had my back on them all the time, I hadn't seen any of this until now. I stood next to one of the other actors who was my friend, and as we lined up he nodded towards what I'd missed: While the stage remained the Lyttelton's, the auditorium had become the Globe's, with no roof, and now only about four people standing in a row in the Yard, trying to make up for the lack of applause from everywhere else.

This week on my Twitter feed I give my highly informed insights on London architecture, tweet along with The Voice and discover the true meaning of Easter.

The 2/3 of this show that I can actually see is very good #intervaltweets
9:07 PM - 5 Apr 12 via trill

It's weird seeing Canary Wharf tube all empty, with no hot businessmen in sight.
7:42 PM - 6 Apr 12 via txt

Giving a shit whether the characters live or die can be such a struggle sometimes #intervaltweets
9:17 PM - 6 Apr 12 via txt

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Jonathan L. Howard's Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, the first in a series, follows the titular dark magician as he makes a deal with the Devil, trying to get out of the fact that he's already sold him his soul. A spin on classic stories of the genre, the novel has to feature an evil travelling carnival, which the titular humourless, vaguely Teutonic character uses to try and collect 100 souls to swap for his own, accompanied by his marginally less evil vampire brother.

It's fun, if rather ramblingly episodic, and creates a good sense of atmosphere. It's a bit neither-one-thing-nor-t'other though. It's got a spoofy tone, which means it doesn't really try to be an out-and-out chiller; but despite a nice sense of the absurd (Hell's first torment being the millennia of bureaucracy and paperwork required to actually get through the door) and its tongue firmly in its cheek, it's a bit low on laughs - a bit like Good Omens if the jokes had been rationed. Still, I got into its world enough that I'll probably check out the sequels at some point.