THE FINAL du du duuuuh

So here we have it folks. The shouting, the screaming, the back stabbing and the scheming is all behind us for another year. Not a huge amount to tell about this week, the candidates faced a team of meanies elected by Lord Sugar to bully them to a pulp and sift through the wreckage to see if there is still life and a valuable business plan.

Afterwards the candidates faced Sugar and the board to have their feedback and their proposed businesses picked clean. Jade was the first to leave, Lord S was unimpressed with her idea to corner the market in being annoying, clearly years of practice with that voice had set her sights on being a dominant force in shrill sounds that nobody wants to hear. Her plan, to open the UK’s biggest telecentre, with all of the annoying clichés rolled into one. Double glazing, kitchens, debt problems, energy supplies, all with Alan Sugar’s beaming smile at the top of the headed paper, to make people think everything is going to be ok as a little clone of Jade asked them if their gas and electricity was working well for them, or if not that then would they like a new mobile phone, no ok, how about a new kitchen, before being hung up on at 7:43 on a Saturday morning. To be fair to Jade it was just a crap idea and as a candidate she actually performed quite well and managed to impress Lord S to a certain degree. She came across well in the additional hour of the Apprentice, or as it has always been known, ‘You’re Fired’.

Next down was the people’s favourite Nick. He had survived last week as his sweet empire was raised to a gluey, sugary mess after Adam’s pitch and the omission from the task of his expertise in selling hot chocolate. Now he faced the final. He survived the interviews just as most of the meanies couldn’t understand his idea, or more correctly couldn’t see the point. Personally I thought it was a good move. The internet would tell you to buy ingredients for a meal you liked the look of and would have them delivered to your house along with more recipes for the left over ingredients. Somehow this would have been too technical to be worthwhile and everyone other than Nick, me and the rest of the consumers of Britain hated it. But the money man was one of them and Nick got the flick. He again seemed like a decent bloke, but after Stephen had gone everyone is going to get the decent treatment. It annoyed me a little that Stephen was allowed into the studio for ‘You’re Fired’ he is such a colossal nob they should have used the bellend clause and denied him access, the bulgy eyed gimp.

So we had a final two, and what a final two we had. Ricky was always going to be final two. I knew this from week one and stupidly put my money on Jane because she was nasty and I quite fancied her. Then I backed Duane, who I still believed went too early in the process. But I should have always gone with Ricky. He was smart, single minded, competitive and better than everyone else. He also called himself Ricky Martin and afforded me the opportunity for so many of my now world famous RM jokes, ah how we laughed. The other final two-ist was Tom. He sulked his way through the interviews and grumbled through his pitch to the board. To be fair his plan was ok, but I am sure others have been doing this before him, BBR Lay and Wheeler anyone? The only difference between their idea and Tom’s was that they were realistic towards how much people would be willing to invest and you have the opportunity to choose your own wine as well. It didn’t seem like a new idea and though Shugs was almost taken in by it he eventually saw it as too much of a risk to be making a business out of other people’s money, something he has thus far never done. So Tom got denied and Ricky won.

Tom seemed to be fair, like a massive grumpy tosser on ‘You’re Fired’ and on every single episode of the show. His fellow candidates all gave him a glowing report, suggesting that he was actually great fun and I’m sure he is, but he didn’t exhibit this at all throughout the process and that lack of enthusiasm was most likely apparent to Sugar and the decision was easy. Hard luck Tom, it could be worse, you could be Stephen.

Ricky, our winner. He was dragged over the coals for his application, full of bravado and daft suggestions that he was descended from the Heavens and that Lord Sugar is an old dog to be taught new tricks, but he defended this well suggesting he had grown in maturity over the course of the show and that he had left Ricky Martin behind and become Richard, the man for the job. Fair play to him, it worked. His daft statement got him to the process and then his ability won it for him. All of the interviewers thought him ok, Claude, the meaniest of them all said he was ‘mesmerising’, clearly he meant his copy of ‘Musica + Alma + Sexo’ that he had sent from The States. His idea for a business was very good, a recruitment business for scientific industries. He has worked in recruitment successfully and has a degree in the sciences. It was a simple idea and a simple one to back.

Well done Ricky Martin, enjoy livin la vida loca with Lord Sugar and congratulations.

And finally an aside for the three or four of you who read this blog. Thank you, I know it has been the highlight of your week.

All the best dear friends

Andrew D. Clark

The penultimate week (and last week sorry).

Hello folks,

I know, you are all devastated that I missed last week’s blog. Oh what was that nobody noticed? Oh well here is this weeks, and a little bit of last week to re-cap.

So last week saw the demise of Stephen. Of course it did, there is only so much an idiot can ride his luck before he is found out. What is disappointing is that Gabby went as well. The idea was to sell Groupon like deals to customers, offering deals on luxury items or evens via a mobile app and website. Both teams had varying degrees of success but Stephen’s obvious lack of any ability running a team resulted in his team’s failure. This highlighted Gabrielle as the least useful in the team so she got fired, alas there are no longer any attractive girls in this year’s apprentice (sorry Jade, was that too mean?). Stephen have “placed a bet” with Lord S got the boot as he had failed. Good finally some sense off you go you popeyed wally. The only sad thing about Stephen getting the boot is that Gabrielle only had half a ‘You’re Fired’ focussed on her having to share her time with that loser.

And so to this week.

The plan was to set up and market a new luxury product. Ricky, as he was by himself was teamed up with Tom and this pair of little girls focussed on male grooming products as their luxury item; not a bad idea for the lads as they clearly knew the market and were a pretty slick operation from word go.

Adam was put in charge of the other team with Jade and Nick as his team mates. They chose confectionary as their item and completely got the wrong end of the stick for the task. They chose too many different things to focus on. What had started as hot chocolate became hot chocolate, chocolates, marshmallows and jelly sweets. They then knackered their pricing with no clear direction in what to price the products at, one suggesting £2.99 one suggesting £4.99 and ignoring the idea that a luxury item shouldn’t be anything.99. they had some nice ideas for their retail environment, serving a mixture of cocktails that matched their sweets, with a focus on the drunken jellies (Jade’s idea, bless) and had a nice, Willy Wonka looking shop front.

The lads on the other hand went uber-minimal and stuck to bland, grey packaging that didn’t either catch the eye or inspire much thought for the product, their retail environment looked equally as empty, with a barber’s chair to try out some of the facial moisturiser and a couple of relatively bare looking shelves. What they did have, though, was a well rehearsed and detailed pitch that leant their product some credibility and made the pair look very professional. They used their pitch to second guess any difficult questions that they may be asked, regarding the packaging mostly, cementing their professional appearance.

This was what led Adam and the gang down. Despite their product looking ok and the good use of their retail space they really failed to deliver on the pitch. They stumbled over questions and looked caught out by a lot of things, even old Sugsy had a pop at them during their pitch.

When it came to the boardroom it was an easy win for Ricky and Tom, meaning that they were the first two through to the final. Adam, Jade and Nick headed off to the cafe to await their fate.

Back in the boardroom there was a degree of to-ing and fro-ing between Jade and Adam in particular as to whose fault the failure of the last was, but Nick didn’t swerve any of the attention from Lord Sugar as he has run a hot chocolate business before and should have known better, Sugar isn’t a big fan of people nit using their expertise. After all of the shouting the finger was pointed at Adam. To be fair to him he got a ‘with regret’ from Lord Sugar, which is always a decent sign and despite my original dislike of the pink faced worm he did a lot to ingratiate himself with me and I think many others in the end. He did throw himself into any role with fearless aplomb, even if these acts were drowned out by the shrill northern bleating of “I’m well out my comfort zone here” or distracted by his inability to grasp what a choreographer was. In the end he was a decent enough bloke, possibly a bit sexist (maybe a lot) but anyone who has read this blog from week one will see that it is possible that I am as well.

So fair play Jade, Nick, Ricky and Tom. I have to say my money is firmly on Ricky. He is assured and hard working and looks like an upright Joe Swanson from Family Guy, “Nice work Rookie”.

I would like to add an addendum to this week’s blog. Shame on the BBC for featuring lying, vile scum like Kelvin Mackenzie on a show watched by nice and intelligent people. He is quite literally the worst kind of human being. I hope he continues to get fat on his lies until he finally bursts the lie mongering hate filled bastard.

See you all next time.

Andrew D. Clark

Week 9 don't let Jenna make a video

Hello my friends,

It is a little past that time of week again, for which I apologise, I was unable to watch our favourite programme on Wednesday and only caught up last night.

So let’s crack on. A very relevant week in the apprentice for me as I have worked for some years in the wine industry and know English sparkling wine very well. Enough in fact to assure you that the tagline ‘Less fizz more sparkle’ is the biggest load of shit I have ever heard. More on that and the multi-tasking Stephen Brady (who struggled for wickets this week against the West Indies).

The teams met with Lord Sugar in St Pancras station’s champagne bar. Here he told them that they would be setting up a campaign to raise the awareness of English sparkling wine. He then allowed Sterling to pick a player from the other team. Each of Sterling were unanimous in their selection of Nick, Adam in fact was very excited. So with the ‘Don’t pick me’ expression fading from his chops nick slid over to Sterling. Adam then grinned his way through Lord Sugar’s explanation of the tasks brief, growing pink(er) with the excitement of having his mate back.

Lord S was quite precise, telling the kids that they would be tasked with making a promotional drive for English fizz, not for selling it or marketing it in any other way.

Phoenix set about picking their PM, everyone wanted a go so they decided on a vote where you can’t vote for yourself. This fell like literally everything else in the whole world on the deaf ears of the now fully elected and seemingly un-usurp-able colossal nob that is Stephen Brady, who voted for himself, like a massive tit. When it was reiterated that he couldn’t vote for himself he voted for Ricky. Ricky Martin and the Phoenix three were back on tour.

Tom was the obvious choice for Sterling. He works in wine and does this every day, though he is obviously incapable in pronouncing Champagne. It was lucky for Sterling to have Tom as like every week, Adam was out of his comfort zone. His comfort zone being at Old Trafford, blending in with the rest of the turds. To be fair to Adam though, he has improved slightly (no mean feat I know) but has endeared me a lot, he did well with the art stuff last week and has adopted a persona of a 5 year old boy willing to try anything, it kind of suits him, and of course I apologise to him if he is not a Man U fan, the evidence for that is against him, he is after all from Manchester, I simply wanted to call all United fans turds. Oh look I did it again.

Tom had to highlight to Adam the distinction between champagne and sparkling wine, this I can’t hold against him. It is incredible the amount of people who don’t know that. With this sorted they headed out to meet some producers and as we saw later on You’re Fired, get as bevied as possible on free English plonk.

Stephen meanwhile was further demonstrating how he knows nothing about anything ever, with the exception of how to be a melt, suggesting that ‘Moet (pronounced wrong), Cava, Prosecco, they’re names that actually signify that drink...’ this is wrong on so many counts, he doesn’t know a thing and the fact that he has survived this process so far makes me question the way the programme works, surely Lord Sugar, who laid down the law in week one “this is my boardroom and this is my money” can have a bellend veto as part of his contract, starting in around week 5 with ‘all of those coming on the task step forward, Stephen, where do you think you are going?’ followed by, ‘you my friend are fired, not because you have lost tasks, oh no you have slipped by on the coattails of all of your fellow candidates, no you are fired as I invoke the bellend clause which allows me to rid this process of any obvious bellend with stupid bulging eyes and empty, echoing cranium.’ The saddest thing is after Stephen came out with his latest diatribe of utter drivel (yes I am aware of the irony Ewan), Ricky gave it validity, it really is the blind leading the stupid. He continued his outspewing of abject nonsense with ‘That is the word that springs to mind c e r t, cert’, what does that mean you feckless arse, followed by ‘another word that springs to mind to me that represents BRITISHNESS, grandeur’ moron. I felt sorry for Gabby, sat beside this fool having to listen to the endless prattling whilst trying to get on with her own work, that was the work that was good and recognised by the rest of her team and the boardroom panel as the only decent work to come out of the morning that her and the cretin spent together. It also has to be highlighted the third wonderful idea in the stream of (desire to lose) consciousness was ‘Chink’ as in chink glasses, like the English Sparkling wine industry would be perfectly comfortable with chink stamped to their bottles. Gabby simply laughed and said no.

Ricky and Jenna found themselves at Denbies Wine Estate, a chance to meet some producers and get their ideas on what the English sparkling market offers and how best to market it. Sensible. Tom and Adam on the other hand went to another and simply did some tasting. Tom spent his time harping on about vanilla from the French oak and to be fair all of the sort of things that I would be doing, Adam as has been usual when he is out of his comfort zone gave his honest evaluation of the wine ‘It is almost tangy (or tangeh) like Granny Smith’s’, cue Karren Brady’s disparaging look, but take that Brady, maybe you should spend all of you millions in learning about wine, that is quite a typical aroma characteristic of a young, fresh approached non vintage sparkling wine, now say you are sorry!

Back to the ever patient Gabrielle and the ever an utter wolly Stephen, in Tesco looking at bottles. This is branding 101 look at other things and see what works, again lost on Stephen who wasted ages traipsing round the store looking for someone to tell them about wine. Gabrielle noticed this, in fact anyone would, you are in Tesco, if you want to know where it is on the shelf, or if there is any in the warehouse because they appear to be out, then perhaps you will get some help, there won’t be award winning sommelier throughout the country, hanging around by the discounted New Zealand Sauvignon and the rose Freixenet, just in case you need a St Emilion, that has been doubled in price, then slashed in half and called a deal, to go with the Ginsters you picked up from an earlier aisle. At least as he wandered around the store looking for a ‘salesman’ Gabrielle was able to get stuff done.

To summarise the rest of the first day, Ricky and Jenna ordered props for their video shoot the next day. Ricky should have noticed Jenna’s desire for the tacky at this point, but still made the decision for her to direct the video with the incredibly skilled Stephen the next day. Nick and Jade worked their socks off with their brand ideas and their website. Tom and Adam got more and more drunk. Before they went to bed Ricky cemented the idea that the video should be sensible, that it should be quality and not too ‘gimmicky’.  

On the next day, the teams, some more delicate than others, set off about their duties. Ricky and Gabby did some website stuff, Tom and Adam recovered from their hangovers then Adam and Jade went to make their video. Adam self applied the title choreographer as in someone who tells people where to stand. Jade asked him what choreography means he said that it is telling people where they stand, he backs this up with the fact that everyone told him that was what it was. If only he had asked Jade, or a choreographer, or anyone.

The day went by, but the most important part of the day was the video made by Jenna and Stephen. It was absolutely terrible. Truly, utterly and completely rubbish. They missed the point and the mood in English sparkling wine, thinking more Lambrini and white lightning than Nyetimber and Chapel Down. When Ricky saw it he didn’t look happy.

Next the teams presented their marketing initiatives to the collection of industry experts to pass judgment. They seemed happy with Ricky and his lot until they saw the video, at this point they all looked embarrassed. ‘Why is it necessary to make it so flippant?’ best question ever.

When Tom and gang presented their presentation the panel seemed nonplussed by what was essentially a sales website and a drab video.

But to cut this pretty long story short, the teams sat in front of Lord S and he picked a winner. He was unhappy that Tom’s team didn’t really get the task, straying too much from the marketing brief, but the video killed it for Ricky. They lost. Tom and his pals got to play in a rooftop hot tub, unlucky Jade, and Ricky had to pick his co-firees.

This was easy Gabby had done well; she went back to the house. Jenna should have been safe; yes the vid was her fault, she got carried away with her daft idea and developed something utterly rubbish, but Stephen was in the boardroom facing a firing, Sugar had holstered his bellend clause, this was going to be quick and easy. Until...

Until the loose mouth, bulging eyed dickhead challenged Lord Sugar. You make me PM next week I will win (I will be on a winning team, my team mate might win it). Alan was so angered with the challenge he rose to it. He told Stephen that he would be leading next week and that he would have to win. Jenna got the flick.

Next week that little tard has to lose. I want to see Lord Sugar pull him apart and silence that offensive little bollock for good. Nonce.

OK, on to next week. This has been a bit of a rant, for which I apologise, but I am finding it harder each week to keep a lid on my distain for that horrible little man!

Still think Ricky will win overall, but we shall see!

Nice one pals,

Andrew D. Clark

Pictures n' stuff Its week 8

Ok folks, it’s that time again.

This week the teams had to commission and sell street art. Both Sterling and Phoenix had secret weapons in the shapes of Tom and Gabrielle, both of whom have an avid interest in the art industry and a decent appreciation of what they were seeing. This was helpful as it was relatively apparent that none of the others had much of a clue.

To begin, as per usual the teams picked their PMs. Stephen looked enthusiastic (or shocked, he only really has one expression) and threw in his hand to lead Sterling, backing this enthusiasm with ‘I really want to be PM’, or some other trite comment, in fact it is completely apparent now and becomes more so throughout this episode that Stephen is simply trite, he brings nothing to the table (and other such modern business clichés) and can’t seem to be able to look beyond his glowing and super incredible image of himself, he has lumbered up and nicked Adam’s mantle of most annoying person of series 8 and has smithed it into a garish, vulgar medallion to sit below his garish vulgar face; he floats like an angel of death in whichever team he is palmed onto like the fat kid at PE, bringing neither insight or ability whilst spouting sheer nonsense, sheer unintelligent drivel through the shocked looking hole beneath his bulging, idiot eyes, whilst always, ALWAYS seeming to scrape through. Gabrielle on the other hand had some basis to her drive to be PM in that she has knowledge of art and an abundance of artistic ideas and would be the most definite choice for PM of any team. Gabby got PM of Sterling.

Tom put himself forward to Phoenix, again a character with some artistic nous and was appointed accordingly. The teams at this point separated into 2 sub teams, one set going to Bristol, the birthplace of Banksy and a hub of street art, the other remaining in London. Tom sent Adam and Jade out to Bristol where they would meet and recruit some of the street artists, him and Laura hanging back in London to meet the rest, and most importantly the corporate clients who were looking to invest in some street art. Their client was Renault, the French car manufacturer for those who don’t know. Being a French company the people from Renault wanted something sexy, and current, all of which Tom seemed to grasp and reassure their buyers with the same enthusiasm as someone waking up with a massive hangover. The next step was to select some artists.

Gabrielle sent Nick and Ricky Martin to Bristol, the pair like a besuited Bill and Ben debated the pressing issue of whether they should wear ties during their meetings with the street artists, people clearly more hip than themselves, or whether they should be all open collars like the cool kids. Gabrielle and Jenna stayed in London to keep an eye on what Stephen was messing about with. The corporate client for Sterling was Beefeater Gin, obviously looking for a current and innovative approach on London, this was all of the information that Sterling gathered from them, ignoring (as Karren Brady pointed out) the issues of size, budget, location and so on. Gabrielle also made the glaring error of letting Stephen speak, ‘We are actually meeting some artists today’, he enthused, ‘that are up and coming, and so if you could “get on that train” with those artists...’ yes “get on that train” what a cretin. The gin-folk didn’t seem impressed and neither did Karren.

Next Sterling met some artists and with the kind of confidence gained from being allowed to speak out once Stephen spoke again, the first artist met being Nathan Bowen, a former builder turned successful street artist. His art was pretty decent stuff and quite patriotic with a definite London motif, his story, also interesting was met with a succession of “no ways” from Stephen like a mother hearing playground gossip. Jenna on the other hand was available to ask the right questions, i.e. how much do these pieces sell for? If only she had spoken up in the Beefeater meeting. Ricky and Nick had their first meeting with Copyright in Bristol; both seemed impressed with the artist.

Laura and Tom then experienced Pure Evil, this is the artist you proles, not Karren Brady’s smile. Despite his knowledge and enthusiasm for street art Tom failed to make a good impression with Pure, or is it Evil, who knows?  Gabby on the other hand really impressed him, her enthusiasm and interaction with the art itself winning the artist over. These exchanges were crucial as eventually both Phoenix and Sterling opted to represent the artist, Pure Evil, though, favoured Sterling.

At this point I have to say that I was a little, I won’t use the word impressed, less disdainful of Adam. He met this task in the headlong manner with which he had approached all of those previously, but with a quieter and less arrogant technique. It could be that he didn’t particularly understand the industry and rather than try and blag it (meatballs spring to mind) he sat back and gave his honest, if not a little off the mark opinion. This didn’t harm him though and ok one of the artist did say on You’re Fired, that Adam dude didn’t seem to know much about art, but he wasn’t slamming him. He almost seemed sweet and his skin didn’t illuminate until quite late into the programme. Bear in mind though that none of the artists were female, so he didn’t have much cause for dismissal. He seemed most impressed with Copyright’s work, describing it as hypnotising whilst pointing at a piece with a woman, naked but for a red wrap around her waist, mirrored as if leaning on, well, a mirror. Perhaps he felt outnumbered.

The last noteworthy artist was James Jessop, he seemed a nice, simple kind of lad whose art was quite striking, very expensive and massive; one piece would have been slightly bigger than my flat. Stephen seemed impressed with Jessop describing him and the rest of the artist fraternity as nutcases with a bit of genius in them, he probably liked the work as it was inappropriate, brash and loud, just like his stupid face. Tom and Laura didn’t seem overwhelmed with Jessop at first deciding that he wasn’t right for them, but when they failed to secure Pure Evil they were stuck with him. It wasn’t the end of the world; if one of his pictures sold they would be making a massive profit from it, trouble being they needed to sell him.

So both teams had their artists. Sterling captured Pure Evil and Nathan Bowen; Phoenix chose Copyright and were stuck with James Jessop. Now they needed to sell.

During the sales process Adam again shone. He used his roll up roll up everything must go approach, which was criticised on You’re Fired by art collectors and gallery owners, but for the actual even it worked well. Renault also seemed impressed with the work they had selected for them; it was sexy (check) but was maybe a little bit moody so instead of the £5000 that was their budget, they chose to spend £2000. Still could be worse, Sterling managed to ignore Beefeater when they turned up, eventually to be greeted by the colossal retard Stephen, who failed to offer them a drink and said ‘I wish’ when the asked for a gin. He was then left to sell them the art, so as you can probably imagine they didn’t buy any of it. This was criticised by Lord S, understandably, as they had a budget of 10000 quid for the piece, but no one had thought to ask! Despite this Gabrielle’s gallery worked well. She had the excellent idea of having Nathan Bowen doing some art live at the event, meaning that the artist was on hand to answer questions and that people had some entertainment whilst they shopped. This excellent idea was almost sabotaged by Stephen who ‘thinking outside the box’ like an imbecile thought they should stage their live art behind closed doors so that people wouldn’t see that artist. This foolery was unanimously dismissed by the rest of his team, foolery that had been conceived due to Banksy doing his work anonymously and Stephen thinking that Bowen would want this also. What a moron.

After some frantic selling and a last minute sale from Jenna the teams retired to be brought back into the boardroom the next day. Phoenix looked the stronger team but as the money was counted their failure to secure Pure Evil stood out and they lost by a few pounds. The loss wouldn’t have happened had they got Evil (or Pure), as they didn’t sell any of Jessop’s work. Sterling were off to play with paint, Stephen to somehow survive another day. Tom had some decisions to make, eventually letting Adam go back to the house. I have to admit he did deserve to return next week, this was his strongest task, a feat recognised by Lord Sugar.

Tom, Jade and Laura lined up for a firing, but to be fair there was only one who could go. Lord Sugar expanded the suspense for a while toying with sacking Tom for failing to secure Pure Evil, but Laura had been awol for most of the task, especially when it came to sales and was the candidate to be let go this time round. She deserved it but it was a shame, yet another pretty girl gone (she looked amazing on You’re Fired) with only Gabrielle holding the baton for the pretty girls in the boardroom (and it did seem a pretty lot at the beginning), if she goes then the turd polish will have to make an appearance!

Right then folks, Dara’s mental audience seem to be rooting for Tom (madness he will never win it), my money is still on Duane (damn it).

Andrew D. Clark 

Week 7 Smelling what's selling

Week 7

This week we saw the teams re-shuffled. Unfortunately for Laura she was moved from Sterling to Phoenix, a move that she must have known would mean that she wasn’t going to win this week. Stephen Brady was shifted in the other direction in what must have been an attempt to add some stupidity to Sterling. It was a week that was set up for Adam to be fired.

Lord Sugar hinted that Jade would PM Phoenix, being the only candidate thus far not to have PMd a team and after a small debate in the Sterling ranks Nick was selected to lead a team for the first time since his successful stint in week 1. The task was simple, buy in bulk, mark up and flog from a market stall. It was made even simpler by Lord Sugar, advising the teams from the get go what to do and how easy it would be. Smell what sells was his mantra which was repeated throughout the task, if only a little less than the word strategy, which by the end of You’re Fired I would quite happily never hear again.

Jade had shown in the previous task whilst selling food, which does smell and she couldn’t sell very well, that selling items without a scent would be a little difficult, but this hardly mattered. The team took so long in deciding where they would sell their stock that they had barley any time to choose what to sell. They opted for a trolley full of shite. Fake tan, little mechanical bugs, hot water bottles and cheap, unofficial iPod docking speakers were their weapons of choice, which they divided up into two even piles and took out to sell to the Essex public.

Sterling meanwhile decided quickly where they were going to set up their markets. They, with even more time to select some stock, bought almost all of the same dung as Phoenix, with the exception of the mechanical bugs, swapping them for extendable mops and beard trimmers. They did though have a secret weapon in Jenna, though. The beauty industry eer guru stepped forward, fake tan in her strangely mittened hand and released her charm onto the Essex women, desperate to be a different, more bronze colour.  Whilst Nick, Jenna and Gabrielle set up in a shopping complex to watch Jenna work her magic, Ricky and Stephen headed to an outdoor market to sell their mops. Desperate for his new duet to work Ricky slipped on his Minogueian radio mic, with the ease that highlights years of practice and started his new number one hit, “does anyone want to buy a mop”. When the song ended he and Stephen thought how the people in an Essex market would be the perfect audience to tryout their comedy double act in a routine named “I will no longer hurt my back whilst mopping with this new, wonderful, blue extendable mop”, real Monty Python stuff. Just as Morcambe and Wise struggled in sales, so did these two, so they dumped their stock and whizzed off back to the wholesaler to load up on more fake tan.

Over at the Phoenix pitch Adam finally looked as though he had found his calling. A market stall is clearly where you belong when you look like the amalgamation of a worm and an angry pimple. He used all of the patter of his youth ‘Rainy day prices’ for ‘Beautiful Women’ (both B-sides available on the latest Ricky Martin single) and was unfortunately a dab hand, shifting all of the stock he and Jade had taken to the market. This single act would save him from a firing, this and this alone, and in a week when Jade showed just how amazingly bad at running and organising a team she was, he would definitely be on the losing team. It seemed again he had wormed his way out of a firing, wormed, get it.

Now with half a day gone Ricky and Stephen had headed to the warehouse but had found themselves stuck in a massive traffic jam. Jenna had shifted all of the fake tan and with few beards about the place the other team were struggling to sell the remaining stock. Help was on hand in the shape of Gabrielle who ingeniously rebranded the beard trimmer to help Brazilian up the newly bronzed “Lovelies” of Essex. The rest of the stock was sold leaving them with nothing to sell in their busy market.

Jade and Adam, having proved their prowess were on their way to the other part of Phoenix. The sub-team consisting of Azhar, Tom and Laura had a simple message. The bugs were selling at an incredible rate and market up from 60p to £3 to boot. Tom insisted that they plough all of their money into the bugs, an act that would have won them the task, but Jade didn’t hear him over Azhar screeching the word strategy over and over. When Phoenix returned to the warehouse they bought the same amount of the same shit that they had bought earlier, despite having not shifted a fair amount of most of it.

Next was a race to the finish, both teams in the same late night market, Sterling laden with fake tan and hot water bottles, Phoenix with not enough bugs, the secret weapons of Jenna and Adam (bet you never thought I would write that) apiece.

Next, the boardroom. It was squeaky bum time for Nick with Lord Sugar bemoaning his decision to send Ricky and Steve to the warehouse without returning their unsold stock to the other sub-team, but as the numbers rolled in he was safe. Sterling had won it by a few quid, all down to their inflated price for some ropey fake tan and Jenna’s amazing ability to enthuse young and old ladies to chameleon up.

Jade looked as confused and defeated as she had done all day and all the way through the process come to mention it. She decided Azhar was joining the sack race with her but shrugged and apologised her way into also returning Tom. Behind his icy façade Tom must have been laughing. There was no way he was getting fired, this one had Jade written all over it. But somehow it didn’t. Shugs listened to the pleas of a frankly hopeless Jade and decided that Azhar had grumbled his way through the process far enough. He got the finger and Tom and Jade returned to the house.

Azhar was disappointed and to be honest quite rightly so. On you’re Fired the group around the table sympathetically explained that Jade had won it in the boardroom and that he had not thought out a boardroom strategy, get it... no still not funny. I, though, have to question this logic. What was her boardroom play, “I’m sorry Lord Sugar I made mistakes. I have brought Tom in her when I shouldn’t have, sorry Tom, you were excellent and you sold things and you shouldn’t be here. I got confused and wasn’t prepared. I was indecisive and got the whole thing wrong. I am quite a failure.” Ok I am paraphrasing but this was her approach and I have no idea how it worked.

Worked it did and she lives to fail another day.

And so to week 8, when hopefully this blog gets back to its earlier magic. The trauma of losing Bilyana is starting to get to me, with the anticipation of her cameo return in the final week is clouding my ability to write.

Goodbye for now Friends  

Week 6 Meatballsed up.

Meatballsed Up               

Week 6

Only a short blog this week as I’m away from my desk. With the teams the same as last week, with the exception of Duane, obviously, Lord Sugar sent the candidates to Edinburgh to try their hand at selling gourmet food. What this entailed was tarting up a burger van and selling food that has a little more to it than your usual street food. Lord Sugar handpicked the PM this week, selecting Jenna to run Team Sterling and Adam to ruin, sorry run, Team Phoenix. Jenna has put herself forward a couple of times for PM over the process but is often overlooked, possibly due to her slightly meek nature, but north of the Border the meek inherited the reins and decided that their focus would be on high quality, traditional Scottish food, opting for Aberdeen Angus beef casserole and haggis and mash after consulting with one of Scotland’s top Michelin starred chefs. She decided to fork out a little more on the produced, selecting premium beef and good ingredients, perhaps a slight gamble as profit margins would take a considerable hit. So up popped the Gourmet Scot Pot on Parliament Square, and along with the help of a piper seconded to Team Sterling on the promise of some free scran, they started to sell.

Adam took Phoenix over to a top Italian restaurant to get a recipe for their meatballs and pasta idea, but simply couldn’t grasp the concept of quality food, looking to cut cost and corners in every way possible, cue Nick Hewer’s disparaging look down his nose as Adam asks the top chef if dried rosemary worked as well as fresh. He even thought that sourced locally meant went to the local Morrisons to get all of their store brand cheapest ingredients. This cheap food was coupled with Katie’s marvellous idea of selling meatballs and pasta to Rangers and Hearts fans on their way to Tynecastle, looking at one point to price them at £7.99, these are the kind of ideas that have ensured Rangers’ sound financial state. In keeping with the earlier Italian expertise that brought us Bellisimo tomato sauce the ‘branding department’ went for the catchy name Utterly Delicious Meatballs (sigh).

At 6 quid a tray of parsimoniously assembled, cheap ingredients at a football match it is fair to say that Phoenix struggled to make sales, yet as they did their best the ‘marketing department’ headed out to research other places to sell from. Should have just done what Nick did for Sterling and find this out on the train on the way up. Stephen struck up a deal with a tour bus company to hock their phony Italian wares to poor tourists trying to learn about Edinburgh. Instead of viewing landmarks and historical sites they were forced to listen to Katie dressed as a pizza selling them meatballs. So pleased was Stephen of his captive audience tour bus takeover idea, in fact declaring it a task winning suggestion whilst looking as proud of himself as he always does, that he demanded his pink faced puppet move from the ground to re-situate near to the tour busses. They did and it was a bad idea. They had missed the lunch time trade moving from the football crowd and everyone on the busses had already eaten, the subliminal messages coming from the ‘advertising department’ telling them that if they did indeed fancy some more food they should look for someone selling pizza.

Parliament Square wasn’t working too well for Sterling with not a huge amount of people to sell to, so Rob Roy and William Wallace, AKA Ricky and Laura dressed in ‘comical’ borderline racist ‘Scottish attire’, headed off to find some customers. They did, so Jenna stopped panicking and doom mongering long enough to re-locate. After the move they found a decent trade and people seemed genuinely impressed by the quality of their food. Trade roared.

Back in the boardroom Jenna looked nervous, but her gamble paid off and she and Sterling won the task by around 20 pounds. Off they went to see Nick crashing a segway scooter at a decent speed, all good fun. Sterling did well though and hats off to Jenna. She won me over this week, making decisions and leading well in her own gentle style. There is a certain sweet innocence to her, a fine example being when she asked Laura if people spoke ‘purely Scottish’ to her would she be able to understand. She isn’t going to win the process though.

So Adam lost and with his horrid face sandwiched between the white of his shirt and the white of his hair he stumbled through the process of deciding who to take with him to take the flack. A process that required a lot of umming and ahhing, punctuated with hollow expressions of how he is the perfect candidate and your perfect business partner Loooord Shuga, with a handful of sexist sprinklings on top. He eventually decided on Katie who had been the main reason for going to the football match and deserved her place in the firing line and Azhar who had done little but look sulky all week, well all process.

I was looking forward to this, having seen my two favourites sacked in quick succession, and still sore about the loss of Bilyana, the sacking of this deluded prick Adam with his worm-like pink face and his stupid childish grin and the utter and constant nonsense that he speaks would be enjoyable. But it wasn’t to be. You see as I have established all of the members of Phoenix need sacking, they are equally as useless as each other, the exception is possibly Tom, who does say sound things and understands business, but is far far far too miserable to back. So Katie took the bullet. Lord Sugar highlighted that it was her third boardroom and that she makes errors, she was lucky week 1 when she should have walked and her luck had finally run out. She followed it and the two lads went back to the house.

Right that is week 6 done, I’m off to watch you’re fired, sorry that this blog wasn’t as detailed or as interesting as earlier ones, as I said I’m away at the mo and I’m a little annoyed Adam is still in the process.

Ricky to win from now on I think.

Take it easy,

Andrew D. Clark

Week 5 Dancing Fool

This week saw the teams devising their own fitness class, the license of which they were then to sell to gym companies and this is where their revenue would come. Stephen was pretty quick to put himself forward as PM for Phoenix, this is his sector and apparently what he does all day every day. So without fuss he elected himself unopposed. As he put it, if he fails in this task he would indeed be on the chopping block as he has no excuse for not winning. Ricky Martin opted to front Team Sterling, this despite guest vocals from Jenna, but Ricky was appointed PM following a vote. Both teams then settled to agree on a concept for their class.

Ricky was pretty organised, running what seemed like a sensible and democratic brain storming. He, as a professional singer (oh sorry wrestler) was naturally bent on having a combat inspired class, but he was as passionate as the rest of his team in combining it with street dance to form Beat Battle, a catchy name and a pretty decent product. Sterling were, at this point, very focussed, Ricky decisive in a manner in which he didn’t alienate other’s ideas or make anyone lose face, so with the ship steady and the destination clear the team split in two to investigate the different elements that would make up Beat Battle. This resulted in Ricky, Laura and Jenna going to a Thai kick-boxing gym to learn some moves, whilst Duane, Nick and Gabrielle went to learn how to throw some street shapes, Nick displaying just how current he is with his inability to remember ‘new jack swing’ looking more like Nick Hewer’s age than 25. Being fair to Sterling they did very well, looking organised and making sound and logical decisions to differentiate their routine from others on the market which are similar, the main distinctions being the use of elbows instead of punches, which boxercise employs, and its marriage with street dance. Bit of a comedy moment when the fitness instructor asks Laura if she has any fitness experience, bit of a mean question for ‘a good looking business woman’.

Stephen and Phoenix on the other hand couldn’t be more different. Take any one of team Phoenix, with the exception of possibly Tom and the perpetually sulky Azhar, if brought into the boardroom to face a firing you could happily dismiss all of them. It seems that all that leaks out of Stephen’s mouth is absolute, thoughtless drivel. The brainstorming session for Phoenix seemed like infant school children deciding what to play with from a massive playtime toy-box. Adam took a hiatus from playing shop and wanted, like all little boys, to play with a skipping rope, perhaps they had one as pink as his face. Katie, somehow buoyant from some ill gotten confidence looked to swap hide and seek with a new form of exercise kiss chase, suggesting that just what sweaty singletons are looking for is potential sweaty dates in a speed-dating fitness session, moron. She had a second equally ill-conceived idea of using retro toys, literally everything left in their idiot’s toy-box, to somehow get fit. Being a team of abject cretins they picked up retro and ran with it. Cue Stephen, Tom and Azhar’s visit to an 80s disco. The gentlemen stood on a multicoloured, flashing dance floor, with stifled glee hidden behind their ever reddening faces (Adam his usual hue), whilst being treated to some sort of lame table dance by three young women in loose fitting tops and daft leg warmers. When quizzed about 80s dance 

exercise the middle girl suggested Michael Jackson’s ‘Friller’, I think she meant thriller, bless. This left us with Adam sashaying back and forth like an effeminate Lion from The Wizard of Oz, oh if he only had a brain. For all of Sterling’s sensible questions and thought, Phoenix were more than happy to offer some buggering about. The only sensible suggestion from the team came from Tom, severing his competition with Azhar to see who could look the most moody, to rightly point out that a gym would not thank them for introducing a load of equipment which could only be used with their unique class, and not making use of the equipment that would be abundant in a gym.

Next step, shoot a video. Duane took the mantle for Sterling, but this soon descended into a small fallout between him, Nick and Laura. They argued the toss on almost every decision and despite the fact that they eventually came up with a decent video they were still arguing when they got back to the car. To be honest Laura had a point. Duane was directing a video making decisions that would cut out the martial arts element of their routine in their example, leaving the class looking like a typical dance exercise class and not representing their brand correctly. Nick tried to make them kiss and make up but Duane insisted that they were fine and they shouldn’t be forced to shake hands. I think he had enjoyed watching her dance too much and would be embarrassed about getting too close for a few minutes.

It all fell apart for Phoenix on their shoot also. Ahzar was selected to dress like a misery from the 1980s, complete with a pair of tiny, orange shorts that would have looked comfortable on Rudi Voller. Adam was choreographer. He might as well have been, he is equally as useless in any role, but there is something particularly loathsome about him dismissing Jade, who no doubt should not have been director, I mean a woman as director (Adam’s view, not mine), like some long, upright, pink worm in a white t-shirt, shouting ‘Big Smiles Everyone’ and singing his own version of Flashdance...What a Feeling. What a nob. ‘Groove Train’ the DVD was complete, complete with complete wally Azhar, I actually felt sorry for him in this task, he had to wear his Big Smile, poor boy.

Next part of the task was to pitch the classes. By and large Ricky did this very well. He was aware that the first pitch didn’t go so well, but picked up on the areas where he had come unstuck, addressing them well for the subsequent pitches. His approach was intelligent and organised and he represented a team that had been equally organised and professional throughout the task thus far, he was even told that one of his answers was a good one by one of the gyms. Praise indeed.

 Stephen couldn’t be further from the polished individual that Ricky was. With cheesy video in hand he mumbled unintelligibly through his pitch, making up prices and statistics as he went.  The obvious questions were asked, including ‘would every participant need a spacehopper?’ a first I imagine.

So then to the boardroom. Everyone was behind Ricky in Team Sterling, and when offered the opportunity to sell Duane out over the video Laura was generous, refusing to criticise him heavily, suggesting that he had simply taken control of the video. Stephen also had the unanimous support of his team, but as the idiot led the stupid what more could you expect.

When it came to numbers though the story shifted. Sterling amassed about 8 grand, with two of the three gym networks liking the product, placing orders. Phoenix received three unanimous ‘they hated it’ when being told of their sales, but the Virgin Active group liked their concept as a children’s workout, giving them a £12000 order. They won, somehow, but they won. Any three from that team, as I stated above could have been sacked but they won. It was an absolute travesty, distilled stupidity reigns it seems.

Ricky had a hard task but eventually saw the video as the weak spot, deciding to bring Duane and Laura into the final three. This was perhaps an error as had he taken Jenna in she would have gone, had he taken Gabrielle she would have had to work very hard to stay in it. Maintaining, though, the professional approach the final three didn’t descend too much into childish squabbling, they fought their corners well without flinging vitriol. Lord Sugar silenced the three then fired Duane. He did this citing the video as the reason for the failure of the task, really though the task was failed by the other team getting lucky, absolute bollocks. After he was fired Duane quickly reverted to the character that he has been throughout the process so far. Ever the gentleman he smiled, thanks Lord Sugar, Nick and Karren, tapped his fellow candidates on the shoulder and left the boardroom.

So another week another shock firing. In my mind the two favourites have been let go in consecutive weeks. I think Duane will be fine, he is a nice guy and has represented himself well, and who knows perhaps he, Ricky Martin and his brother Simon Webb can start their own super group.

After this week’s display Ricky has moved into the favourite position in my house.

Cheers

Andrew D. Clark

Where there's muck there's idiots selling it

Where there’s muck there’s idiots selling it.

Week 4,

This week Lord Sugar shifted the teams around again, disbanding the Phoenix boys and sending Ricky Martin over to team Sterling and bringing Jade into Phoenix. The aim was simple. Lord Sugar gave each team one thousand pounds and a shop in East London’s Brick Lane. The team with the most profit at the end of the task win.

As always a PM needed to be decided. Hanging on to his victorious coat tails from the previous week, Duane elected himself to PM Sterling; at the same time twenty eight year old bridal shop owner Laura Hogg put forth herself. When a vote was cast Duane’s name was met by complete silence, a little unfair seeing his past triumph but he had been PM just a week earlier. So Laura it was.

The Phoenix boys needed a new front man and Tom Gearing stepped into the void. You won’t know much about Tom so far but he is the one sulking about in the background with a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle. Alongside this countenance cast in tears and ice is a cheeky Southern brogue and a mass of self belief, the BBC website having quoted him saying ‘I’m confident, charismatic and some people say I’m quite good looking, so that adds to the bill’. I think with that phizog he must have just been handed the bill.

This level of self confidence is something that grumpy Tom must share with his fellow PM Laura who, along with eulogizing how great she was in the task later in the boardroom started the task by saying ‘Being an attractive business woman has its ups and downs’ I wonder what they are (schoolboy grin). To be fair she isn’t a pig so we can allow her that one. She did then qualify this statement with the suggestion that she has been described as a Rottweiler in the past. Make of that what you will.

Tom’s purse strings were as parsimonious as his smiles. He instantly assured the group that of the thousand pounds that they had been given he was allowing them to spend ‘as little as possible’, not wanting to get lumbered with loads of unsold stock. Adam, whose face has just about regained its correct level of puce after last week, voiced his concerns at this tactic, rightly pointing out that they had a lot of retail space to fill and that this approach would leave the shop looking empty.

Laura took the opposite approach. After an impassioned first verse from Ricky suggesting that they hit and raid every charity shop and house for as much crap as they could get their grubby mitts on, ‘we’re selling crap and turning it into style’ keened Martin in what was a close runner for quote of the week. Gabrielle added her two penneth, crooning on about how she loves getting old furniture and doing it up, how she has sold some chairs for £250, a figure that she seemed to pluck from the back of her head, by telling people they were limited edition. She then said ‘even if it just a... Union Jack on it or something’, the importance of this being that she stumbled over the brand image, motif that would adorn all of their collection of knackered chairs and shite that they tried to flog on; a brand image that everyone else in the team didn’t like.

Early the next day the teams split up into groups of beachcombers dredging the streets and junkyards of London for as much tat as they can grab, Tom’s sub team loaded with a meagre £200. They bought some stuff that barely filled their van before Adam reverted to type and started to raid bins for things to sell (and to think those Mancs call us Scousers bin dippers, humph). Laura, Duane and Ricky headed out to grab their haul, buying a LOT of rubbish. Their tactic was to buy relatively decent furniture and then ‘upcycle’ it by pulling it apart and painting it with garish colours. Gabrielle, assisted by Jenna’s painful nasals, went mad buying fabrics and paints, casters and chair legs to assault their collection. Phoenix’s Adam, Katie and Stephen, let’s call them team Steptoe, armed only with what was left of their £200 headed to a junk shop. Stephen led what can be described simply as his best pitch to date, haggled a further fiver out of a man for some of his junk. Team Steptoe clambered upon their cart to drag the rubbish home, backslapping and high fiving, Stephen suggesting that they got all of the best stuff, whilst back in the store the keeper, thirty pounds richer and less a little of his junk described their loot as a pile of junk, two old metal chair that were even worthless as scrap, ‘they picked absolute rubbish’.

Laura, Duane and Ricky, meanwhile, find themselves at a house clearance able, like Willy Wonka’s  guests, to help themselves to everything. It is at this point Duane came up with the line of the week ‘There is a well known saying’, he begins, ‘Never to look a gift horse in the eye’, oh dear.

Once all of the debris had been accumulated the teams set about building their stores and in Sterling’s case ruining their junk in a process known as upcycling, otherwise known as painting it red, white and blue. Their shop was just too arty, their prices overinflated and their attempt to rustic it up with leaves all over the floor just too much. Phoenix on the other hand had an empty store.

After a day of selling shit to cool kids the teams were dragged to the boardroom. When the numbers were crunched Phoenix took the win, it seems that being as tight as possible worked as both stores had taken a relatively similar amount of money. Laura recognised the digs flying in at Gabrielle about her upcycling and elected her as one of those to join her in the firing line. After hearing that Jane had only made ten pounds of sales she was also brought back. After the usual ardent pleas to Lord Sugar and bickering amongst themselves he made up his mind. Impressed by Gabrielle’s hard work and impressive sales he deemed her safe and to be sent back to the house. Jane got the boot. This was a shock, especially for me who had placed a bet at week one that she would win overall. Jane definitely seemed shocked, she was a strong candidate, but it just seems that she rubbed Lord Sugar up the wrong way, with him suggesting that he had seen nothing from her that backed up her impressive CV. Emotional and clearly rocked Jane entered the taxi, I feel that she didn’t do herself any favours this week and seemed distracted throughout the task. Fair enough.

So nothing much has changed, I have lost my bet but I still think that Duane is the strongest contender, even in weeks when he doesn’t seem to be pivotal, he still seems to be heavily involved.

Tom cracked, upon hearing of his victory, a momentary and awkward smile.

Andrew D. Clark

Week three, With condiments.

With condiments.

SO here we have week three. The heat is on for Team Sterling, having lost the first two tasks they really needed to pull their socks up. Lord Sugar arranged a meeting in St Katherine Docks, his former playground. The candidates stood in the wind, each of the girls and Nick Holzherr having their hair undone, as Lord Sugar gave them their task. Next he shuffled the pack, with Duane and Nick moving over to Sterling to help out the girls, both strong candidates. Katie was shifted over to be the cement boots for Team Phoenix, who despite their form have shown a couple of cracks forming. It was still totally apparent that Azhar is carrying a grudge, sulking when introduced to Katie in the back of their Chrysler, even though she was congratulating him on being such a winner. This could be because he has inherited Katie and he is aware that basically the hide and seek is ON between her and Michael. As Katie ingratiated herself with her new team Duane, nestled between Jane and Jade is initiated into Sterling by having to stand Jade’s weird voice defaming Katie.

The whistle goes and Duane volunteers as PM with a forceful and impassioned plea. There is no vote and Duane gets the reins. Over in Phoenix Katie puts herself forward, this is despite being told by Adam, the odious Ashley Peacock lookalike blond tit with a baby pink face, who resembles an engorged zit desperate to be popped, that the task of PM might just be a little bit complicated for her. Fresh from his four wicket haul in Colombo and feeling confident Graeme Swann, AKA Stephen Brady also stakes a claim to be PM. Ensnared by Katie’s floaty eyelashes and incredible ability to manipulate men, they all vote for her, even Azhar who seems a little more cheerful.

Phoenix chose table sauce noting its mass market and easy branding as the primary appeal, meaning that Sterling took chutney (not a euphemism). Jane chirped up at this point suggesting that the chutney market is saturated and would be difficult to break into. She may have a point and a history in the food industry but always seems to be in disagreement with everyone. I’m not sure if she is spoiling for a fight or simply playing Devil’s advocate, but if the latter she does it in a very annoying way, that is making it quite hard to carry on fancying her, especially now I have seen a windswept Laura Hogg (who am I kidding, come back Bilyana). Quality, luxury chutney (still not a euphemism) was the choice as Duane cut through Jane’s technical babble and divided the team up into those to go to the trading and marketing department, and those to go to the lab.

In Phoenix’s car Stephen conjured the product name Bellissimo, repeating the word with a fervour harking back to his eeeer, Mediterranean roots, surely the surname Brady is synonymous with rolling Tuscan hills, I have forgotten the number of times I have sent a Brady Barolo back. At this point I was unsure just who was the bellend in the pack, Brady’s spelling of Belissimo which belied his Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita, or Katie for thinking that Bellissimo could be the Italian for crap. Brady even checked the spelling, thinking that Bellissimo could maybe be spelled with a V, before stating, with the confidence bought by his bowling display bellissimo the day before, that this word ‘is gonna get us the victory’.

Next we see a montage of idiots in a big kitchen whipping up some sauce. It is a definite case of too many shit chefs spoil the broth. Ricky Martin sings out a string of ingredients with Ramsian gusto before looking out hopefully to hear ‘Yes Chef’ by his team. It didn’t come. Then the roughly chopped affair is thrown into a cauldron to be stirred by the wicked witch Adam.

In Sterling’s lab Jane whinges about not having a recipe, ‘I know food and I know if we don’t follow this, the product. Wont. Work’ she wailed just like that. It seemed a much more scientific approach than Phoenix.

Meanwhile Katie and her stooges, Stephen and Michael, stumble across magic in the design room, coming up with a big red pepper for their brand label. Super cool condiment king Levi Roots pointed out their folly to Dara on You’re Fired, they used a sweet pepper to advertise their spicy pepper sauce, truly they don’t have music in their food, well other than Ricky Martin. Sterling’s brand design was much better, so much so that it doesn’t really warrant discussion.

Back to the lab, Jenna stirs a pot of yellowy red paste and states, ‘Oh it’s makin’ me eyes water’, now she knows how anyone subjected to that voice feels. With time a precious commodity Jane suggests that they taste their... concoction. Duane fearlessly steps forward and like the brave Lieutenant, shielding Sergeant Jane and her rag tag outfit from the blast, throws himself on the grenade. The chilli in their InFusion was a little sharp, leaving Duane gasping for breath and retching into the corner of the room, Jane for the first time that day had a smile on her face. What this resulted in, though, was Sterling’s first blow as the trade team had to meet retailers empty handed.

The Phoenix Boys (Ricky Martin’s new band) were still gaily dicking about in the lab with their ketchup. The labels arrived to leave them a bit dejected, with cries of ‘Where’s the chili’ ringing around the lab like Ricky Martin’s lates number one (last time I promise). Adam bemoaned ‘Should have had a pepper on one side and a chilli on the other’ before describing himself ‘simple’. Then things fell apart, as Ricky ticked off the recipe Adam filtered out the extraneous ingredients, most alarmingly the spoon that they nearly added. Adam stirred the potion, like a hair-netted witch, his face turning pinker by the second, screeching the backing vocals of ‘There’s summat wrong with it’, ‘Its boiling the omelette’ from The Phoenix Boy’s first number one “Too many cooks”. This resulted in one wasted batch which drastically affected the products costing.

Both trade teams visited two miserable grey looking men behind a table in a shop to have their products shot down. First up Belissimo Sauce, or Ballissimo or whatever. They grumpy old men seemed ok with the product at the price offered, but instantly noticed the spelling and were unimpressed. They turned a darker shade of grey when the chutney children turned up without a sample.

This ended day 1. The next day both teams headed out to sell their product. They all did ok with the exception of Michael who had been elected to lead the trade selling team. For this he would have to come out of hiding, having knocked Katie into a cocked hat in the final of the hide and seek championship. He might have well stayed in the background, he meek sales approach backed up purely by his cheeky oi oi Cockney charm. He didn’t sell well and combined with their limited amount of product and its hiked price, struggled to shift any of his 80 bottles. Katie and her brown nosed, pink faced friend Adam did ok selling their sauce to the public but it just wasn’t enough.

In the boardroom when the results came in Sterling had their first win and were sent off to skid Porsches round a track. Katie and the Phoenix Boys were left playing ketchup (sorry), and she had to pick a couple of them to join her in the firing line. Still sore from losing the hide and seek she chose Michael. For her second it didn’t really matter who she chose, Michael was terrible and had been throughout the process and was clear favourite to get the boot. She chose Ricky as he fronted the ruinous troupe in the kitchen. I would have liked her to take Stephen in just to see if the pressure of a potential firing would make his eyes pop out. Ricky took a lot of flack and looked a likely candidate for the firing, it was the fault of those in the kitchen and he had been their leader. In the end though Lord Sugar went with his gut feeling, possibly he had tried some of Sterling’s original product, and fired Mike.

He looked like a nice enough bloke on You’re Fired, but he was never going to last long.

Ok, there we are for week three, Duane is still my favourite. His team won convincingly despite a few minor hiccups. He led them well.

Cheers,

Andrew D Clark.

The apprentice UK week 2

Asleep on the job.

The Apprentice week 2.

This week we saw another wine for the lads. Bit of a no brainer though to be fair. They were decisive in firstly their choice of PM Azhar Siddique, the killer whale of the sea world, as opposed to the other worlds where you find killer whales, and secondly in their choice of product. Ok not hugely decisive, blond Mancunian Adam Corbally, fresh from playing Coronation Street’s Ashley Peacock, developed an idea for rubber gloves with bits of sponge stuck on it. It wasn’t the best idea, in fact it was a tripe idea and so they went with the Eco-Press, a compost bin that looked a little like Mr Fusion from the Back to the Future DeLorean. It was a pretty sound idea, and to be fair it was a good choice to select the kitchen gadget over the bathroom. It sold well, despite the worst pitch ever from Stephen Brady, uniquely starring on the Apprentice whilst also currently playing cricket in Sri Lanka. What the lads have in team Phoenix is a tight nit group. They had a couple of gripes, but on day two they were working for each other and the product, but watch this space, Azhar seems to want the wheels to come off.

Still in the tale of two Mancunians, Duane got the win and must surely be the favourite for the series at this point.

The girls on the other hand were bad from word go, clearly missing Bilyana. Jane stepped forward for the PM job, a good choice as she clearly leads well, just doesn’t make decisions very well. Katie also put herself forward. I think she did this so that should she be dragged back into the boardroom she could at least say she did something. She was clearly not interested in the role, her impassioned plea to take the role being ‘I’m really excited’ followed by a couple of giggles then a look around the room to see the best thing for her to hide behind. It seems to be a championship game of hide and seek between herself and Michael Copp who might not even have bothered turning up so far. Anyway, the girls flapped between two products, both as bad as each other, eventually deciding on a splash screen for babies to stop them making a mess in the bathroom. It wasn’t a good product with one of the retailers refusing to order any, but what let the girls down the most was their ridiculous pitch of 1 million units to Amazon whose buyers looked totally unimpressed and their inability to organise their figures. It was this costing boob that infuriated Lord Sugar the most, almost tempting him into sacking two candidates, again someone survived by the skin of their arse.

Jane brought Jenna and Maria back into the boardroom. Mistakes had been made but there was plenty of ammunition to fire at Maria. Once again she didn’t do a huge amount other than kick off and argue. This is of course when she was awake. It is quite an ability to sleep through Jenna’s whinging nasal honk; she drifted off in the car through one of Jenna’s most passionate wails.

Maria showed her age as she did last week, throwing in accusations of ‘you’re ridiculous’ and ‘I didn’t say nothin’ (yes that’s true, you said nothing, you did nothing and she deserved to go). Lord Sugar recognised her as one who wants to row, Nick echoing this with ‘she is a very noisy woman’. She was in fact as daft as her stupid eye makeup. She deserved to go.

She went but that was nearly not the end of all the shouting and firing. Lord Sugar was pretty sick about the failure of the figures, holding back a second sacking through an exasperated ‘you run your own businesses, get back to the house.’

Duane is clearly favourite after week 2, but I still fancy Jane, she dealt well with the task and well with the boardroom and I think will go a long way.

The Apprentice week 1

The Apprentice Blog Week 1

So here it is, after nine months and twelve juniors, The Apprentice has returned. A new draft of sixteen of the countries brightest business hopefuls have descended on the capital in a bid to persuade Lord Sugar that they have what it takes to go into business with him.

The first episode aired last night, and was relatively typical for what we have started to expect from the first night. The teams are split in two, boys vs girls and charged first off with devising team names and electing the weeks project manager. Before this of course, as it’s the first week we see more of the obligatory VTs. This is the point at which the sixteen anonymous candidates show the viewing public how fierce and complete and annoying they are, before they largely prove that they are in fact none of what they professed to be. This always highlighted in selecting the week 1 PM, the sharp-suited, voiced, fearless VT stars fade in the wake of the silence which fills the room.

The boys took this tactic. They quickly and unanimously deciding on the name proudly thrust forward by thirty three year old, national sales manager Steven Brady, a man who has the look of a slightly squeezed Graeme Swann. The name the agreed on? Team Phoenix, which basically means they are unanimous in their belief that at some point they will stuff it up and have to start again the week later. On hearing the name Lord Sugar looked momentarily perplexed before moving on, is a name that important in a process where people will be switching teams weekly, and to be fair it services take-away businesses well enough the length and breadth of the country. After a driving shriek of silence twenty five year old Nick Holzherr reluctantly put himself forward as PM. Team Phoenix were up and running.

The girls seemed a little more dynamic. They quickly settled on the name Sterling, which is to be honest a pretty good name, it has connotations of money, pureness, authenticity and excellence, well done Jenna Whittingham for dreaming up such a err sterling name. A PM was a simple choice. The purpose of this week’s task was to take a blank product, print something on it and sell it off for a profit. Step forward twenty nine year old architect Gabrielle Omar, who has, as it so happens, just started a printing company. Lord Sugar seemed impressed, if you have someone with expertise use them.

Then ensued twenty minutes or so of fresh entrepreneurial genius or as it is otherwise know eight people hiding and eight people sharpening their knives. Here we got our first glimpse of our candidates proper. The lads all seemed quite nice, they worked pretty well together and the only dissent shown was when Steven tried to hijack the pricing strategy before he had even bowled a ball. The situation was decisively dealt with by Holzherr, who affirmed his position as PM and let the matter drop. Brady had a point though fifteen pounds was astronomical for a small teddy in a misprinted t-shirt. After this though everything worked relatively well, the only drawback coming from a Del Boyesque move to shift some shoddy merchandise. Of the boys two candidates stood out for me. Duane Bryan, the twenty nine year old company director from Manchester who describes himself as ‘a whole new breed of winner’ he struck me as having the right amount of drive and ability, and the right amount of likeability. Second Ricky Martin, his VT was Apprentice VT gold. Every cliché in the book is woven into that video, a string of number ones like, ‘The reflection of perfection’, ‘other people look at me and they want to be me’, ‘the only thing that scares me is myself’ and of course ‘Livin’ la vida loca’. Despite his VT he actually seemed like quite a decent character, so don’t worry Stuart Baggs, you haven’t been out wollied yet.

The girls got off to a lightning fast start. Twenty nine year old business development manager Jade Nash’s creative skills gave us their characters to be printed. They were a set of hand-drawn animals that they aimed at the baby and toddler market, that is despite the fact that the animals looked to be deciding on the most painless suicide. The team then separated to concentrate on different areas to attempt to sell in. At this point the wheels came off. Relations between the firey twenty eight year old Jane McEvoy, whose eyes could make me do literally anything she wanted and twenty five year old Bulgarian Bilyana Apostolova, who can only be described as the most beautiful women to ever grace the boardroom, the anti-Karen Brady if you will, broke down. Throughout the task they both kept their weapons concealed, but you could certainly see them sharpening them and keeping them at an easy reach. The roving team, which included Jane and Bilyana, simply failed in their task of selling. Bilyana took the initiative and managed to shift some stock, but this simply resulted in the other girls crowing about how unfair it was that she was taking all of the sales. Now I realise that I am not one off the list of candidates, but surely the better option would have been to go and find some customers yourself rather than gripe and whine about someone else getting all of the sales? It was at this point the highlight of the episode Katie Wright, the eerm something year old, something from somewhere comes out of hiding to utter the perfectly timed, ‘you don’t want to be behaving like animals at the zoo’, whist unbeknownst, behind her a lama positions itself for a crap. More on Katie later. The group then squabbled their way to the ‘nearest’ set of shops to offload their entire stock, bar the one jigsaw Bilyana sold before being told she was doing it wrong. They even managed to fail this, at one point forcing one shop owner to batten down the hatches and retreat to a small dark room where she would never have to encounter humans again, before being told off by the shop owner’s dad and being forced to apologise.

But the real drama happened in the boardroom, come on I’m allowed at least one Apprentice cliché of my own. The girls lost. The boys received a prize that some may say was a little bit girly, but this is the first time in a while that the boys have won week one and they all seemed happy enough.  In the Bridge Cafe the girls started for their weapons, keeping their ears to the ground for any whimpering suggestion of weakness that they could leap onto quicker that Karen Brady chimes in. Gabrielle showed a little of this weakness, or the warm side of her clearly civilized manner, by apologising for the situation that they were in, but she was already in the boardroom so this got overlooked. The peripheral characters momentarily got involved with Maria O’Connor, twenty year old Restaurateur wading in like an extra from Gavin and Stacey, rapier drawn and pointed at Bilyana who defended herself with the admission that she was shouting now. The shouting was apparent and from every direction, until a sharp off camera ‘Shuddup’ came from an unidentified source, most likely Katie from where ever she had hidden.

On the day Gabrielle brought Katie and Bilyana back into the boardroom. Katie because she was finally found still slowly feeding single sheet of paper after single sheet of paper into a printer. Bilyana because she was set up as a patsy by all of the others. Gabrielle showed her feisty side, arguing a good case and keeping herself in the competition. Katie was again missing except for one impassioned ‘I can prove myself if you give me another chance’ speech usually kept for at least week four and it seemed that she was done for. Lord Sugar was a ‘Katie, I’m sorry, but you’re fired’ away from dismissing Katie and Bilyana chimed in, snatching defeat from Katie and cementing her place in history as series eight’s first ‘casualty of the boardroom’.

It was unfair, and it was probably the wrong choice, but Bilyana, despite all of her abundant positives didn’t have the social intelligence to simply keep quite. If she had done, she would have been in the running for next week and the programme would have been that little bit better looking.

Oh well week one is down and we move on. My favourite to win is either Duane or Jane. Katie is a goner unless she takes onboard what she clearly knew was a bullet dodged. It seems a good bunch so far, I will see you next week.

Andrew D. Clark