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.