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