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
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