The Apprentice

The Apprentice - Week 12

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:12:01 GMT

We've had 24-hour knicker hotlines (all calls taken in strictest confidence). Genuflecting good Jewish boys. The best salespeople in Europe who don't understand the subtle nuances between the words “Pull” and “Push” when written above a door handle. Plus men and women who “proved that fish could be sold”. And now, after 12 long weeks, we'll finally get to discover which of the remaining four affronts to the stock market will get that hundred-grand-a-year job peeling Sir Alan Sugar's grapes, and listening to his anecdotes about the multi-million pound business deals he's made, all while fighting the urge to ram an Em@iler-phone down his gruff little throat. That's right, everyone! It's the grand final of the fourth series of The Apprentice! Hurray!

And phew.

The night before the final task begins, the remaining Appren-tits - Lee, Alex, Helene and Claire - are given their biggest challenge yet. They must spend an evening sitting around the dinner table with Big Grey Al himself, and not say or do anything that would make their potential boss want to hold their faces down in the cream of tomato. The resulting awkward atmosphere is like watching that sketch of John and Norma Major on Spitting Image. “Peas are nice, Sir Alan...”

Claire brightens the moment by asking if she's allowed a starter, a main AND a pudding. Claire, do what I'd do and take the sour old sod for every penny while you still can. Have some onion rings an' all. Have a Babycham! Live the dream!

The rest of the meal passes in total silence save for the sound of cutlery scraping on china, and the slurps of Lee McQueen as he eats with his fingers.

In other words, that final phone call from Frances The PA can't come quickly enough. “Sir Alan would like to meet you in the West End”, she sobs. She's too upset about her imminent P45 to pinpoint the location exactly. Cheer up Frances! Your skills are transferable in the modern marketplace, you know. Thousands of jobs involve asking people to go from one room to another. I betthere are doctor's receptionists all over the country who'll be having a sleepless night tonight.

A short time later, the four finalists tip up at an empty gallery. At last, I think. It's the long-awaited art-dealing task! The one I've been wishing for since the series began! But Sir Alan breaks my heart yet again. Instead, the final project of the series will revolve around them developing, packaging, advertising and launching their own fragrances for men. Pooh!

I cheer myself up by wondering which fragrances our final four candidates are wearing today. Lee, I think, will have splashed on the Brut. Helene must waft Poison. Alex, who is 14 years old and keeps bleating about not being able to make himself any older, and that it's not his fault, and that it's all so unfair, has stuck to Lynx Java (and has sprayed on enough to asphyxiate a rabbit). I'm not quite sure what Claire has got dabbed behind her ears, but as there's always a strong smell of bullshit whenever she's in the room I'm assuming it's not something she picked up at House of Fraser.

Alex and Helene are told to team up for the task, leaving Lee and Claire working together too. But which team will end up sniffing the sweet smell of success? And which one's efforts will stink to high heaven? Well, on the scene to help and hinder are six previous candidates. Jenny, Michael and Simon shuffle over to Lee and Claire's team, while Alex and Helene opt for Raef and Kevin (and make up the numbers with Jennifer, who was always picked last at rounders too).

Lee and Claire promptly split up to perform their market research. This aftershave – not that they use the word 'aftershave' in the programme at all, which is weird – must appeal to the modern man and retail for a few pence under £30. Tell me more about this modern man, Lee. “The modern man worries about in-growing hairs!” he declares. “He worries about his personal appearance! And he definitely shaves his balls.”

A nation looksupon Lee McQueen in a new light. No wonder he's always so animated. He must itch like billy-oh.

Claire and Raef, meanwhile, conduct a meeting with a group of men who work in a profession where they only shave their testicles if they're about to appear in videos certificated R18. That's right, we're talking plumbers - and they've come to fix the fragrance. “We like to wear something strong that's got to last”, they cry, all remembering that time they had to go round Nick Hewer's house to unblock his toilet. Bizarrely, this completes the market research, leaving Lee and Claire coming up with the most masculine campaign since Ronseal (which probably smells nicer than what they concoct).

Potential names put forward by Lee include Pss, which I don't think I'd like to wear on a first date. (“You smell nice!” “Thanks, I'm wearing some Pss that my auntie gave me for Christmas.” “Sorry, I've suddenly got to go, my house is on fire, etc”). Another idea is 'Primal', as in scream. But finally, they decide to brand their stench 'Roulette', and go on to commission a reasonably attractive bottle.

Next up, they have to plan their product launch. Party animal Lee has got a good idea. “Boof boof boof people like Jesus what's going on big launch and glow sticks and people yeah people yeah spotlights product yeah concerned yeah lights on the roulette table and then we'll win the task!” he splutters.

Trying to unpick Lee McQueen's latest word salad has given me a headache, so let's take a look at what the other team is up to. Not much, it seems. They haven't even come up with a brand name by the time that Alex and Kevin visit the packaging design agency. Various appalling labels such as Enigma, Trust and Connect have already been scrapped - and that's not surprising, as they all sound like the knock-offs people buy out of suitcases at the market before wondering why they're still single.

So how are they going to design a bottle when they haven't even got a name? Never fear – Kevin has an idea. “Potentially, is it possible to have a perfume bottle where the outside feels like stress ball material?”, he asks.

A bell tolls in the distance.

Night falls.

An audience wonders why Sir Alan took so many weeks to fire him.

“Nobody's really going to take that concept seriously”, coughs a designer, several hours later.

However, this enormously pregnant pause gives the designers some time to come up with an idea themselves – which is to build a bottle that houses a smaller, removable section for men to carry with them in case they're not making their date's eyes water nearly enough. It's gimmicky, but Alex believes that the bottle is the most important aspect of the whole thing. “It's not”, Helene mopes, down the phone. “It's the brand, and how you sell it”, she continues. Feel free to come up with one then, won't you, Helene? Instead of spending the entire task perching in the back of a people carrier, looking as glum as Lucinda did that time you and Jenny Celerier played keep-away with her favourite beret.

And Alex's bottle, since you ask, is awful. At a cost of thousands of pounds of licence fee money, he's managed to commission a hideous metal slab which looks like the kind of mysterious element that would power an evil spaceship. It's enormous, too – even the detachable section wouldn't fit in your bathroom cabinet. OK, maybe it's not to scale, but if it is then Alex must have smaller hands than Janette Krankie.

Even worse is what the aftershave, organised by Helene, might end up smellinng like. “We're looking for an unconventional scent”, she tells the parfumist, before taking a lungful of such stylish aromas as chocolate, candy floss and curry sauce (because every man wants to smell like a fairground).

Helene and Alex, then, are not exactly bonding over their experience. And relations turn even more sour when they get home that evening. “I'm not worried about this pitch tomorrow Alex”, Helene sighs. “I've done it for years.”

“Good for you. Brilliant”, the wretched Alex sneers in return, before storming upstairs, slamming the door and putting the Arctic Monkeys on reeeeaally loud because nobody understands him. I'm fed up of looking at Alex now. I can't wait 'til he's fired. Grr.

Anyway, Helene might be comfortable with standing up and speaking to a crowd, but we can't say the same for Lee. “I can't do this,” he moans, before making the noise of a disappointed pterodactyl. Claire, of course, can speak enough for two of them – but she gives him a hand anyway. At this point, we see a side of Claire that we haven't seen before. She's actually being genuinely helpful, and not trying to stitch everyone up for her own gain. Who'd have thought it?

Meanwhile, Helene and Alex reveal their presentation to the rest of the team. The modern man they've based their presentation around is called Adam, who apparently lives in Leeds and works at a bank. “Our modern man is called Adam”, begins Alex. “He lives in Leeds and works in a bank.” Pass me a bottle of that aftershave, Alex. I think I'm going to drink it.

Lee and Claire are the first to pitch their product. It begins with various niff aficionados from Estee Lauder and Givenchy shifting uncomfortably on giant furry dice, before squirting 'Roulette' onto bits of cardboard, holding them up to their long nostrils and then complaining of temporary blindness. But they're soon distracted from the pong by the evening's sorry excuse for entertainment, which looks like the kind of thing you might see on a float during Matlock Pride and is therefore not quite the dramatic visual display they'd bargained for.

The commercial, thankfully, is rather better than the turn. Seeing as though it features a man playing roulette, it's not exactly high-concept - but it does the job. I'm pleased to see that they've edited out the bits where Lee moaned pornographically while trying convince a female actor to pull her best O-face for the cameras. And I'm delighted that he doesn't lose his nerve when it comes to making the big speech. However, perhaps they could have concentrated a little more on the wording, so they weren't having to say things like “smell like a man” and “sensual animal notes”, or backtrack on their entire campaign when somebody suggests that gambling isn't quite the glamorous activity Claire believes it to be. “Oh we won't mention gambling,” she replies. “We just have an advert where a man goes into a casino and plays roulette.” In other words, he's gambling, right? Can anybody smell something funny?

Later, it's Helene and Alex's turn to pitch their fragrance, which Alex eventually decided to christen Dual. Or Duel. One of the two. Like the team before them, their live performance – a couple of kickboxers doing bunny hops to chart hits – fails to wow the crowd. And their pitch is also brimming with various non-sequiturs, such as “Our brand is the versatility of mankind” and “It's about Adam releasing his inner self”. Come again? Oh, just play your advert, which features a man in a bar checking himself out in the mirror before sauntering off to do mucky things with a floozy. Surprisingly, one bignose commends them on the strength of their campaign, but another questions them on whether they researched the cost of their weird and not-so-wonderful bottle. They didn't. Whoops!

With the final task over, everybody heads back to the house. And the next day, they all turn up to the boardroom reeking like a tart's handbag.

Sir Alan Sugar, as usual, looks unimpressed. Firstly, he berates Lee and Claire for their masculine approach, stating that 80% of aftershave is bought as gifts by women. And Nick Hewer, meanwhile, frowns upon the connotations of their product's name. “In my view, roulette equals gambling, equals debt, equals misery,” he sneers. Poor Nick. He's clearly never won seven quid on a National Lottery Chipmunk Challenge scratchcard.

A bickering Alex and Helene, meanwhile, come under fire for their own creation. “Personally I didn't like it”, yawns Big Grey Al, before accusing Helene of ripping off her favourite fragrance and pressing Alex on who it was that came up with the double bottle idea. Needless to say, it wasn't anybody on their team – and, as nether of them realised that their packaging would have cost four times what they should have been spending, the two of them are shown the door. Yippee! Alex cries in the back of the cab. Helene, meanwhile, folds her arms and blames her straw-haired colleague for her failure. No, I can't say I'm surprised by their reactions to being sacked either.

The final two in the running, then, are Lee and Claire. And Margaret Mountford, whom we've seen absolutely nothing of this week (a travesty), praises them for working really well together. Their minions, Michael, Simon and Jenny, hold them in equally high regard. But only one of them can get the job, and it's up to each of them to clinch the deal.

“I came into this competition at 100 miles an hour and I was going to cause accidents Sir Alan,” says Claire, as Nick Hewer raises an eyebrow. “But I've become more calm and considered, Sir Alan. I feel like I'm the tougher person Sir Alan, and if things go completely wrong I'm not going to crumble, Sir Alan. Sir Alan, I have more drive, Sir Alan, Sir Alan”, she finishes, before sitting back with her fingers crossed under the desk.

Come on Lee, state your case. “You should hire me because I have demonstrated my sales ability, my management ability, leading by example and because I am dead good at making the sounds of prehistoric animals and small electrical goods”, he says, or words to that effect.

“Hmm”, says Big Al. Hmm indeed. Get on with it. This episode feels like it's been going on for a fortnight. Jeez.

“It's been a long long journey”, he begins. “But now it's the final hurdle, and I have to make this very serious decision. Lee, I wonder if you are a one-trick pony in the sense of sales. Claire, I'm not sure whether I can put up with someone like you, but you do have some great attributes.”

I hold my breath. Not that I care, or anything. It's just that I've sprayed myself with some Roulette and I'm worried about it killing my few remaining brain cells.

“Lee, you're hired!”

Claire cries. Lee looks like he's about to hit somebody. It's all very peculiar, and I wonder if I've misheard - but, once the news has sunk in, Lee stops shaking and dishes out the biggest grin I've seen all series.

So that's that, then. Lee McQueen is now enjoying an executive job on a six figure salary. This is despite him lying on his CV, not being able to spell words like “liaise”, and being about as articulate as somebody who's been out drinking for 48 hours straight. Truly, it's a sick, sad world. But, having said that, you should be pleased that he's got a new job at Amstrad. At least you won't be hearing any reverse pterodactyl noises emanating from your boardroom any time soon... will you? Will you?

Best get that CV ready. Just in case.

So the series is over and, sadly, this blog is too. But you can still comment below, so come and split some hairs about whether the right candidate got the job! Was Sugar right to hire Lee? Should it have been Claire? What can you see the other candidates doing with the rest of their working lives? And what fragrances do you think Sir Alan, Margaret and Nick wear? Post a message and let me know...

Big Blogger

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:24:07 GMT

Hello all! I'm now doing a weekly blog about Big Brother if you'd like to take a peep.

http://journals.aol.co.uk/joejbbrett/big-brother/

Enjoy!

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The Apprentice - Week 11

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:02:34 GMT

“This is a job interview from hell”, booms the voiceover man. Hell, eh? Judging by the candidates' actions over the past 10 weeks, I'd have said it was more like a job interview from Are You Being Served. But that's all set to change, apparently, what with the penultimate week devoted to seeing how the remaining applicants perform in a “Real-Life Interview Situation”.

Pshaw. Real-life interview situation my Aunt Sally. Sure, the interviews are nightmarish, in the sense that you might look up to see that it was being conducted by Ann Robinson's howling, disembodied head and you'd forgotten to put any clothes on - and this might as well be the case such is the sheer bloody stupidity of the questions and downright rudeness involved – but they're about as close to the real deal as the ones Irene conducts on Home and Away, when she wants a teenage ne'er-do-well to stop upsetting the bins round the back of the diner and carve a career spreading Vegemite on baps.

Sugar summons the remaining candidates – Claire, Lucinda, Helene, Alex and Lee – to the HQ of Viglen, one of Amstrad's subsidiaries. “I have four of my very trusted colleagues, and they're going to put you through a very intensive interview process”, he confirms, as the five of them smile queasily. Nick and Margaret are not required for this one, so they spend their day indulging in their favourite pastimes instead. (Nick spends a few hours peering through school railings giving disapproving looks to teenagers, while Margaret nips home for an afternoon of texting the Joan Rivers Hour on QVC and eating Peperamis.)

As ever, Sir Alan has exhumed his usual three acolytes to dish out some death stares and tart rhetoric. Paul is a “property tycoon” played by Rory McGrath's even more obnoxious younger brother. Red-faced slaphead Claude, meanwhile, is a “Global Troubleshooter” with all the likeability of a house fire. Bringing up the rear is beardie Gordon, who apparently heads up Viglen computers but looks like a coach driver. So far, so insufferable. They'll be giving their feedback to Sugar at the end of the show, before he dishes out a triple firing. Yowsa.

But wait – Big Grey Al mentioned a fourth element. “Stepping into the limelight is Karen Brady”, froths the voiceover, as the camera pans up a shapely ankle. “She became MD of Birmingham City FC at just 23, and has since won Sir Alan's respect as one of Britain's leading businesswomen”, he continues, before reaching for one of Lee and Alex's leftover 'Atishus'. Errrkkk. Who put together this crap? Is Brady taking part in The 'Miss World' Apprentice? They might as well have called her Karen Leggy and soundtracked her arrival with a few bars of ZZ Top. Smash that glass ceiling, sisters! You'll be rewarded in La Senza vouchers come Christmas!

Anyway, I digress. Hello, candidates. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Well, judging by his experiences with the four interviewers, Lee's strengths include embarrassing himself and his weaknesses include everything else. After Young McGrath asks Lee to do his pterodactyl noise, for example, Lee is quick to oblige. However, Paul responds by berating Lee for agreeing to such a puerile request in a “serious” job interview. What a sneaky trick, eh? A trick that's extra rich when played by a man who can only do one impression - that of a sneering, charmless sh*tclown.

To claw back some credibility, Lee then starts banging on about the time when he Did Management and fired a 42 year old father of two. Apparently, the guy ended up in tears – but I'll wager it was out of sheer relief. He'd no longer have to pretend that having your manager, who is half your age, doing dinosaur impressions in a bid to make you hit your sales targets is really hilarious - and not actually one of the most demoralising things that can happen in the modern workplace.

Slaphead, meanwhile, takes Lee to task for not knowing how to spell-check a Word document. As much as I dislike him, it's a fair cop – especially as Lee's CV contains such slights upon his mother tongue as “Ther r loadz ov 2moros n I want 2b regonnised omg, THTS WHT IM TALKN ABHT!!11!”. And later, he admits to beardie Gordon that he doesn't have much in the way of qualifications. “I went to college for two years”, he declares, before Beardie waves some papers in his face stating that the college in question says he was there for just four months. Lee is forced to concur. (NB – the course Lee briefly attended was in catering. I think he gets an A for his Egg-on-Face practical, ho ho.)

Alex's meetings, meanwhile, are not so much job interviews as pointless, macho pissing contests. After Paul refers to his CV as the most boring one he's ever seen, he then takes him to task for not having achieved very much. How dare he have reached the ripe old age of 24 and not be the CEO of his own company, eh? “I was 22 when I started my own business”, sneers Young McGrath. “I was 23 when I was running Birmingham City!”, Karen adds. Slaphead, meanwhile, tells him off for mentioning that he speaks fluent English on his CV (I bet Raef and Nicholas would beg to differ) before asking him if all his friends are thick. Forget pterodactyls – if I were treated like that in a job interview I'd end up doing an impression of the Incredible Hulk. I doubt I'd take prisoners.

Alex, however, cries. The big girl's blouse.

Helene fares rather better. She kicks a typically smug Rory into touch, and rises above Slaphead's comments about her Body Shop philosophising in her application form. Things go from strength to strength when she meets up with Karen, who has the incisive interview technique of Lorraine Kelly after an evening on the Night Nurse. “I came from a pretty bad background”, she sighs. “Tell me about that”, gushes Karen, while practically giving the cameras a big thumbs up. It turns out that Helene's parents were alcoholics, and that she had to give up her education to find work at a young age. It's a moving tale that makes Helene's rise to success even more remarkable, so it's a shame that she ruins the moment by calling her fellow candidates “fifteen gobshites”.

Claire, meanwhile, is forced to discuss her teenage years spent working as a Club Rep with a heavy-breathing Paul. Personally, I fail to see how those foam-party and Aftershock-pouring skills are transferable to Amstrad. He then takes her apart for only taking home a £27K bonus (Nurse, the smelling salts!) during a year in which she claims to have made her company eight million smackers. Like Helene, she lets herself down at the very end of the day by blithely informing Karen that she'd stop doing business with anybody who forgot to send her an email. Top tip for people who end up working with Claire – always say that the server's down.

Not surprisingly, Lucinda is the most articulate interviewee. In a bid to adopt an air of warmth and easy familiarity, she fixes each interviewer with her cool blue eyes and gives them a breathy “Good morning” followed by a smile. Sadly, she ends up coming across like one of those fruitcakes who invite people on the street in for a 'free stress test' and then calmly brainwash them into joining a religious cult. Young McGrath has a go at her because her CV mentions such outrageously crackalack interests as, er, scuba diving and aromatherapy. And, even more ridiculously, Slaphead suggests that she's only ever worked as a contractor because nobody wants to employ her. As an earwig could run rings around this logic, I shan't bother.

Lucinda makes her biggest mistake, though, when she's in the waiting area. “I'm wondering if I want to do this”, she sighs, as her fellow candidates contort their faces into various shades of 'irritated'. However, after a quick cup of tea on the sofa with Karen, she changes her mind. “I'm driven by being the best I can, and also being within a company that can stretch me and that I can contribute to”, she says. “I'm going to fight for the job tooth and nail.”

So there you are, then. This was a completely pointless exercise in which a bunch of sarky, joyless bumcracks got to spend a day picking tiny and pointless holes in other people's lives. I hope they sleep well. Having said that, going by the interviews I've conducted so far this series, I'd have ended up asking them such brainteasers as “What's your favourite colour beret Lucinda?”, and “Claire do you like chocolate?” Maybe, just maybe, their way was better after all.

In the boardroom, Slappy, Beardie, Leggy (they started it) and Arsey give Big Grey Al their feedback. Astonishingly, they're actually quite nice about most of their contestants – and have particular praise for Alex, even though they did their darnedest to take him apart.

However, I can't say I'll be sending him a box of Quality Street any time soon. As soon as he plonks himself down at the table, the wretched, snivelling little tell-tale meeps about Lucinda's teeny-tiny crisis of confidence earlier that day. “I'm finding this so aggravating that I've given up everything I've got to come down here”, he moans, before pronouncing that Lucinda doesn't need the job.

“I don't need it!” she cries. “I want it!” But that's not good enough for Al. “You're obviously a very clever woman”, he says, but decides to give her the chop for not performing very well when she hasn't been the team leader. This is something that we've witnessed over the 10 preceding weeks, and proof positive that tonight's episode was a complete waste of time.

“You're a little bit too zany for me. You're fired”. Oh, Alan! Lucinda was my favourite contestant – you're no sir to me. Boo.

The remaining four shift nervously in their seats, wondering which two of them will end upon first name-terms with tonight's cabbies. However, Sir Alan has a change of his cold, grey heart. “I'm going to let you all stay”, he says. The reason is that you're all very good candidates, and you've all got something about you."

What a swiz.

“It's a tough decision I've got to make, and doing it this way helps keep the ratings up”, he tells Nick and Margaret, who close their eyes and wish they'd fluffed their interviews too.

Do you feel as disillusioned as I do with tonight's Apprentice? Is the time you spent watching this episode an hour you're going to want back at the very end of your life? And do you think Lucinda should have gone? She may not have been the most capable, but she was certainly the most likable. Let me know in the comments boxes below.

The Apprentice - Week 10

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:18:22 GMT

It's 7am in the Apprentice house when the phone rings. Claire, who apparently sleeps in a twin set and pearls, is the one who answers. “Sir Alan would like you to go to a breakers' yard in Wembley”, Frances The PA implores breathily, before hanging up the phone and emailing her CV to Office Angels. “What's a breakers' yard?” Claire wonders. It's a scrap-yard, dear – and one of you will end up on the business equivalent a little later on...

An hour later, Big Al purrs up at the junk yard in his Rolls Royce. Sadly, his chauffeur fails to park it a little too close to the crusher.

“This week's task is all about cars”, he sighs, while Nick Hewer examines his fingernails and Margaret Mountford thinks about that nice bit of scrag end she's got in for her tea. It's week 10, kids, and you can't blame them for being fed up. The novelty of being on telly has turned into a chore. And you can tell they're all browned off because they can't even be arsed to come up with one of those wildly inventive / bafflingly random locations for the morning briefing. Sir Alan could have taken them all to the Scalextric aisle of Toys-R-Us, for example. Or announced the details of this week's challenge via loudhailer from an M25 flyover, while the contestants leapt from lane to lane below, dodging traffic in a twisted, corporate re-imagining of Frogger (last candidate smeared up the fast lane courtesy of Eddie Stobart wins).

Cars, eh? Well, I was hoping that this week's task would see the teams setting up minicab services, but this is not to be. It's a shame, as I would have liked to see Lucinda driving along at 14 miles per hour with her nose to the wheel; Claire singing along to Heart FM as passengers wonder how many bones they'll break if they throw themselves from a moving vehicle into oncoming traffic; or Lee getting attacks of extreme road rage every time he spots an hopeful-looking old lady standing by a Belisha Beacon. Instead, each team has to select a couple of high-performance cars and then hire them out to people with more money than sense.

The cars they have to choose from are very fancy and very expensive and very fast and very shiny and very very boring. Sorry, everyone, but I just can't get excited about supercars. It's not because I'm a frothing environmentalist, or that I went to school with Vicki Butler-Henderson and lived in fear of her sticking my head down the toilet. I think it'smore because I'll never be able to afford one. That and the fact that every time a Porsche roars past me, with the driver wearing a grin that can only be described as “sh*t-eating”, a large part of me prays that it will end up wrapped around a road sign. I can't be alone in this.

The two teams are given a short while to sit in various driving seats, honking horns and making vroom-vroom noises, before they come to their decisions on which cars to promote. Renaissance leader Michael selects the red one and the black one (oh, all right then, the Ferrari and something called a Spyker). Meanwhile, the pair of penis extensions that Lee chooses are the moderately-priced (hem hem) Aston Martin and something called a Zonda, which looks like Penelope Pitstop's Compact Pussycat as re-imagined by the Terminator and costs £2750. That's £2750. A. Day.

“Who likes fast cars?” asks Nick Hewer. Dur, I don't know, Nick. Although I believe Princess Anne is keen. “BOYS like fast cars!” he declares. Thanks for narrowing that down, Nick, but you're wrong. Until last week I thought that the Nissan Skyline and Nissan Sunny were probably fairly similar (apparently they're not) and I still lean to one side when I'm driving round a tight bend in Mario Kart. I know nothing and I care even less. To add weight to my point, Michael doesn't like fast cars either.

“I'm finding it difficult to familiarise myself with what we're doing today”, he says, before letting out a lion yawn and promptly falling asleep in a puddle of his own drool and self-satisfaction. Margaret casts her eyes heavenwards and, in doing so, implies that she spends her weekends in greasy overalls with her head tucked under the bonnet of her MG. Maybe it's true. However, it's far easier to picture her behind the wheel of a mobility shopper, swerving into pyramids of baked bean tins down her local Netto.

Michael decides that he needs to prove his sales skills by taking sole responsibility for one of his cars, so he gives the responsibility of the Spyker to team-mates Claire and Helene.

“How do you think Michael is?” Claire asks, once he's out of earshot.

“I think he's sh*t”, replies Helene, without missing a beat.

“Yer, I think he's sh*t an' all”, Claire sighs.

And, dear reader, how right they are. Instead of parking his car in the city, which is teeming with investment bankers looking to blow a wad of cash on something that will distract them from their hollow and pointless lives for a few fleeting minutes (as Claire and Helene find to their benefit), Michael pitches his Ferrari in Knightsbridge – a shopping area popular solely with yummy mummies and tourists who want to buy a box of tea in the Harrods food hall just so they can take home a branded carrier bag. After he discovers that the only people interested in his motor are German teenagers with cameraphones, he decides that a better location would be Portobello Market. It's a no-brainer, of course. I've often nipped up there to buy two cauliflowers for a pound, and come away having spent a month's wages on 20 minutes of pretending that I'm Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder.

Needless to say, nobody signs up. The only man interested in renting the car for a couple of hours is put off by the fact that the deposit is a whopping £5000 – and he fails to be convinced by Michael stalking him all the way to Paddington, going “You're going to regret not doing it! You'll regret it to your grave! Don't leave me!” in his horrid, needy child voice. I'm surprised the guy doesn't t get behind the wheel purely for the satisfaction of running Sophocles over. By the look in his eye, I think he's tempted.

Meanwhile, Team Alpha attempt to come up with a way to make the Zonda more affordable. Lucinda suggests setting up a raffle for £50 a ticket, with the winner getting to take the car out for a day. However, after Lee mistakenly credits the increasingly prissy and annoying Alex with the raffle idea, Cindy leaps onto her high horse and starts bleating about the injustice of it all.

“It's like a woodpecker on your head”, sighs Lee, before making a half-hearted attempt at a tapping noise. “At some point you're going to turn around and go 'GET OFF!' to the woodpecker”, he continues, before going on to have an argument with a door. Looks like someone's been on the Woodpecker, not the other way around...

Lee and Alex head off to the Stock Exchange, where the Zonda is stared at by an array of puzzled builders. Lucinda, meanwhile, stays at home cutting out raffle tickets with the good humoured delight of somebody who's searching for an engagement ring that they've just dropped in a blocked toilet. The Aston Martin rusts on the drive until later that afternoon, when Lucinda tips up at Paternoster Square to see if either Lee or Alex will help her to promote it. Lee, who has yet to secure any takers for the Zonda whatsoever, point blank refuses – leaving Lucinda crying in the back of the people carrier as if she's been told to dive it through a mine field, and not stand next to it for a couple of hours going “Nice little runner”.

“F*ck”, she says.

Bigger than f*ck, Lucinda.

That evening, the two teams pitch up under separate marquees at Canary Wharf. Here, they have a few hours to nag the overpaid into parting with their not-so-hard-earned for the chance of sticking to the national speed limit in vehicles that go three times as fast. Michael, who has the name of his car written on his hand, puts off most potential customers with his incessant pestering and petulant whining, only managing to sign someone up by throwing a couple of bottles of champagne into the bargain (hmm, booze and driving - a cocktail not to be recommended). Claire, meanwhile, machine-guns a few more people into hiring the car - but Helene makes no sales at all, despite one adoring customer trying to tell her that he'd rather take her for a spin. Helene smiles politely, but you can tell she's wondering which of his eyes to scratch out first.

Over on Team Alpha, Lucinda has stopped throwing tantrums. And seeing as though they seem to have given up on the raffle ticket idea altogether, she decides to shadow Lee and Alex for a while in a bid to learn more about the cars. However, the fairies must be visiting Canary Wharf today, as a distracted Lucinda takes absolutely nothing in. Not only does she start referring to the Zonda as a “Zoner”, but she also describes it as being “like a Batmobile but heavier” to one particular customer who slowly backs away. Eventually, she makes her one sale of the task, which is for an hour in the Aston Martin and clocks in at a bank-breaking, er, £65. Lee and Alex, meanwhile, rake in thousands of pounds – and, right at the end of the day, have to race across Canary Wharf in order to meet a man who wants to make a last-minute purchase.

In the boardroom, Nick and Margaret pay attention for long enough to reveal that Renaissance took a total of £2114. Alpha, meanwhile, made £11,815. Their treat is to go to a wine tasting in Mayfair, where Alex describes one of the ludicrously pricey 20-year-old tipples as being “a bit like trifle”. After the cameras switch off, he then goes on to recognise such flavours as scotch egg, meat and potato pie and dream topping. I'm not making it up, honest.

Meanwhile, Michael, Claire and Helene mopeat each other in the local caff. “I sold f*ck all at the end of the day”, admits Helene, making the excuse that she's an internal manager and not a salesperson. However, back in the boardroom, Sir Alan doesn't think this is good enough. After telling her that she has the look of the Mona Lisa (could be worse, he could have said a Picasso), he lays his cards on the table. “What's starting to bother me about you is thinking where you'd slot into my organisation”, he barks. “I'm struggling to understand what you do.”

I believe that what Helene mainly does is stand around rolling her eyes and going “Fer f*cks sake Lucinda”, but apparently not. Instead, she claims that she's worked her way up the corporate ladder by being an excellent manager and employee. However, she probably shouldn't have wasted her breath; she seems doomed for the chop, especially when Big Grey Al starts dishing out the backhanded compliments to Mikey.

“He is a disaster zone and you might be wondering what he's still doing here”, he sneers. “But he's very young, and he has some good points about him.” That's as good as it gets from him, y'know. He might as well have proposed.

Michael readily agrees. “I am naive!” he chirrups. “I am a young man! But I think I've shown glimmers of brilliance”, he continues, as Fanta comes out of my nose. What glimmers Michael? When? Where? I've watched you for ten sodding weeks now and not seen hide nor hair of them. All I've seen you do is dance craply in a launderette, flirt with Raef, and berate various brides-to-be for not purchasing your profiterole towers. The only thing you've been brilliant at is shifting blame. Grrrrrr.

“I've only been working for a year! It means more to me than anything in my life!” Michael cries, in a bid to escape the firing line one more time. (If that second part of his statement is true, I truly pity him.) Helene, meanwhile, tries to stay in the game by honking “I want to work for you Sir Alan” over and over again in increasing decibels until I feel like smashing my foot through my TV screen and booting her out of the door myself.

Hours pass in which the Greys repeatedly send the three of them out of the boardroom to be glared at by Frances, before bringing them back in again like it's a big game of office hokey-cokey. However, Sophocles has run out of lives – and ends up with the finger pointed in his direction.

“I think he took a liking to me”, Michael says, while being ferried down the motorway. “He saw something in me that reminded him of what he was like when he was younger, and that's got to be a good thing”, he smiles. Yes Michael. One day you might end up running a multi-million pound company too. And on that same day, Satan will finally get around to opening that ice rink. Let's not hold our breath.

Bye bye Michael. I'm glad to see the back of the snivelling wretch, but I'm also a bit sorry that I'm not going to get to watch him being torn apart in the interviews next week. What did you make of tonight's show? Let me know in the comments boxes below...

Tags: The Apprentice, Week 10

Yes, it's Apprentice... Tuesday?

Tue, 27 May 2008 15:47:58 GMT

The Apprentice on a Tuesday? What fresh hell is this, you might be thinking...

You may have heard that it's something to do with some football game or other, but in actual fact it's my fault - I bribed the BBC to bring it forward a day so I could blog about it before I pop off on my holibobs tomorrow. Wee hee!

Come back here after the show, ish, to read my assessment of the teams and tell me what you thought of the latest firing... fingers crossed for Michael, eh?

Raef's interview: "A deranged lunatic..."

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:23:55 GMT

OK everyone. After an evening of sobbing into a laptop while Helene clipped me around the ear and berated me for not understanding what I was doing (no, not really), I've managed to transcribe my ten whole minutes with the very gentlemanly Raef.

Read Raef's interview to find out his thoughts on Michael's boardroom behaviour and how he just loves to dress up...

Don't forget to come back and leave a comment!

Tags: The Apprentice, Raef, interview, neckwear

Raef interview: We'd quite like to apologise...

Thu, 22 May 2008 16:16:52 GMT

Sorry folks - you'll have to wait until tomorrow to read my interview with Gentleman Raef. This is because I am a technological Lucinda.

In the meantime - here's last week's boardroom scene in Lego.

The Apprentice - Week 9

Wed, 21 May 2008 21:19:20 GMT

“Don't start telling me you're just like me”, barks Sir Alan Sugar, the 'famously hard-to-please' (read: picky) Amstrad boss, at the beginning of every Apprentice episode. “No one's like me. I am unique”, he confirms. “Oh yeah, apart from Michael Sophocles, who reminds me of what I was like when I was his age. He's like me.” Come on everyone – this must be the only reason why the Bambi-eyed bullshitter is still in the running for that six-figure salary wiping down the tables in Brentwood House canteen. But will this be the week of his long-overdue firing? Read on to find out...

It's early morning in the Apprentice house and everyone is fast asleep, but that doesn't prevent Frances The PA from getting on the blower. “Sir Alan would like you to meet him at the National Theatre”, she whispers, her voice tainted by sadness. Alas, poor Frances. If only she was a good enough actress to tread the boards at the National, bringing the works of Pinter to life with a little help from the likes of Vanessa Redgrave and Ian McKellen, instead of sitting in an overheated studio being asked to do yet another take of “You can go into the boardroom now” because she keeps fluffing her one line. Poor, snooty, monotone Frances, who is replaced every series. When WILL her big break come?

An hour later, seven bleary-eyed businessprats line up on the South Bank. “What they do here is put on plays”, says Sherlock Holmes, gesturing at the theatre dismissively. Right. So what are we doing here, then, Sir Alan? “This task is about you telling a story also, by way of a television advert”, he continues. So putting on an award-winning production at a world-renowned playhouse is the same as asking Nadine Baggott to talk about her pentapeptides, is it? I'm no authority on the world of advertising, but I doubt Alan Bennett was drafted in to write the commercials for Charmin.

This week, the two teams have to devise a campaign for their own brand of tissues. This involves filming a TV commercial, and designing a press ad too. They'll then have to pitch their ideas to a selection of advertising bigwigs, who have agreed to take time out from telling us to eat yogurts “more positively” or imploring us to discuss our constipation over lunch with glamorous friends.

“The general mood is one of gaiety and excitement a the prospect of directing our own little feature”, smiles Renaissance project manager Raef, who once knew a woman who sold Cornettos in the Odeon and therefore thinks that he's the right person to bring a touch of Kenneth Branagh to a 30-second promo about snotrags. Michael is equally keen, as he was part of a drama company at Edinburgh University - which, as we all know, is not what it was. (Note to Michael: putting a traffic cone on your head and being sick in the doorway of Jenners does not constitute street theatre.)

But how to advertise such a mundane household product? Michael thinks he has the answer. “My idea is the start of a beautiful relationship revolving around a tissue”, he smiles, clearly remembering all the times he's asked somebody out and they've cried with laughter. Claire, meanwhile, comes up with the snappy brand name 'I Love My Tissues'. Poor Claire. They're her only friend.

While she and Helene head off to design the packaging, Raef and Michael work on the TV promo. After selecting their filming location (the kind of school where the curriculum features gymkhana lessons for all the girls, and the boys are forced to wear shorts all year round, even when it's snowing), Raef comes up with the brilliant idea of paying a celebrity to appear in their advert.

However, instead of casting somebody one might associate with tissues, such as Gwyneth Paltrow or Leslie Grantham, Raef comes up with the bright idea of hiring Siân Lloyd - ITV's face of thunder.

Siân is an interesting choice, I think, especially as I wouldn't be surprised if I read on Wikipedia that she was born without tearducts. And Nick Hewer is equally unimpressed. “The point of hiring a celebrity is that you hire her for what she's best known as”, he sneers. “Siân Lloyd is a weathergirl”, he confirms, for the benefit of people viewing in non-ITV households. Lloyd, meanwhile, finds the idea that she'll bring a “wholesome” element to their campaign hilarious. “If they'd Googled me they'd have realised that I'm single, I'm not a mother, and I haven't really done any work with children”, she smiles, before accepting a lump sum to be filmed playing the part of a parent dropping her son off at school.

“What we wanted is a non-woody, Di Caprio-esque type way of acting, and I think we've got that on the bench scene”, says Raef, speaking of the final shot in which a small boy cheers up a crying girl by offering her an 'I Love My Tissues' (see – just doesn't work, does it?). “Everything is done through gestures”, he smiles. Canyou imagine what gesture I'm making at the screen, Raef? Especially at the bit where you and Michael practically hold hands while cooing that each other is the next Almodovar or Fellini? If this carries on much longer, I'm going to have to start watching The Apprentice accompanied by the kitchen basin. Bleurgh.

One session in the editing suite later, and Helene and Claire are unimpressed. Siân Lloyd's cameo is over in the blink of an eye – and that's the only good thing about it. The worst bit is that you barely get to see the actual product. Clang! “I wouldn't show it to my family”, moans Claire, “Let alone the head of the biggest advertising agency in the UK.”

Meanwhile, Team Alpha start brainstorming names for their brand. Lee suggests 'Snot', because it's “funky”. “I wouldn't want a packet of Snot in my handbag”, Lucinda points out, before suggesting the name 'Atishu'. And although she wins a few points for the name, she loses several thousand with team leader Alex for her idea of using a gay couple to promote them. “If I had that box of tissues, Lee would come to my house and be like, 'Isn't that the box of tissues off the gay advert?'”, Alex points out. Tsk, Alex! You are missing the point. Real men, gay or straight, have no need for tissues! We dry our eyes on fibreglass and feral wolves. We're not all preening nancy boys like you, y'know.

Lucinda is rewarded for her wonky attempts at “ideation” (not my word, I promise) by being dispatched to find a family home where they can film their ad. And she's jolly cross about it too. That evening, when she arrives at the casting studio, she spends the first two hours berating Lee and Alex – which leaves them with little time to audition various hams. “There's nothing that is exciting or dynamic or, dare I say, vaguely fascinating about what we've got”, she snips, seemingly in the belief that they've been asked to bring back Prime Suspect and not cobble together footage of a few part-time thespians blowing their noses.

Her tantrum continues into the next day. Upon being presented with the final tissue box designs, she dismisses them as “quite repulsive”. She also has a good old bitch about her team leader. “It's a real shame, because Alex is a lovely guy, but he's useless”, she frowns. “He's actually worse than useless.” Which, when put through one of Sir Alan's patented Amstrad truth translators, comes out as “I want to lead! I WANT TO BE THE LEADER! ME ME ME! I DO! I'M WEARING THE TEAM LEADER BERET!”

In the car it gets even worse, as Alex and Lucinda embark upon the most inarticulate slanging match of the series so far. “I don't like the boxing, I don't like the colours and I don't like the pictures”, Lucinda sniffs. “We're trying to get across the message that... y'know, family, blankets, comfortable...” Alex retorts, before they launch into a row about people sitting on a settee, or something else that I fail to follow. Lucinda ends up wagging her finger and going “Naughty, naughty, naughty”. Perhaps Alex isn't allowed on the settee because he's not housetrained? Is that it?

Lee swears at Lucinda. Lucinda swears back at Lee. Lucinda wins, I think. But, when Alex finally manages to calm her down, they've spent so much time bickering that there's barely any time left in the programme for footage of their shoot to be included. All we see is something that resembles an opening scene from Casualty circa 1990, way back when all its stories revolved around little girls with head colds, and not acid-powered spaceships crashing into shopping centres and melting hundreds of people's faces in a variety of new and exciting ways.

The next day, both teams head to ad agency Ogilvy. Here, they must give their presentations to an audience comprising three hateful executives; a variety of consumers who are there for the free cups of squash and a sit down; and you-know-who. Renaissance goes first, with Claire leading the pitch. Despite a few tortured analogies about tissues being like politicians (a guarded reference to that time when a hooded youth coughed phlegm onto David Cameron, perhaps), she does a fairly decent job. It's almost a shame, then, that their advert is pretty rubbish. “Has Siân Lloyd abducted a child?” asks one confused old dear at the back. “Is that why he's crying? Is that what's happening?”

Lee then proves that, while he's good at making stupid noises, he does not share Claire's gift of the gab. As Alpha's pitch was reworded and reworded again during the few short minutes before they went in, Lee is over-reliant on his notes and keeps coming out with gems such as “We have aimed our product at a female genre”. The ad execs check their watches. Margaret Mountford concentrates on her Sudoku.

Their advert, since you ask, is unspeakably awful. Absolutely agonising. While watching it, I almost reach for the Bostik so I can seal my eyes shut forever. Even Big Grey Al can't keep his composure, and ends up with his hand over his mouth. That's how bad it is.

In the boardroom, Sir Alan plays the ads back to the teams. Michael and Claire sit and guffaw at Team Alpha's entry, as Alex squirms. “My initial reaction towards their telly ad is that it lacks any kind of subtlety”, opposite team leader Raef declares. “I understand that adverts need to make clear what they're advertising”, he states, before sitting back in his chair, awaiting a trip to Harvey Nicks courtesy of Sugar's largesse.

Or not.

“You made the biggest error going”, Al begins, as Renaissance's faces fall. “I don't know what your bloody advert is about. It doesn't mention tissues once in the voiceover. It might make me or my grandmother or my auntie smile and look at the little kid crying and think 'aahhh', but it ain't gonna make me look for those on the shelves. You lost. I'm sorry, you lost, and it's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the three professionals I consulted today.”

Alex, Lucinda and Lee can't believe their luck, and practically walk out of the room with their fists in the air.

In the cafe round the corner, Raef makes one thing clear. “The boardroom is usually this place where huge fireworks take place,” he says, “but I can absolutely guarantee to you now that this is not going to happen. Frankly we've been unified, and I'm going to stick with that”, he finishes. The others smile and nod in agreement, while brandishing hatchets behind their backs. Although Raef is commendable in his efforts to play fair, he soon finds out that there's no place for gentlemanly behaviour when in Sir Alan's lair...

“Everything that you like about this advertisement came from me”, Michael insists, as Sir Alan raises an eyebrow. Raef, meanwhile, practically raises his entire hairstyle. “How on earth?” he splutters. “What on earth are you talking about?”, he cries.

“That's my boy”, Sir Alan thinks, as the cogs whirr in his mind and a decision is made.

“I feel that you've been lucky that you've only been in this boardroom once”, he begins, as Raef's bottom lip begins to tremble. “I have come to the conclusion that the one of you that's going is the one who actually I think is, with all due respect, a lot of hot air.”

Michael, then?

“Raef – you're fired.”

Yaaaaaaay! He's gone! He's finally gone... what? What do you mean, he fired Raef? Are you sure he didn't say Michael?

You're sure. I can't believe it. Just when I think Sugar can't make any more stupid, shock decisions, there he goes again.

“Close call though”, sniffs Margaret, as if that makes it any better.

I'm speechless. Just speechless. But I bet you're not. Comment on tonight's show below!

Tags: The Apprentice, Week 9

Sara's interview

Thu, 15 May 2008 17:12:37 GMT

At lunchtime I met up with Sara, who proved to be one of The Apprentice's more gracious candidates. For example, at no point did she start throwing balls of marzipan at me while shouting "TASTE IT! TASTE IT YOU FAT BASTARD!", which I must admit I was half-expecting.

Read Sara's interview here and find out her take on the "hard sell" plus her thoughts on her treatment at the hands of her fellow contestants. Then come back and drop me a comment, if you please.

Or, for those who have missed it, you can watch last week's boardroom scene in the medium of Lego. Yaay!

The Apprentice - Week 8

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:47:50 GMT

“Well here we are then”, grunts one of the surlier gargoyles at the church of St Bartholomew the Great, where the 'great' and 'good' of Britain's aspiring businesspeople have assembled. Upon closer inspection, said monstrosity turns out to be the nation's premier purveyor of rubbish videophones (which nobody else in the phone book owns thus rendering them utterly pointless) and Spongebob Squarepants portable cassette players.

Sir Alan Sugar, for it is He, continues, “Weddings are very, very big business”, he insists, and he should know. After all, he's made a fortune out of making digiboxes that cut the end off 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' every time I try and tape it off Sky Movies 4. But thankfully, this week's task does not involve setting the video (a task far beyond Lucinda's reach as she still prefers to commit things to wax cylinder). Instead, the two teams have to man stalls at Birmingham NEC's National Weddings Show, where they must tempt hordes of hysterical bridezillas with meringue frocks, melting ice sculptures and teetering profiterole towers.

“The teams will be selling wedding dresses and romantic accessories”, the voiceover confirms, for the benefit of viewers in nursing homes up and down the country. Well, I can't think of any other reason why he has to keep telling us everything again, can you? Having said that, 'romantic accessories' sounds a lot to me like that other quaint British term, 'marital aids'. If that's the case, there's little wonder that the Beeb insisted on editing out the bit where Sugar started gesturing at a horrified Sara and queasy Helene with an array of objects that would make Lindsey Dawn Mackenzie's eyes water. Brrr.

Helene heads up Renaissance, and is joined in her quest to sell chocolate fountains by Alex, Michael and Sara. “I used to model in bridal shows, so I've got a bit of experience”, their Dear Leader reveals. Really, Helene? Are you sure you don't mean “bridle” as in “path”? Apparently not. “I've been involved in a lot of my friends' weddings”, she insists.

This is not a first for The Apprentice, of course. I seem to recall Katie Hopkins being somewhat entangled in other people's marriages.

Michael and Sara are promptly despatched to the studio of wedding dress designer Ian Stuart, whose glamorous, ruched affairs are straight from the pages of Harpers & Queen and cost begrudging father-in-laws-to-be for upwards of two and a half grand. “We feigned interest very well”, boasts Michael, once the meeting is over. “I can pretend I'm passionate about the most insignificant thing and pull it off with an effortless charm.” Effortless charm, excruciating smarm, it's all the same in business.

They then nip off to taste some cakes. “I've been on a cake course”, Sara smiles, fondly remembering those Home Economics lessons where she baked Victoria sponges under the weary eyes of the Leicestershire Fire Department. “It's a big part of the whole wedding thing”, she adds, insightfully. Ooh I hope I have Sara on my team when I get hitched! Otherwise I'll probably forget the favours, and the vegetarian option at the reception, and to propose to somebody in the first place. The woman's indispensable.

Meanwhile, Helene and Alex head to an outfit that sells brightly coloured wedding frocks for around £900. ”The brides want to be a celebrity”, insists the company rep, who then goes on to name-check coarse, pneumatic model Jordan and shrill, teak-faced divorcee Jodie Marsh as women every girl should look up to when choosing an outfit that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. (Readers who would like to recall a typical outfit of Jodie's can click here, before wishing they hadn't.)

The two of them also visit a company that specialises in personalised honeymoon beachwear and wedding night lingerie. “I think I'm quite hung up on this”, says Alex, fingering a pink thong with the words “Just Married!” scrawled in glitter pen on the gusset. The range also features flip-flops that imprint love hearts on the sand, nightshirts depicting Garfield in a wedding veil, and various other artefacts that match the cloying sentimentality of Hallmark cards with the fine tailoring you'd expect from clothing bought at Stacey Slater's market stall on EastEnders. Frankly, the addition of this tat to a honeymoon would dampen the wedding night ardour of the most most red-blooded man, and leave most brides wishing they'd brought along some other 'romantic accessories' instead. However, Helene is impressed. “Smaller items for £20 or £30 are going to be a lot easier to sell”, she says. “And that's how I think we're going to win this task.” She convinces her team members to bid for the tacky lingerie and the wedding frocks aimed at Ryman League WAGs. Chardonnay from Footballers' Wives – you have a lot to answer for.

While Lucinda (Alpha's team leader) and Lee busy themselves checking out wedding cakes that sell for £45 a slice, Claire and Raef trek around London hunting for frocks. “Every girl dreams of wedding dresses!” cries Claire, en route to Ian Stuart's studio. “I used to work in a designer clothes store”, she continues, neglecting to mention that the shop in question begins with “TK” and ends with “Maxx”. Stuart's creations impress confirmed bachelor Raef; however, he's less impressed by what's on offer at their next appointment. In a south London living room, he and Claire are shown a variety of dresses for larger brides. Claire remains positive. “Maybe I should get a boyfriend!” she sighs, while holding a ship's sail up to her midriff.

However, back in the car, Claire has a question. “Is it a bad partnership if we had cake and...”

“...A size 16 dress?” finishes Raef. “I think we need to remember that people in a size 16 to 32 dress are that size for a reason - they love cake.” Oh, come on, Raef, everybody loves cake. I love cake, you love cake. I bet Kelly Brook loves cake, and I can't quite picture her galumphing up the aisle in Demis Roussos's summer kaftan.

Their final appointment of the day is at BHS, where thriftier brides can purchase scratchy mix-and-match outfits for as little as £95. “That is my first choice”, says Claire, who plans to have her wedding reception in the function room of her local Wetherspoons. However, Raef disagrees. “The higher the risk, the higher the gain,” agrees Lucinda. Yet another of Claire's appalling about-turns ensues. “Let's go for Ian Stuart first option, and BHS second option”, she says, transparently planning to say “I told you so” in the boardroom when they fail to make any sales. I know your game love.

Unfortunately, both teams want to try their hands at flogging the lingerie with the wedding motifs and static crackle, but only one can do so. Lucinda manages to clinch the deal for Alpha by revealing that they'll be sold alongside the dresses of a multiple award-winning designer. A dismayed Helene is forced to make do with selling cakes instead.

The next day, 7000 bridezillas and members of their entourages descend upon the NEC, determined to make their wedding day the happiest of their lives. However, for members of teams Alpha and Renaissance, it'll be one of the most stressful.

Although Alex soon manages to offload some of Renaissance's less traditional garments, the only people interested in the cakes are sugar addicts who can't be arsed to queue up in the Starbucks yet do not wish to risk hypoglycaemic coma. Sara and Michael soon begin to panic, and start trying to dispense their wares as though they're bullets. “There's a very limited amount of cakes”, Michael shouts, sweat beads forming on his brow. “They're only available today and then THAT IS IT”, he continues, as though the only alternative to spending hundreds of pounds on some eggs, flour and sugar will be handing out Mr Kipling's Battenburg fingers to disappointed guests.

Sara, who has obviously never had a Saturday job in Gregg's, tries a different tactic. “The taste is the most important thing ladies!”, she shrieks, as she holds people's noses and pushes fistfuls of fondant icing into their mouths. She might as well forcing them to eat it at knifepoint. Needless to say, no orders are placed.

Team Alpha, meanwhile, is having an equally difficult time of it. Although people queue up to try on their selection of designer wedding dresses, nobody seems to want to buy one. “Raef was insistent on this high-end brand of wedding dress, without taking any notice of what the mass market would be”, Nick Hewer complains. “We're not in Knightsbridge,” he continues, “we're in Birmingham.” Yes, Nick, that's right. Because everybody in Britain's second-largest city wears hessian smocks and Tesco carrier bags on their feet, don't they? The place has a Selfridges, for god's sake. Call me a fool but I doubt its profit margins rest purely on the largesse of the canny scallies that cloned my credit card.

It's not all bad, though. Lee soon shifts over £300 of underwear, possibly by promising anybody after one last fling that he'll take them into the changing room later and rip it off with his teeth. Impressed by his technique, Lucinda puts him in charge of dress sales. Sure enough, towards the end of the day, customers begin to return to the stand and part from their hard-earned with gusto. Meanwhile, in the most surreal moment of this year's Apprentice so far, Raef dresses up as a teddy bear in a bid to direct potential customers towards the lingerie. I don't have to canvass my female friends on this. I'm already certain that nothing lights a woman's fire more than a posh-voiced Pudsey Bear trying to garrotte them with a pair of schoolgirl knickers. Phwoar, eh, girls? Girls?

After a day in Brum, it's back to the boardroom. And although Helene and Lucinda sit next to each other, both of them purse their lips and pointedly look in opposite directions, as if their noses are magnetically repelled. Which one of them will be first to give the other a smug look?

Yet again, all agree that Lucinda was a good team leader. “I really enjoyed working with her”, says Claire, whom you can guarantee will be first to get the knives out about their project manager should they have lost the task.

Big Grey Al then fixes his eyes upon Lee. “Do you feel you are now the foremost expert on...”

“...On how to sell a lady a thong?” Lee finishes. “Yes.” Margaret Mountford smiles in agreement. The footage of her placing an order obviously ended up on the cutting room floor too.

Although Renaissance managed to sell five dresses for £1925, they didn't make a crumb of profit on the wedding cakes. However, Team Alpha shifted three designer dresses at a cost of five grand, and they made another £647 on novelty pants. The team enjoy a group hug before being shunted off to something called an 'Energy Clinic', which seems to involve sitting around in bathrobes, drinking wheatgrass juice and listening to 'Orinoco Flow' by Enya on repeat. An afternoon in the boardroom now looks more appealing than some of the prizes, doesn't it?

Michael attempts to leap out of the firing line by saying that he wanted to sell the designer wedding dresses. However, the hawk-eyed Margaret refutes his assertion. “Can I quote what you said?” she asks. “'Not to everyone's tastes, quite niche, quite expensive'”, she pronounces, with a silent harrumph. And no, she hasn't finished with him yet. “There was quite a lot of feedback that people were being bludgeoned by Michael and Sara about buying cakes”, she sniffs. “You'd have been SCARED to buy a cake!” Margaret finishes, as Michael's eyes well up yet again and Sara's bottom lip begins to tremble.

Sugar then has a pop at Alex for having been in the boardroom six times. However, after Helene comes to his defence, Alex is sent back to the house. Sir Alan Sugar is faced with his most difficult decision yet – should he fire Helene for choosing a poor selection of products, Michael for having the sales technique of a panic buyer at a petrol station, or Sara for having the friendly customer service patter of one of the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica?

“Helene, this task was lost on the first day, and it's because you didn't recognise what this was about - the captive audience and the passionate customers that I provided“, Big Grey Al barks, having invited everybody who attended the NEC that day individually.

Sara also comes under fire. “For the past eight weeks there's been lots of suggestions that you don't do anything”, he begins. “Your arguments are always very confusing and you've alienated customers in this particular task.”

“Michael”, he continues, “I've got a list as long as my arm of your apologies. I don't know how much more I can listen to that nonsense.”

Poor old show from Sir Alan on the quips front this week, I must say.

Anyway, Sara is shown the door, and a nation shrugs. “I cannot work under a project manager telling me what to do”, she declares in the taxi, underlining why she probably shouldn't have been picked in the first place. Back to Network Q it is, Sara. See ya!

However, there's an extra moment of boardroom excitement when Sugar makes moves to fire Michael too. “I don't want to sound like I'm begging,” Michael begins, before doing exactly that for the amount of time it takes for Big Grey Al to realise that another double firing would mean making the series one whole episode shorter.

“Talk about a cat with nine lives”, the gargoyle sighs.

So, Sara's gone. I think the most appropriate way to describe her exit would be "meh". But do you think Michael should have gone too, or maybe Helene? Let me know by commenting below...