A star is born! Raef from the Apprentice was a guest on the first episode in the new series of “8 Out Of 10 Cats” and he was mostly pretty funny, but quite simply hilarious when he was asked who he would least like to share a car with and he simply said, “a rapist”. Funniest moment on TV all week! Check it out on the clip below at about 4 min 35.
In the penultimate episode of the Apprentice, five remaining candidates faced absurdly tough interviews from Sir Alan’s usual henchman, with the addition of Karen Brady. Most of them wilted to some extent, and some embarrassingly so, under the harsh questioning. There seemed to be no clear winner but there did seem to be a concensus that Lucinda was a good team leader but not a team member, and on balance Sir Alan decided she was a little “too zany” for him and gave her the boot. Rather than fire another two he decided to keep four for the final next week, with two teams of two. It’s probably fair to send all four in as I think it’s difficult to pick any stand out candidates from those four, although possibly Helene is the weakest link remaining based on her track record although she performed ok in the interviews, notwithstanding her slightly potty mouth.
The “interviews” episode is one of my favourites from the whole series and this was certainly no let down. One thing I wasn’t impressed with how Karen Brady was featured. Her entrance was by way of some teasing shot of her leg as she got out of her car. When she came to talk about Alex, her first comments were about how good looking and charming he was. I don’t know if I really think the programme makers or Brady herself represented woman in business very well.
The task this week was to come up with a concept for greetings cards and try to sell them in bulk to retailers like Clintons, Celebrations and Tesco. Michael was put in charge of team Alpha and Kevin headed up Renaissance.
Alpha settled on a “National Singles’ Day” - there was some conjecture on the spelling but I think they got it right - and Renaissance went for “Save Our Planet”, which were environmentally themed cards. The ridiculousness of sending a card to spread some kind of green message would have been obvious to most right thinking people, but fortunately for us viewers, the Apprentice doesn’t always attract right thinking people. Sara tried to volunteer other ideas in the car but was victim to Jen’s overbearing, aggressive hectoring which we had previously seen her deploy against Lucinda.
Despite having someone with commercial experience of pitching, Kevin decided he was “150% confident” that he could smash it out of the park himself. This was brilliant car crash TV as poor Kevin morphed into David Brent. By his every attempt to exhude confidence and gravitas, he made himself look increasingly ridiculous. Perhaps his lowest point was suggesting to Clintons that not buying the environmental cards would be “like the US saying they don’t care about pollution”.
The environmental idea was obviously doomed to failure from the offing, so it was no surprise when this was confirmed in the board room. Unable to comprehend that their idea was fatally flawed, the team instead formed a pack mentality and tried to put the blame onto Sara. Initiated by Jenny, Claire and Kevin saw a possible scapegoat emerging and in piled in behind her. It was ugly to see. Sir Alan was wise to the bullying that was going on and was able to see that Kevin was completely to blame and rightly fired him.
Poor Sara, after having to put up with her team trying to gang up and bully her out, got back to the house only have that boorish oaf Lee leading some new aggressive attack on her. It’s at times like that they the contestants can show how thoroughly unlikeable they can be, although it looked like Raef recognised the inappropriateness and was trying to end it.
He’s funny and a tad pompous, but Raef is surely the star of the show and must be a favourite to win.
What did you think of this week’s Apprentice?
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After a reshuffle of the teams, they were told they would have to come up with some new ice cream flavours, and sell them to retail buyers. Lucinda was to lead Alpha and Claire was put in charge of Renaissance, with the ticking off she got from Sir Alan last week still ringing in her ears. Claire seemed calmer than in previous episodes and although the editing led you to think the other team were cruising a victory (a sure sign in fact that they weren’t), Renaissance did snatch some last minute deal which pushed them across the winning line.
Lucinda had managed to do a seemingly good job of leading her team, although I was shocked by her behaviour in the boardroom. She said that she had been told by Helene that Jen was “a snake” and “evil”. I mean, who would repeat gossip from a private conversation - if it was ever even said - like that in public. It was embarrasing for all involved. It was some kind of bitchiness more suited to the playground and certainly diminished Lucinda in my eyes, which was a shame as she had done a reasonable job and could have kept her dignity. It took Margaret Mountford to steer the conversation back to the business.
In assessing the loss, Sir Alan was mostly appalled by two factors: The decision to agree to exclusivity in order to get a deal, although I don’t see how that actually contributed to them losing the task, and the sales meetings that were setup with companies that could make their own ice cream, although I’m pretty sure that the other team did manage to sell to a company that usually made their own so I’m not sure why that in itself was such a crime. Lindi had been made 2nd in charge and Sir Alan decided she was culpable for the errors. I’d liked to have seen more of Lindi, and don’t think Sir Alan’s decision to fire her was the right one.
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This was Simon’s episode. It pretty much charted his downfall with the rest there as merely extras in this tragedy. Simon is what was has been referred to as a grafter but this was his chance to show Sir Alan he could be more than that, and volunteered to be project manager. The task was to set up a photography stand, taking and selling photos to the public. The team weren’t enthusiastic about Simon taking the lead, but relented to his enthusiasm. After dividing the team in two for the separate duties, he asked Alex to be his number two on the other team. The thought of any responsability (culpability?) seemed to leave Alex reeling and Claire stepped up to the place instead. I can’t take Alex seriously anymore after he negotiated something down by half price last week and called it a “100% discount”.
Simon made a number of grandiose statements which only served to warn us he was heading for a might fall. He told us how intelligent he was. What a good photographer he was. He told the team he “knew” the people that went to Bluewater - the scene of the task - but then confused me by at one poing saying they were like “orange” footballer’s wives and then later saying they were “dowdy”.
Both teams seemed to do ok on taking the photos, and both struggled with the logistics of actually printing the (right) photos. Neither team shone, but Simon’s defeat was sign posted throughout by his authoritative statements of the ridiculous. After some cat fighting in the boardroom, through which Simon kept his dignity and probably the respect of Sir Alan, the inevitable firing was delivered.
Simon said he will probably now go back to installing satellite dishes. I hadn’t realised that was his job - does that mean they abandoned their usual claims to have the best young business people applying for the position? So Simon lost the task, but showed him self to be a thorough decent guy by the end of it.
Series 4 of The Apprentice started last night, and it was great to see the usual mix of ridiculous egos who make grandiose claims about their own abilities and then promptly fall apart at the seems when asked to do something relatively simple like price and sell some fish.
Jennifer claimed to be the best sales person in Europe, and Michael offered this gem: “People say to me you’re arrogant and I say ‘yeah, what are you going to do about it?’”.
In the boys’ team, Nicholas took the blame, and ultimately the sack, for the decision to wrongly price lobsters although the edit showed that team leader Alex played a major part in that decision. They went up against each other in the boardroom, with Nicholas hilariously suggesting that there was a schism in the team between the “educated” and those less so, which Alex took major offence at. Raef chipped in with the pearl of wisdom that he was able to talk to “prince or pauper”, with Alex choosing to take offence at that too.
Sir Alan seemed to be enjoying the class war unfolding but eventually put an end to it by delivering a “big fat F” to Nicholas, who’s only previous experience of failure was getting a B at GCSE French.
It’s brilliant to see the Apprentice back and I can’t wait for the next episode. One thought though: what on earth was Matt Lucas doing on the boy’s team?
Well, I suppose it should have been obvious. Simon made a total balls-up of the “TV selling” task, but Sir Alan fired poor Naomi, which I guess should have told me that Simon was his favourite, but for some reason I thought he would go with Kristina. She seemed genuinely gutted not to get the job.
But what is the job? Well, Sir Alan wants Simon to help find a hotel provider for a new hotel and golf complex he is setting up near Stansted. Hotel and Golf complex? Someone’s trying a little too hard to be Donald Trump, I think!
And what of Katie? She was publicly embarrassed again last night on the You’re Hired program with Adrian Childes. Their treatmeant of her seems oddly petulant. They should be thanking her for making their TV show - and that’s what this is, it’s not a serious business exercise - actually interesting.
In a fantastic episode of the Apprentice, Katie proved herself as the most capable person there and then promptly quit the race. Was she ever interested in a job with Sir Alan? Did this global brand consultant earning 90k really want to come and work for Amstrad in Brentwood, Essex?
Sir Alan dispensed with the services of Lohit (”too nice”) and Tre (too full of BS) and that leaves Simon and Kristina for the final.
You’re Fired on BBC2 was also fantastic as Katie got in an almighty ding dong with some brassy blonde caleld Michelle from an underwear company called Ultimo.
This YouTube clip gives a flavour of the battle, although this official edit for posting online by the BBC lacks some of the heat of the actual argument.
The two went head to head and Katie emerged victorious. This woman will go far. You kind of get the impression she could do anything she wanted if she put her mind to it.
What was up with Sir Alan on last night’s Apprentice?
Simon made a monumental cockup of everything he touched, and yet still get fired. He got credit for picking the wheelchair, but Naomi and Tre got no credit for actually selling it. The fact they sold any was put down to good product selection and not sales. The fact that no trampolines were sold was put down to poor product selection and not bad presentation by Simon. That seems like a mad conclusion to come to.
Sir Alan also attacked Naomi and Tre for being negative over the wheelchair, which he decided in the end was a good product selection. But when he first saw it on he shopping channel, he was as horrified as anyone. Naomi and Tre’s first reaction was no different from his first reaction.
The sham gameshow interview process will see three leaving next time… can’t wait!