Don't Fancy Yours Much - Ad Week on The Apprentice

I don’t mind admitting that I’m excited about tonight’s edition of The Apprentice. The advertising task is now as much of a reality TV staple as Big Band week on X-Factor, or a racial sensitivity debrief on Big Brother. It’s a chance for an agency full of rolled-up Diesels to swivel their magnified eyeballs in horror, as a quartet of pin-striped pricks bumble their way through a mangled pitch.

It’s another early morning, and Leah is looking entirely confused by the sounds emitted by the dildophone. Things don’t get any better when she answers it, inadvertently revealing what we’ve known all along – there’s no-one on the other end. The boys are all preening in the bathroom in matching underwear, like the Primark Chippendales, but they’d better get a wriggle on, since Lord Sugar’s expecting them at Marylebone town hall.

Apparently, this place is home to hundreds of weddings a year, which gets us one step closer to the reveal of tonight’s task. Something about weddings and relationships and dating websites. Honestly, these explanations are getting so convoluted, Ted Rogers would struggle to follow them.  

Lord Sugar rattles through his set-up to make the point that the “onlike dating industry has exploded.” He even throws in a market size statistic to emphasise his point, but no-one takes him to one side to explain that apps are eating into the viability of these creaking platforms. What do you want from The Apprentice? Actual business insight? Anyway, the teams are told they need to come up with a new dating concept and a TV campaign to promote it. Given that dating websites usually get advertised on the channels that have a presenter in a living room thinking of a number and inviting viewers to call in and guess, the anticipated lack of production values may actually stand them in good stead for once.

As the challenges of this week’s task sink in, Maleficent Milquetoast reveals that he first saw his wife online. “But it wasn’t a dating site,” he adds cryptically, prompting his colleagues to wonder whether they hired the other girl as an au pair, and kept the cup as a souvenir.

Over on the other team, Alex is waxing philosophical about life’s rich pageant: “Some people are gay, some people are lesbian, some people are heterosexual. There are so many variants…” Well, that’s three. Sensing his colleagues’ indifference, he adds that he’s "the Christian Grey of The Valleys". Which is bullshit - that's Tom Jones. Alex is the Noseybonk of the Valleys. 

At agency Karmarama, Jason announces that he used to run a dating website, which saw him known as ‘Mr Cupid’. He even does air-quotes to emphasise his point. Meanwhile, Alex and Jason are both pitching for the role of PM. Leah and Maleficent go for Jordan, because at least he doesn’t look like a child’s painting on a balloon. Slipping effortlessly into his leadership role, Jordan tells us he wants another 50,000 foot view. I’m sure this obsession with heights comes from the fact that he buys his suits in Baby Gap. He runs through the allocation of roles, and points out that Alex is going to be strong on “the tech side of things.” Which should come in handy, if building a dating website means they also need to rewire a pleasure-giving Fembot.

The other team has decided to focus on the grey market, despite the fact that they talk about over-50s as if they’re discussing an exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Luisa says she wants to throw a spanner in the works, but that’s behaviour suited to more specialist websites. Across town, Maleficent and Leah are staging a photoshoot in the city and have managed to pick a man so posh that he makes Boris Johnson look like a character on Shameless.

Neil and Francesca decide on some market research, and choose a run-down pub where several pensioners appear to be in hiding, after breaking out of a retirement village. These may not be the ideal consumers to grill, given that four of them seem to be sharing a single mineral water. No such worries for Jordan, who’s entertaining the other team by channelling the spirit of a strong, sexually-liberated independent woman. By this point, Karren’s cringing so hard that she’s accidentally unhooked her own bra.

While Alex is pitching the not entirely terrible CuffLinks (for young professionals), the other team are leaning towards Friendship & Flowers for their over-fifties website. It’s all sounding a little bit ‘open casket’ – a problem that isn’t helped by a logo design that wouldn’t look out of place etched into a headstone. Luisa’s lost her patience with Jason’s chronic indecision, and decides that the best approach is to repeatedly yell ‘Make a decision, make a decision’ into his ear. As they wander out into the street with their argument still in full flow, it looks as though half of the agency have set up comedy Tumblr’s dedicated to the bickering pair. In the end, Jason decides to relinquish his leadership and pass the role onto Luisa. Having dismissed the rest of the team as a “nest of vipers,” Jason now attempts to post-rationalise his defeat as a boldly courageous step. Like hiding under a school desk as an effective defense against nuclear attack.

The CuffLinks website is looking stuffy and corporate, which disappoints Karren who was hoping they’d settle on something that says “Come here, you can have loads of fun.” I’d love to know what dating sites she’s got in mind.

With the website designs settled, it’s time for the teams to start thinking about their TV ads. Maleficent has decided that they should build their concept around the worst date ever, using a comedy character who represents “a proper Herbert.” Still in full flow, the silver fox also proposes casting half-man Jordan as a strapping six-footer, but I’m not sure their production budget can stretch to a stepladder from HSS Hire.  

Having already cast himself as the definitive Herbert, Alex is now trying to come up with some interesting camera angles for the shoot. “I’m quite a visionary person” he intones, as he smears mascara around his eyes. There’s just time for him to squeeze his awkward frame into a wet t-shirt and jorts before the cameras roll.

The oldies are also filming their ad, and without wanting to pre-empt anything, I can’t see this winning the task for them. For all their talk about dynamic and vibrant older people, the ad looks as if it’s going to end with June Whitfield in a bath-chair, flogging funeral insurance. Nick looks profoundly disappointed that he wasn’t asked to star in it. He even moans that “They’ve gone for mumsy, cosy, huggy. This is my age group.” Francesca is doing what she can, begging them to be “a bit more animated,” like Viktor Frankenstein on a fashion shoot.

With the pitch drawing ever closer, Jordan is worrying about what happens when Alex is left to his own devices, and Luisa is trying to keep Neil the terrier at arm’s length. We finally get to glimpse the finished ads, and I’m happy to report that they’re worthy entries in the Apprentice advertising Hall Of Fame. A young business woman shambles towards the camera moaning into her phone “I’m so late for my online date.” Is she in a rush to log on? Is there no Wi-Fi in the park? And we mustn't ignore Leah’s voiceover, which sounds like a pissed-up Jim McDonald trying to sweet-talk Liz through the letterbox. There are concerns that Alex’s character work might be getting silly, but I’m more concerned that I won’t be able to sleep until the middle of next week.

The agency team has assembled to judge the ads through their splayed fingers, and they’ve been joined by some dating industry big-wigs. The CEO of sugardaddie.com sent her apologies, saying she was stuck on Channel 5 for the moment. Luisa steps up first, having told Neil that although he's a great presenter, she's going to do it anyway. There are chuckles and looks of disbelief when the Friendship & Flowers website is revealed, since it looks like an abandoned Geocities page. CuffLinks don't exactly come out smelling of roses either, when Francesca explains that the nightmarish Herbert "Is the face of what we're trying to achieve." Smeared in shit and leering threateningly. In the end, the agency experts have a tough time trying to determine a winner from the two teams. The best they can hope for, is to help Lord Sugar identify the least awful. 

Over to the boardroom now, where Sugar is trying to get to bottom of the enigma that is Alex, which is as thankless a task as prizing the lid off the Ark of the Covenant. "Why don't people listen to you, Alex?" he asks, plainly ignoring the obvious and curiously spherical answer that's staring him in the face. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he doesn't hate the Herbert ad either, commenting "There's a lot of humorous ads out there, so they must be successful " Don fucking Draper there. Of course, Alan's never truly happy, so he slates the corporate look of the website and the disconnect between the two, and there's a great shot of a humiliated Jordan taking a hate-gulp of water. Nick also lays into Luisa, telling the vacant Furbee that she was ungracious and rude.

In the end, CuffLinks is good but disjointed, and Flowers & Friendship had the right market but wrong delivery. For no particular reason, CuffLinks are the winner, and they dance out of the boardroom on their way to sample caviar. Somewhere in West London, Jordan is observing that it "tastes like fishy pate," which is just what the woman serving £35,000 worth of Beluga wanted to hear.

Back in the boardroom, and Lord Sugar shows his disdain for market research people. Then again, this is the man who, in 2005, confidently predicted that the iPod would be dead and gone by Christmas. He seems surprised that Jason and Luisa can't agree on who to bring back in, having forgotten the fact that their entire failure was based on a lack of agreement between the two of them. As they continue to bicker, Francesca looks like a bored gooseberry content to check her nails and pout at Karren. When the two women both turn on Jason, Lord Sugar gives him the floor. Jason waxes lyrical about teamwork, prompting the crusty 'business icon' to smile like he's listening to his favourite Chas & Dave tape. Ultimately, it's clear that Jason doesn't have the business instinct so he gets his marching orders, along with the first "with very great regret" of the series. In the aftermath, Karren announces she wants to stick close to Luisa to see if she'd be too much for Alan to handle, making next week's episode sound like one of those after-midnight broadcasts that offers a free minute of unscrambled action.

And finally, as Luisa and Francesca return victorious to the house, we see where Alex got his inspiration for Herbert. That, or Jordan's been raiding the Welsh wonder's wardrobe. 

The Candidates are Getting In Tents

“There are people in this room that are hungry for this deal” growls Lord Sugar, fingering the lid of his Bargain Bucket. That’s right, it’s time for us to revisit the blue boardroom of doom, as our luckless egotists face yet another contrived and largely unrealistic sales task.  

At least this time around they’re going to have actual products to flog. Last week’s reprise reminds us of what happened when these loathsome twunts had nothing to sell except their own deluded sense of self-worth. But it’s week seven, and there’s no rest for the wickedly hopeless.

After the cursory London glamour shots, it’s a race to the candidates’ house where Neil is running around in his pyjama bottoms and answering the phone. Then it’s a quick bellow through the house, before dragging a bladeless razor over his neck. Told to pack an overnight bag, Jason attempts to stuff an enormous teddy bear into his carry-on luggage. Possibly for comic effect, but where Jason’s concerned, it’s hard to tell.

Today’s briefing venue is the Tower of London, and given that Lord Sugar has been plugging tonight’s camping theme all day on Twitter, it’ll be interesting to see how he segues from one topic to the next. Ah, OK. Tower of London goes to tourist attraction, tourist attraction goes to UK holiday-makers, and UK holiday-makers goes to camping. Still, at least we got through that without anyone using the word ‘staycation.’

The voiceover tells us that the caravan industry is worth £6bn in the UK alone. That’s five million for the caravans, and the rest on the bright blue toilet chemicals. Our teams are going to be selling items at the Motorhome and Caravan Show in Birmingham, which must be the second least appealing sentence in the world, after ‘Now, turn to the side and cough’. 

‘Silver Fox’ Malleus Maleficarum tells us that caravans are banned in Monaco, so he’s unlikely to be much use in tonight’s task. So it falls to ‘health drink entrepreneur’ Kurt to step up to the plate. In the other team, Jason is agitating for a go in the hot-seat. He’s never been in a caravan, and he’s never been to Birmingham, so maybe tonight’s not his night. Throughout the show, caravanning comes in for quite a bit of stick. Obviously, none of this lot have ever experienced the bracing wonders of a week in Filey, or the joys of doing the washing up whilst speeding down a B-road.

The first challenge is selecting the products to showcase. Neil’s team are getting up close and personal with foldable chairs, electric bikes and a roofbox that doubles as a boat. Not that the design team have gone overboard with the concept – it just looks like a regular roofbox with an oar stuck in the side.

Malleus is still talking about his glamorous life, and the fact that his time in Monaco allowed him to hone his ability to smile at A-listers. He’s pulling out all the stops to impress the product developers, telling a man that he loves his chair and wants to know the philosophy behind it. Well, one day, I found myself wanting to sit down somewhere… The other team is admiring a box with a lot of oomph inside. It also appears to contain a bunch of camouflaged crap for kids.

Project Manager Neil and Jason are wandering around the NEC, sitting in things. Neil thinks Jason’s a big girl’s blouse, but Jason’s too oblivious to care. Instead, he asks rhetorically, “Who gets on a bike and doesn’t want to pedal?” as we crash cut to Luisa doing just that, and piling straight into a desk. Her eyes widen in shock, which makes her look like a hentai character designed to give ophthalmologists the horn. Either way, bike lady isn’t too impressed with their cavorting and shuts down any attempt to secure a discounted pricing model. Team Evolve are doing much better, as Luisa, Francesca and Jordan manage to win both their supplier pitches.

As Myles takes the call that his sub-team have failed to secure any of their preferred products, Nick lurks threatening in the background, jotting notes in his Moleskine. Given that he was with the purchasing team just a couple of short scenes ago, this lapse in continuity indicates that the producers have finally dropped any pretence at caring. Which means we’re all on the same side now.

While Neil and Jason investigate a trendy VW camper van, Kurt and Alex are looking at a fold out trailer tent. Neil tells his team he wants to go for the foldaway, and they agree it’s a no-brainer, which wins them a “well done team.” Staying on his good side must be a piece of piss. Kurt has gone for the pricey VW as his big-ticket item, and wants Myles to do the selling because of his high-roller background. He also thinks Alex is too young and lacks the gravitas to sell a van with a draining board, when in actual fact it’s clearly those fucking eyebrows that are holding him back. After a quick grumble Alex resigns himself to the task in hand; demonstrating chairs to people who’d struggle to stand unaided. He also focuses on the USP of the roofbox boat –it’s a box, and then it’s a boat – and even manages to sell one.

Jason is trying to sell a foldaway trailer tent, but is so strange and curiously inappropriate, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Help The Aged officers were monitoring him from the awning. Neil, on the other hand, would rather just whip people’s wallets out their back pockets. Luisa manages to sell one of the thousand-pound electric bikes, prompting Jordan ask her what she’s doing that he’s not. She sagely resists the urge to respond “Steering clear of parachute pants.”

Natalie has clearly done her research and knows all about the cubic capacity of the rooftop boat, but lets herself down by thinking that the bench is a table. Elsewhere, Jason is about to make his first sale, which is making Neil’s genitals audibly shrivel up inside his body. Nick leans into the camera and warns us all that there’s no tomorrow, like a grey-faced harbinger of the apocalypse.

This week’s big ‘that’ll come back to haunt them in the boardroom’ moment comes when Kurt decides that the women might be more use if deployed as eye-candy; suggesting that his extensive camping experience amounts to little more than watching Barbara Windsor’s bra flying off during some outdoor calisthenics. Alex is sounding similarly pervy as he asks some poor, unsuspecting woman, “Hello Madam, want to have a look at my boatbox?” Then, with a final flurry of paperwork, it’s time to pack up and return to the mothership with their empty carry-on luggage.

On Team Endeavour, Myles blames Leah’s lack of passion for their failure to bag the best products, and she’s barely sentient enough to even mount a defence. Lord Sugar settles into a particularly aggressive groove, and there’s an extended montage of dancing eyebrows to characterise the candidates’ response.

Leading Team Evolve, Alpha-Neil throws some shade on Jason, who attempts to rationalise his slightly creepy sales patter. In the silence that follows, you can almost hear Nick’s pinstripe unravelling itself. In the end, Jason dodges a bullet, since Neil’s team scores a whopping £33,000 in sales, compared to Kurt’s meagre £1,500. They’re off to Manchester to stare at Chris Hoy’s bum, while Kurt’s despondent lot decamp to the Cabana Café somewhere on the set of World War Z. Hang on a minute, there’s just time for one last shock as Lord Sugar asks Jason to be sent back in. “I just wanted to say, well done, one of those sales was down to you,” growls Alan, to which Jason responds by saying “I hope to keep impressing you Lord Sugar.” Let’s not get too carried away.

Endeavour shuffle back into the boardroom, and Frank Sidebottom is the first one in Lord Sugar’s sights. After a light mauling, he turns to Kurt, whose standard defence-mechanism is to adopt the Droopy Dog eyes. Myles, on the other hand, is too busy regretting describing himself as “the Jedi Knight of sales” on his CV. After reminding Leah that she was just there as eye-candy, it’s time to pick on Natalie. She makes a good stab at defending herself, but astutely observes that there’s no point arguing with Lord Sugar – you can’t apply logic to the man who invented the email phone.

Kurt picks Natalie and Alex to come back in the boardroom and lets Myles off the hook – presumably they don’t have showdowns in Monaco either. Sugar mocks Alex for his tombstone business, but this is a man who took one of Britain’s “most promising young business people” and gave her a job selling digital signage to hospitals. Natalie gives a rousing defence of her contribution to the task, but loses it when she turns on the waterworks. It’s a double-header tonight (steady on) and both Natalie and Kurt feel the business end of Lord Sugar’s finger. I’m really sorry, I don’t know what’s got into me.

Back at the house, Alex walks in and dramatically slams to door as someone asks “Who’s behind you?” Glasses are chinked, and then one of the boys notes “It’s only the high calibre left now.” Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Leaving a bitter taste

As a lowly student, I spent many years working as a waiter. In that time, I had to endure the indignities of ignorant customers, the mood swings of the chefs and, in one painful instance, the violent allergic reaction to a catering pack of Thousand Island dressing tipped over my head. Happy Birthday to me.

So it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, to learn that I see Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares the way prison officers must view the Oz boxset. At best, it’s a busman’s holiday. At worst, the grotesque exaggeration of an all-too-painful reality. And then there’s growling Gordon himself; a corrugated cardboard cut-out of the clichéd angry chef, in a pair of Simon Cowell’s hand-me-down jeans.

Even so, something told me I needed to watch tonight’s edition of the long-running reality yell-fest. This may be the USA edition of the show, but it’s the exact same format. As far as I can tell, the only real differences are the size of Ramsay’s car (an SUV he could invade North Korea in) and the fact that he calls coriander ‘cilantro.’

Tonight’s struggling business is Amy’s Baking Company, in Scottsdale Arizona, run by husband and wife team Amy and Samy Bouzaglo. The restaurant itself is half high-end patisserie, half Olive Garden pizzeria – an incongruous mix as confusing as the mismatched pair who run it.  According to their meet and greet with ‘Chef Ramsay’, Samy’s a former playboy who managed to score better women than Hugh Hefner, despite looking like Steve Carell in a half-hearted SNL skit. His wife, a former showgirl, answers the question ‘Whatever happened to Nomi Malone?’ for the seven of us that asked.

Amy’s one of those Christians who believes she’s got a direct hotline to God, and uses her celestial connection like a spiritual Ocado. She asked the Almighty for a husband and a restaurant, and ended up with both. As much as they might try to convince us that they’re soulmates, as a pair they’re about as appealing as Huntley and Carr.

But what of the restaurant itself – what’s going wrong, and why has someone projected the silhouette of a cock into the night sky to summon Chef Ramsay? According to Amy, they’ve been suffering from a series of unwarranted attacks by ‘online bloggers and haters’ who post dishonest reviews of the food and service. Amy’s done her best to rectify the situation, by personally attacking anyone with the temerity to review her restaurant. But now, they’ve decided to use a prime time TV show to stem the flow of negative coverage. This can’t possibly end badly.

Unfortunately, 24 hours before Gordon even rocks up, Samy is threatening customers with the audacity to ask after their pizza, following an hour’s wait. For a moment, it looks as though Amy is attempting to call the police in order to pacify her violent husband, only to then chase the customer into the car park herself, calling him a ‘pansy ass’. Given that Gordon’s idea of a disaster usually involves restaurateurs attempting to pass off Grano Padano as Parmigiana-Reggiano, he may well be in over his head.

From the moment that Gordon arrives, it’s clear that Amy and Samy have misread their contract. They seem to think that the crinkle-cut chef is here to give their hellhole a televised endorsement that will silence their critics, once and for all. And for a few minutes, it seems that their wish might come true. Ramsay’s certainly taken with the refrigerated cabinet full of chocolate-coated mammaries that pass for desserts. With a spring in her step, Amy returns to the kitchen, and that’s when it all starts to fall apart.

It doesn’t take long for Gordon to notice that none of the staff are allowed to take orders; Samy’s skills as a server make Mrs Overall look like the model of professionalism; and the reality of the customer experience is kept well hidden from the highly-strung head chef. Ordering a variety of dishes from the menu, Gordon’s in for a long wait as the items come out at twenty minute intervals, which at least gives him time to get to the bottom of the restaurant’s staff retention issues. It’s probably not helped by the fact that Samy pockets all the tips earned by the hard-working servers. That might not seem too shocking to a UK audience, but when you factor in the fact that US serving staff pay income tax on estimated gratuities, irrespective of whether or not they’ve earned them, that becomes a much more egregious abuse of the minimum wage employee.

Our hungry host chomps his way through a parade of disappointing dishes. Watching him working his way through a rapidly disintegrating ‘Blue Ribbon’ burger could rival Embarrassing Bodies for ‘shows not to watch when you’re trying to eat.’ The pizza is sickly sweet and barely cooked, and the salmon burger could pass as cat-food; criticisms all delivered with Ramsay’s characteristic bluntness. The problems really start, when he takes his feedback directly into the kitchen. Amy reacts to his comments the way Mariah Carey might, if she was told she could only travel with one item of carry-on luggage. Finally, Nigel Farage has a rival in the swivel-eyed lunacy stakes.

Het up from all the negativity, Amy decides to take it out on her luckless servers, firing one girl on the spot, then berating her for walking away and missing out on the rest of her diatribe. What originally felt like a nice dose of schadenfreude, has now become a discomfortingly unflinching descent into madness. Colonel Kurtz with a piping bag.

Rolling her eyes and screaming in such a way that suggests crucifix abuse might be on the cards, Amy rejects every piece of criticism, citing unnamed sources for a variety of glowing testimonials. The handful of customers who haven’t been poisoned by the food or roughed up by the maître d' don’t seem overly convinced. Gordon reminds the defiant pair that, until they’re willing to accept feedback, nothing will ever change. Amy storms off and hides in the walk-in freezer.

The following morning, Amy and Samy haven’t shown up for work, so Gordon stages a hastily arranged interview with former staff members, who confirm his worst suspicions. Missing tips, abused customers and the kind of staff turnover that only the Sugababes could rival, all seem like oft-told tales. Later on, the emergency summit with the Bouzaglos doesn’t go much better, and for the first time in six series, Gordon has to walk away.

The bitter aftertaste from all this, is that since the show aired in the US, viewers have let loose with a barrage of criticism on the Facebook page for Amy’s Baking Company. Unsurprisingly, the couple didn’t take the comments too well, and told everyone to go fuck themselves, before tearfully appearing on various news shows to announce that their Facebook has been hacked and the FBI have been notified.

Of course, the real losers in this whole sorry affair, are the TV viewers, who can now look forward to a new reality show being built around the dysfunctional duo. Despite having not a single appealing characteristic between them, they’re likely to be rewarded with a show of their own that will focus on their idiosyncratic approach to customer service. As with most of these shows, the element that made them compellingly watchable in isolation, will be magnified, accentuated and over-engineered, so that a generation of kids will grow up learning erroneously that bad behaviour will always pay off. And they still won’t be able to cook a decent fucking salmon burger. 

Souking up to the boss - The Apprentice Week 5

And so we come to week five of The Apprentice - TV’s second most aspirational careers show, after that one about the women who fill the Steak Bakes at Greggs. Once again, the editing team’s having a laugh, picking snippets of choice dialogue, and presenting it out of context as a commentary on the candidates themselves. Tonight’s choice example: “Is this the best I can see?” A question that, depressingly, answers itself.

Tellingly, the show opens on a pile of horseshit. Besides setting the tone for the remainder of tonight’s installment, this also introduces a handy recap of last week’s action. Which can basically be summed up as Luisa offering “Potatoes, fresh from the ground,” and Kurt responding with smoothies, fresh from Cost Cutter.

This week it’s awkward academic Jason who goes shambling for the dildophone, as Jason gives us a flash of his nipple ring, and the girls dance through the house with excitement at the prospect of 24 hours in Dubai. Zeeshan is thrilled, because it’s his second home, and Luisa is busy packing her bikinis, proving that she is to the boardroom what Katie Price is to the Man Booker Prize.

The voiceover declares Dubai to be one of the world’s top shopping destinations, before introducing the venue for today’s task – a new multi-million pound hotel. In fact, that’s hardly a differentiator, since you’d probably be looking at seven figures for a decent sized B&B in Stockport. But let’s not start quibbling yet, I’m sure there’ll be far more egregious over and understatements for us to disagree with in tonight’s show.

The hotel is still under construction, but this is only evident because they’re in Dubai, where everything ordinarily comes with a gold-leaf finish. Even the gold. If this was anywhere else in the world, the unfinished concrete floor and wads of gaffer tape would be considered a ‘bold design statement’. Anyway, this is another one of those frantic shopping trips, where the two teams have to source a series of inexplicable items on behalf of the hotel manager. Lord Sugar pops up on the video screen to point out that his reputation is on the line, a dramatic over-reach that’s undermined by the fact that he couldn’t be arsed to get on a plane in the first place. Given the horror stories I’ve heard about the construction industry in Dubai, it’s heartening to find that the Apprentii are about to be sucked into it. Next week’s task will presumably see the remaining members of Evolve and Endeavour attempting to talk their way out of 21^st century slavery – now there’s a negotiation task I’d happily watch.

Professional David Brent Impersonator Zeeshan is clearly the star of tonight’s show, which is presumably why we crash cut to him boldly declaring “No human in this world intimidates me.” That’s fine – let’s throw him into the big cats enclosure at Chester Zoo instead. He’s getting increasingly ballsy since, as he repeatedly points out, he’s lived in Dubai and knows how to barter with the Emirati. Explicitly signing his own death warrant, he tells his team “Put the map away – I know this place like the back of my hand.” Throw in an elderly man dressed as a busty washerwoman and this would be a full-on pantomime. Altogether now – Oh no he doesn’t.

He may be confident in his local cultural knowledge, but there’s already tension in the team. Doctor Leah is decidedly unimpressed with Zee’s hubris, and makes her counter-pitch: “I’m a good leader, great with finance. I don’t have a lot of local knowledge but I can convert the currency really easily.” After all, isn’t that what they really need: a pouty-lipped Foreign Exchange?

The other team is being led by silver fox Myles Morduant, who sounds like one

of Harry Potter’s unforgivable curses. He’s had a glamorous life, and boasts that he lived in Monaco for ten years. I’m not entirely sure of his point – doesn’t Monaco have shop assistants and traffic wardens? Myles confides in his team that this is likely to be a logistics task. Poor thing, he’s probably still on Monaco time, or he’d have realised that you’re supposed to speculate about the nature of the task before you’ve been briefed on it. There’s just time for posh Jordan to suggest “Let’s take this back up to 50,000 feet,” which I think is his way of saying he wants to get the first plane home, before the teams take to their people-carriers.

The items are supposedly to help finish the hotel, but it’s not entirely clear why the manager needs a leather hood for a falcon. Not to worry, there’ll be plenty more shopping list fuck-ups before the day is up; it’s as much of a certainty as Nick getting sand in his eye. Or at least looking like he has.

On the hunt for kanduras, the sourcing strategy doesn’t get off to the best start. The flinty sales rep only gets as far as “Hello, my name’s Rebecca. I’m English” before the other end hangs up on her. Can’t say I blame them. Meanwhile, Leah has decided to ignore Zee’s explicit instructions to head for the souk, and directs the cab to the Dubai Mall instead.  The PM obviously gets wind of the dissention in his ranks and calls to check in on his sub-team. “Stop talking, we don’t have time…” barks Leah, before reiterating for good measure: “I would’ve been a better PM.”

Myles is looking for a sago palm tree and settles for the first discount the sales woman offers him. Karren’s shaking her head in photogenic dismay, telling the camera crew that he should have negotiated with the boss instead. In the back of another MPV, Zee and Kurt are trying to order a UAE flag over the phone. Unfortunately, Kurt’s not quite got the hang of decimalisation, and mixes up his centimetres and inches. Unbeknownst to him, they’ve just ordered a flag that might suit a particularly patriotic mouse. It’s Spinal Tap’s Stonehenge all over again. Myles and his sub-team are also on the lookout for a flag, but they’re dealing with the shop manager face-to-face. Advised that the process will only take 45 minutes, the team decides to wait it out. We know how this one’s going to end, don’t we?

Neil, Alex and Leah appear to have located the only part of Dubai that’s older than Miley Cyrus, where Leah is trying to order a 32 ounce coffee pot, but the Emirates are trying to understand her French and Saunders comedy accent.

As they walk past another shop, someone offers Alex Viagra. “I don’t need that,” he shouts back, “I’m from Wales.” What he meant to say was, “I’m already a massive cock.”

Elsewhere, Jason is trying to describe the ancient practice of falconry to uncomprehending passersby, and seems to have decided that impersonating Apu from the Simpsons is the best way to facilitate their understanding. As for Neil, he’s developed an approach to negotiation that’s so aggressive, I half expect him to punch vendors in the neck, rather than shaking on an agreed price. 

Over in the flag shop it’s all kicking off as Zee’s team realise their miscalculation. Nick’s outside auditioning for the Del Monte campaign, and charitably suggests that the flag error was caused by the boys’ lack of concentration. And not because they’d struggle with the word jumble on a Little Chef placemat. Myles is also stressing about the flag, because he seems to have been stuck in this shop since halfway through the last series.

Zee’s sub-team are still distrustful of Zee’s bolshy leadership style, and are questioning whether he’s got it right about the Oud. The PM maintains that it’s a woody fragrance (and to be fair, he’s actually correct), but since the brief clearly asks for a mahogany oud, it’s doubtful they’re looking for perfume oil. In fact, it’s also a musical instrument, which the team eventually realises. Jordan goes in for the close, wearing his finest pistachio pedal pushers. “Make me happy, nine nine zero,” he grins at the shop keeper, in a scene with so much gay code I’m going to need an Enigma machine to crack it.

As the hotel manager the table of items, which looks an awful lot like evidence collected from a crime scene, the teams fly back to London for a showdown with the hairy teabag.

In the boardroom, Lord Sugar asks after Zee’s performance as leader of Team Endeavour, but Leah’s sticking the knife in before Alan’s even finished his question. At one point, Nick makes a reference to Alex’s weird eyebrows, which is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle funny-looking. Then, Ol’ Squinty has another pop at the flag mix-up - “Alan, this hotel is three times the size of the Kremlin,” assuming that Lord Sugar has a working knowledge of 15^th century Russian architecture, as well as shit phones.

Things aren’t much better for Team Evolve, who get a slap on the wrist for spending the day window shopping. Myles gets more stick for not negotiating better on the flag price. Karren suggests that maybe they shouldn’t have paid up-front. Magnanimous Myles agrees with a “Fair comment.” A quick tot-up of the numbers, and it’s immediately apparent that Zee has been sunk by his own bravado. As a reward, Lord Sugar sends Evolve to the world’s… best… new…cocktail bar, which just looks like a snug in the Rovers. Still, the mixologist has a jaunty cravat, so it can’t be all bad.

Perhaps picking up on the fact that the internet has dubbed it ‘the café of broken dreams’, the hastily rebadged La Cabana Café plays host to yet another task autopsy. Zee pre-empts things by telling his loyal subjects that he doesn’t want to hear their apologies for the team’s failure, as a lonely tumbleweed rolls past the sausage baps. Leah adds that she’s sorry to say that she was right all along, but the grin on her face betrays her delight. Disturbingly, there’s an overhead shot from the rafters, but the camera cuts away before we can see if someone has crudely scratched Baggs Was Here into them.

Once again, the losing team face up to Lord Sugar, who reminds them that they were only £90 out, and demonstrates a misunderstanding of irony that’d have Alanis Morisette shaking her head with disdain. Zee effectively signs his own death warrant the moment he chooses Natalie to accompany he and Leah back into the boardroom. From the moment he lets the door hit Natalie on the way in, it’s clear that the knives are out. In a classic pincer manoeuvre, the women accuse Zee of being a chauvinist and it’s not too long before he’s shifting uncomfortably in his seat and wrestling with his tie like it’s an Indian Python. With anyone else, this would be an open and shut case. But let’s remember that the final decision will be made by a man whose Christmas tweet read: “Ladies, get your boss to buy you a new nailfile.”  

Thankfully, common sense prevails, and after some needless back-and-forth Zee is sent packing. Respect to Leah and Natalie who don’t even acknowledge their nemesis as they stride confidently out of the boardroom. For tonight, let’s give the final word to the vanquished property manager: “The name Zeeshan will go down in history. I’m not sure exactly why yet.” Indeed.  

Shake, prattle and fail - The Apprentice Week Four

I’m not sure I’m ready for this. I’ve been away for a few weeks, and so missed the first episodes of this series of The Apprentice. So, in order to prep for tonight’s installment, I endured a triple bill last night in order to get up to speed. After all, the last thing I wanted to do was to start empathizing with someone that the rest of the country had already decided was an intolerable fucktard. Turns out, I needn’t have worried.

Episode 4 opens with the promise of farmyard fun, which had me experiencing a traumatic flashback to Rebecca Loos wanking a pig. Thankfully, there were no such shenanigans tonight –  the closest we came was the sight of Frank Sidebottom in a blue shower-cap, confidently attempting to milk a dairy cow.

Nine years in and you could almost predict every line of the show. Lord Sugar continues to render the show’s title obsolete, telling the prospective candidates: “It’s not about a job, it’s about me plowing £250,000 into a business.” Why not just call the show The Investor, and be done with it?

Anyway, old crinkle-chops has got his measure of them, barking “You’re all a bloody waste of space.” Of course they are, how else are we to assume that they made it through the casting process? They’re certainly not picked for their likeability, commercial acumen, or realistic eyebrows.  “Oh my God, do you guys know what you’re doing?” yells one Apprentice, giving voice to eight million viewers at home. The final clip in the opening montage is another Apprentii claiming “I’ve been stitched up,” but it’s not clear whether she’s referring to her team-mates or those wags in the editing suite.

There’s just time for a quick recap of last week’s flat-pack farce, where the word ‘innovation’ was universally misinterpreted as a synonym for ‘uncomfortable chair’ and the girls continued on a losing streak that would make Eddie the Eagle feel all superior.

It’s 5.20am, and two of the girls are clattering down the spiral staircase to answer the dildophone. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere about how many candidates it takes to operate a sex aid, but there’s no time for that – we’ve got to race to Surrey Docks in East London. As is customary, there’s lots of footage of the boys scratching their armpits and running around half-dressed, while the girls roll their eyes back and attempt to paint those Penfold-style brows onto the empty space a couple of inches above their heads.

At the City Farm on the Isle of Dogs, Lord Sugar is telling our hopeless hopefuls that there’s this great new trend, where people grow food on farms, then take it to market to sell. This is most alarming, given that he’s old enough to remember the agrarian revolution. While he pontificates about the plot of Jack and the Beanstalk, a herd of goats begins to gather threateningly in the background. According to legend, they’ll eat anything – even polyester suits and hair-gel – so this could get interesting. Sadly, before the ruminants can attack, Lord Sugar mixes up the teams, admitting, “Ladies, I’ve been disappointed.” For once in his life, the shoe appears to be on the other foot.

In what was formerly the girls’ team, Luisa announces that she has a cake shop, so her ability to deal with suppliers makes her the ideal project manager for this task. Still, that doesn’t seem to stop hard-faced pharma sales rep Rebecca from throwing her beehive into the ring. She proudly announces that she has no experience in sourcing produce, retail or dealing with suppliers, but hey, how hard can it be? At this point, Luisa’s eyes open so widely that I can hear a faint tearing sound.

The other team has grudgingly accepted Alpha Neil as their PM, and they’re listening to Jordan, the hipster Harry Potter, tell them that “There was a van at my school that sold Ostrich meat.” I’m guessing it was a school with a polo team. Neil explains that “we need to have a specialist thing,” to which Frank Sidebottom responds by suggesting “cheese on toast.” This is all going swimmingly.

It’s still too early in the series to tell most of the suits apart, so once Evolve and Endeavour get split into sub-teams to source produce, it all makes about as much sense as watching the Oceans 11 films out of order. The next fifteen minutes become a disorienting montage of scenes of people riding flat-beds through orchards, panic buying cabbage, and speculating whether satsumas might be indigenous to the South East.

Thankfully, Nick’s on hand to emphasise ALL the wrong WORDS as he evaluates THE candidates, making it impossible to tell whether he approves of, or disagrees with, their margin strategy. It doesn’t help matters that he still looks as if he’s trying to squeeze face-first through a drainpipe, so his facial expressions give nothing away either.

One of the sub-teams is roaming around Shropshire sourcing milk for their shakes, while their counterparts are buying up stock primarily to dress their shop. “Engage brain” bleats Luisa, clearly unfamiliar with the old adage “Physician, heal thyself.” This prompts Francesca (a dance and entertainment entrepreneur, whatever one of those is) to roll her eyes like Marty Feldman on acid. The pressure’s clearly on, as the passive-aggressive behaviour has now being cranked up to eleven. There’s a flurry of unfinished conversations, as team-members attempt to discuss strategy with the PMs, only for the phone to suddenly go dead on them – honestly, there’s more hang-ups here than an OCD sufferer in a dirty Youth Hostel.

Happy Shopper Ryan Gosling should be happy – he got his own way about the shakes, but he’s taking his de facto deputy leadership of the team as an opportunity to tell everybody how wrong they are. About everything. “I don’t think so, I disagree” he growls, as he tries to figure out how on Earth you’re supposed to make a milkshake using Cox’s Orange Pippins.

The big day is upon us, and the two teams proudly reveal their curiously named emporia. Luisa’s team has opted for Buffalocal – a neologism that seems to be trying to do too many things at once – whereas Neil’s gang have settled on Fruity Cow. Karren looks secretly pleased with that one. The candidates are all bustling about, trying to make their final preparations, with Cosmetics Entrepreneur Uzma sagely advising her colleagues to “Make it look like there’s lots there, when there’s really not.” Echoing the advice of her guidance counselor on how to fill out a CV. The shops have only just opened and already laugh-a-minute Nick is promising pain in the boardroom, but he knows how long it’s been since Alan last splashed out on reupholstering the chairs.

Karren declares that the milkshakes are coming thick and fast, showing a fundamental lack of understanding about the concept, and I’m momentarily distracted by the sight of someone walking down Brick Lane in a giant burger-shaped hat.

Doctor Leah, who looks like a sex doll with a slow puncture, is promising piping hot soup, even though Miles has been wandering around East London holding the same pots for a couple of hours. Not to worry, it’s just leek and potato. If it gets too cold, they can just call it a Vichyssoise.

Time is fast running out, and the milkshakes aren’t shifting, so Neil and Kurt take the decision to make smoothies, courtesy of some cartons of Just Juice picked up in the local CostCutter. The pressure’s also getting to Alex, who’s wandering the streets in a red apron screaming “Quails’ eggs” at passersby. In one alarming close-up, his unfortunate face makes me think of a haunted clock. After one final rush, which sees the teams flogging as much as they can at cost price, it’s all over for another week.

Back to Lord Sugar’s luxuriously appointed Portakabin, where we’re afforded a rare glimpse of what used to be Frances. The receptionist looks up in surprise as thirteen Byrited muppets stroll in with their carry-on luggage, as if she thought she was an extra on Doctor Who, but had wandered onto the wrong set by mistake.

In the boardroom, Lord Sugar is trying out another one of his patented joke-fails – this time responding to the choice of buffalo meat by saying  “You was in East London, not the Wild West.”  Nick’s still flinching, but probably at the mangled grammar rather than the shit humour. He’s had forty years to get used to both. Placed under the spotlight, Luisa confirms that when the sales dried up “Our strategy totally changed,” which is a bit like the captain of Titanic declaring that he attempted a different methodology once the ship spontaneously changed direction. Neil doesn’t fare much better, with his milkshake-based strategy prompting another rip-tickler from Lord Sugar - “Apple and Blackberry, sounds like a mobile phone shop.” My aching sides.  

After three weeks of defeat, Evolve has finally won a task, prompting Jordan to celebrate in his customary aggressive fashion. Over on the other team, Kurt is regretting sticking the knife into his team leader before the results were revealed, since he’s all but guaranteed that he’ll be brought back into the boardroom.

As the victorious Evolve get lessons in deboning a grouse, team Endeavour are drowning their sorrows in the tepid milk foam over at the Café of Broken Dreams. The music even takes an appropriate turn for the melancholy as Neil asks them for their ‘forts.’ Unsurprisingly, it’s Uzma and Kurt who accompany him back into the boardroom, but he’s seen this show before and knows how to play Lord Sugar. Spend just enough time going mano-a-mano with Kurt, before revealing Uzma as the true sacrificial offering. More pointless bickering, and Lord Sugar’s clearly had enough. I know exactly how he feels. There’s a bit more customary fake out, as Alan wields his chubby finger like Clarence Bodicker’s shotgun in RoboCop – all that’s missing is the “ne-ne-ne-ne-ne” sound. As a defeated Uzma clambers into the cab, still wearing her ridiculous high heels, I’m left to marvel that she can feel anything from the knees down.