The Apprentice (UK) 2012

oh yeah right so. so there's only one ep left and it's not the big task where all their friends come back to help?

aargh, Kelvin Mackenzie is on You're Fired, in the only possible move to make Adam seem like not the biggest twat in the room.

and Ruby Wax, why are they doing this to us

Ruby Wax there as well. I almost feel sorry for Adam.

Actually I don't feel sorry for him, with his shiny pink perpetually grinning face that looks like something a kid would draw on a balloon.

God, Nick Knowles seems like a real-life spitting image puppet

I'd watch a Rolf Harris Apprentice.

Who was the silver fox checking out Jade during her presentation? The way the show was edited, I thought he was going to turn out to be a talking point later, but he wasn't. Did the editor just fancy him?

The moment he put himself forward to be PM, I knew they'd lose. And they did, even in spite of Nick's ideas and Jade's sales skills.

― Radical Jedward (snoball), Wednesday, 30 May 2012 20:43 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, Jade was in danger of winning the task for them.

"CHOCOLATE BAAAAAAH!"

Final on in five minutes, once Gary Barlow and his Royalist Tory tossbag mates have finished writing a pish song for the Queen.

In a pub with it on. Happy days.

I hope bald Claude punches smug Tom in the face over and over again.

Lol Nick working the catwalk just then

Jade's idea is the shittiest of the four by a long way.

I need a pub with this on :(

aldo aren't you in Bris? can't be arsed to go out and find a pub tho

Yes, in the Bishops on Cheltenham Road.

Ricky has a degree in medical biochemistry?!
"Who plans a meal with recipes" er lots of people?

Is it just me or are some pitching ideas that basically they weren't willing to be PM on?

we're predicting Ricky to be hired

Yeah, seems like the only conclusion. Especially after Claude sucking his cock so much.

@Lord_Sugar
Shame about Nick nice bloke his idea such long shot

‏@Lord_Sugar
Spaghetti cabonara on google

@Lord_Sugar
Chataux mon plonk will go down

THOR WINS

This "You're Fired" panel is the worst ever, surely?

panel chosen to make sure lord sugar was the funniest

Still failed.

I thought Nick's idea was pretty good and I couldn't believe how dismissive the interviewers and Sugar were. Claude & Sugar both said "who's got time for that?" - what, clicking a button on a browser? Although I doubt if either of those two have actually cooked themselves a meal for at least 20 years.

That question begged a proper answer. Why didn't he include some market research?

I expect Sugar has some existing interests in recruitment so that Ricky's plan can be easily implemented into a functioning back office and sales software set up. It also appeared that he had a few clients that he wanted to bring over, hopefully he previous employer(s) were all cool with that! Such a dull business idea. Easy choice though as it should make at least some money in the short term.

the interesting, possibly nonsensical, parts of the business plan (the ethical aspects) got waved away by sugar.

I don't know enough about Nick's business plan - but the delivery end seemed a problem. If you're just ordering one or two items for a recipe that you don't want in bulk, or that won't keep fresh that long, who's going to deliver them? He may have the main supermarkets interested, but they already charge for a full delivery. Who want's to pay a delivery charge for a few spices etc.

Jade's plan for a call centre that generates leads wasn't revolutionary. In my experiences these businesses are scaleable and use temporary staffing. Quite risky to talk about having the 'biggest' one. The operators I've had experience with have all been a bit shady, not a business people want to be associated with as typically they prey on the vulnerable.

I suspect that Sugar & Claude actually know fuck all about the internet either, really.

I think Claude knows enough to be confident the recipe idea isn't going to be bigger than google.

Was there actually an investment strategy behind the hedge fund idea? Or was the idea simply to use Sugar's name to draw in other investors?

Did Nick say it could be bigger than Google or Facebook or was that something Sugar/Claude said because that's all they know about the internet?

As I understand it Nick's idea was creating a button that would link recipe sites (like bbcgoodfood) to online grocery retailers (like Ocado). In principle an interesting idea. Who would use it? Well I know people who use both those sites so maybe them. I think the problems were probably in the details, it definitely had more scope to fail compared to Ricky's.

Yeah that's what I thought it was. A browser add-on, rather than the "web page" Sugar/Claude kept calling it.

Nick actually made that comparison himself. I'm all for dreaming big but no.

Ah did he? That was silly. He should've kept their expectations realistic by telling them it could be as big as last.fm. I'm sure they would've got that.

I couldn't get my head around the wine investment proposal. Was he asking for 250k in order to raise 25mil on which he would invest purely in wine? The question for me would be who is ready to invest now? 250k could be done in a couple of months of client entertainment with £0 at the end of it.

I still think this shift to business partners rather than actual apprentices is a disaster. It doesn't matter how well you do over 12 weeks of tasks - it all comes down to the one idea you had before you started, so it's basically become the world's longest episode of Dragon's Den. Although in this case (unlike inventor Tom) Ricky would have won the old format too - imo he's clearly the most impressive individual in terms of working with others, keeping his cool, learning from his mistakes, etc. But it still feels like an illogical process and I miss the old format of interviews in the penultimate episode then the big get-the-old-gang-back-together finale.

The wine investment thing works pretty much the same as how people invest in gold: you don't actually get to have any, but you 'sort of' own some until you sell it.

So, basically there were two excellent ideas, one fair to middling one, and one that the contestant had pretty much admitted she wouldn't propose if she'd had the time to re-submit "sweet things", etc.

And that AlSug was 'too old' to do the wine investment thing and all the learning involved. Maybe Branson would?