The Apprentice (UK) 2012

It begins... 21st March
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/gallery/2012/mar/13/apprentice-reality-tv

Sample: Ricky Martin is a 26 year old recruitment team leader and is also a wrestler. Says: "I truly am the reflection of perfection"

Clips here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00pj01n/candidates

• Adam Corbally - "I've got a million and one ideas" - ...pity they're all likely to be as shit as his audition tape joke. "I'm a buyer, I'm a seller, I'm a manager, I'm a planner" Possibly also gets his loving on the run and maybe some people call him Maurice. No chance.
• Azhar Siddique - ""It’s not who shouts the loudest; it’s who has the ability to control the conversation" - have you actually ever seen this show mate? Seems to have inherited Tom's haircut from last year. Possible.
• Bilyana Apostolova - "I can be a bit of a control freak". Will have a huge meltdown when she's PM and get fired.
• Duane Bryan - once told a foreigner that he was Tinie Tempah - Manc mixed metaphor hundred words a minute delivery. He reminds me of Trey from series whatever it was. Could do well.
• Gabrielle Omar - "This is business" - claims that everyone else is a "faker". Is probably a faker.
• Jade Nash - "It's business - you shouldn't be crying." - will probably cry.
• Jane McEvoy - 'Sorry, this clip is no longer available'
• Jenna Whittingham - "to be honest with you I probably wouldn't have a gameplan" - hey, nothing like being prepared. And this is nothing like being prepared.
• Katie Wright - "I would call myself ‘The Blonde Assassin’." - backstabber backstabber backstabber. This year's tabloid hate figure.
• Laura Hogg - "I've got the guts to go into business with Lord Sugar." - So her business idea is a Black Pudding Restaurant?
• Maria O’Connor - 20, looks 30, talks like Albert Steptoe.
• Michael Copp - "My first rule in business is to make money – loads of it."

• Nick Holzherr - "I do blame others for things going wrong." - upper class Toryboy twit, looks like Boris Johnson's love child. Had to look through the gaps in my fingers to make it through the audition clip.
• Ricky Martin (Sugar's script writers are queuing up the jokes already) - "I call myself the superstar Ricky Hype." - "reflection of perfection"? more like dejection of rejection if there's any justice.
• Stephen Brady - "if you sit on the fence, the only thing you're going to get is not very comfortable" - CRAAAAAAAZZZZY EYES
• Tom Gearing - "charismatic" - said while showing all the charisma of a potato sack.

Excellent, I hate all these people already. Bring it on.

Azhar, Duane, or Jane seem to have even the slightest chance. Even then I could still happily stuff them and the other 13 onto a rocket and fire it into space.

I was actually going to do a fair assessment of each candidates chances, but less than half way through watching the clips it was clear that the producers have picked most of these candidates purely for the lulz. Even more so than usual.

My o/h is watching the clips right now and Jane says "There's no-one more critical of me than myself, I literally beat myself up"

•Azhar Siddique - ""It’s not who shouts the loudest; it’s who has the ability to control the conversation"

Blimey, someone says something sensible!

He will be routinely ignored and kicked out in the second week.

This starts tomorrow, usual batshit time, usual batshit channel.

Dara O Briain ‏ @daraobriain

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Well the first episode of "you're Fired" was great fun. I think you'll enjoy that..

i'm gonna hate myself for watching this, i can tell

16 men on Alan Sugar's chest! Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of LOL!

'The Voice' a thrilling new series on BBC1 rollercoaster at Alton Towers.

THIS IS A
{LARGE RED SMUDGE}

it's like Engrish but without the excuse of not being english

30 minutes in and the task is over. so now we have 30 minutes of boardroom bitching. snore.

Oh boy but that's the best part!
Nick 'Boris' looks like he's on his way to be publicly executed.

Quiet start to thread.

Or, TV threads goin out of fash.

Well, this isn't exactly an American sitcom.

Biggest lol of the night was that girl dissing the architect "all she does is draw pictures of buildings".

Figured the do-nothing blonde was gonna get the axe until the one that did go piped up and pleaded when she shouldn't have.

Also never seen a team get berated by a shopkeeper for badgering/generally being awful.

^ all highlights of an otherwise appalling episode. Union Jack bears? In London? For £15?

I couldn't understand why the girls were pack-hunting around - split up and cover more ground ffs. Their t-shirts were actually quite nice, that alone should have won it if they weren't mostly so completely stupid and awful.

Girls team leader kept looking like either Britney or Jessica Simpson

This is the thing, often the TV show will concentrate on the failings of one team more than their 'successes', as if to say "Surprise! They won!"

There's also a large dollop of 'team wins because they're very slightly less crap than the other team'.

Union Jack bears? In London? For £15?

Yeah, even in the tourist trap shops on Oxford street they're £3 max.

Or, TV threads goin out of fash.

Most reality TV thread on ILE are like this at the start, simply because there are too many people to keep track of at the start of the show. 16 candidates starting t' 'prentice this year. I'm not sure that the first programme even managed to name all of them. Losing a real character like Bilyana this early is a bit of a blow. Hopefully something deeply unpleasant is in store for Gabrielle and Katie.

This is the thing, often the TV show will concentrate on the failings of one team more than their 'successes', as if to say "Surprise! They won!"

totally.
it has become tiresome this aspect of the show ..

Then again, this week it did have a point: The girls had a good product, but lost because of trying to 'hit' babies with their sales teams (four people 'taking turns' and shouting a lot?)

Whereas the boys were selling lousy stuff but had a better sales presence, and actually going to where there were lots of foreign tourists who hadn't quite got the hang of the conversion factor, made the difference.

Change in format has damaged the show: who doesn't believe Sugar has already chosen which business plan he's willing to invest in? Last series Tom should clearly have been thrown out time and time again, but obviously he was the only one who Sugar thought would actually do anything after the show had finished. Inexplicable non-sackee will emerge halfway through this series and go on to win.

'Killer whale of the sea world'

A recycling bin!
Great, except that the council delivered one to every house in the area for free (OK well it was paid for with taxpayer's money) not that long back.

These people are all terrible.

yup. not enjoying this series at all.

There's still too many of them. Hope that it picks up once they've got rid of the no-hopers.

The thing about the vegetable compactor is that it's crap, but so are most kitchen gadgets.

Argh. If it's about the number of orders why not sell it for £0.01 or cost price or whatever. Or design something small and cheap rather than larger and pricier. Obviously they must have some constraints that stop them doing this but we're never told and it makes it very pointless to watch...

otm. there must be have been something that would have stopped the sub-team from saying "scrubbing gloves are cheap as shit and they'll order twice as many on a lark".

Can't believe people aren't enjoying this series because everyone is terrible because it seems to me that the whole point of The Apprentice is that EVERYONE IS TERRIBLE.

I doubt it: They're daft enough to go with the 'cool looking' idea.. (xpost)

xpost there's usually someone to root for, or a comedy baddie to root against, but this is just a festival of unremitting awfulness.

Well, once the whittling down has happened, yes.

Coming up with a new condiment this week.

Levi Roots on the after match analysis show.

Today I learned that there was a contestant called Michael and that there's a contestant called Thomas. Seriously, too many contestants, so much irrelevant badly-explained ridiculous task bullshit.

Yeah I don't even remember seeing the Thomas guy before. The real surprise for me is that Nick 'Boris' Holzherr seems to be among the more competent of the contestants. That there are far too many of them at the moment is possibly why, and he'll look increasing incompetent as the series progresses.

Yes, he seems OK, but for an Apprentice-contestant value of OK, which is a pretty low bar to clear, tbh. My other half drew google-eyed Stephen in the sweep at work. I lolled.

So, Ricky 'not that one' Martin saved himself by sounding like someone that understands business, and Katie by being a fairly decent 'motivationer' Task manager, the result was easy to guess (the candidates back at the house pretty much had it sussed for once). Neither needed to stick any knives in, really.

Michael could have saved himself in the boardroom if he'd a) knocked that pleading to AlSug on the head, b) gone on the offensive against Ricky re: the factory sub-team not making enough jars of comedy salsa. Something like "I could have sold more to the trade if you'd made more jars in the first place."

"We can funk it up to be a funky bin"

Selling crap to hipsters, lovely...

"That well known saying you don't look a gift horse in the eye."

tonights episode in short form :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvcD4Czx4Y

oh to be a fly on the wall of the homes of the folks that paid for that tat

oh just get Adam the fuck out of there already.

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.

Thought Ricky and Tom totally nailed the brief - even without the blithering twatfest opposite them almost guaranteeing them victory by default, they looked like winners right the way through.

I have no idea why preparation and research aren't more widely-used and rewarded.

Chocolate shop should've been called LORD SUGAR

YES

wait when do they do the interviews?

Sunday. Interviews are ripping the business plans apart iirc

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?