Apprentice UK : Eight go to Mar-gay-te

OK I am very late this week but as they say better late than never. This week the teams were sent to Margate and the task was to come up with a marketing programme to re-brand the seaside resort.

The teams were unchanged from last week. Mona, James, Debra and Howard were in Ignite while Kate, Yasmine, Ben and Lorraine were in Empire. The task kicked off with both teams selecting a theme for their re-brand.

Ignite opted for a gay theme over Mona's objections, she thought a family theme would be more in keeping with the town. Maybe the rest of the team were hoping Howard who is gay would give them some insight, they were sadly mistaken.

Empire on the other hand went for the family theme and apart form some bickering between Loraine and Yasmine they ran a fairly smooth operation. Although as has become standard Ben chirped in with some less than insightful contributions including the gem "Margate is not Seychelles" talk about stating the bloody obvious!

His other nugget was one that would ensure he gets a frosty reception on his next visit to the seaside resort, in between prancing around pretending to be a director during the photoshoot he asked during one of the photo sessions for "more of the sea less of Margate". Way to go Ben.

However despite Ben's faux pas and the bickering between Yasmine and Lorraine, their presentation while not cutting edge was reasonably professional and well put together.

Ignite of the other seemed to be going along swimmingly despite Mona's awkward interrogation on a transsexual in which she sought to establish what their gender was. She and James in my opinion got a reasonable batch of photos which is what they were tasked with.

It was back at HQ with Debra and Howard that it all went horribly wrong, their time keeping was atrocious and the poster Debra designed had glaring portions of whiteness with no content, a no-no for the posters.

In the presentations they made to the advertising Execs and Council officials that were judging the teams, Howard tried to cover it up with a silly white lie about reserving the white space for advertising, but is was such obvious bull it got nowhere. To compound matters in response to some other questions he cited spurious statistics that were again a load of bull.

No surprise than that when it came to the crunch, Ignite's marketing plan for Margate was voted a flop and they lost the task. Debra the team leader brought Mona and James into the boardroom. Now in my book Debra should have been fired not only was she the team leader of the losing team, but she also made the most glaring mistake.

Sir Alan however was not to be bothered with facts on this occasion and decided Mona was too be sacked for not being strong enough over the series. Well it his money I guess.


Mona Lewis

So we lose the lovely Mona, but even she admitted that she had really gone as far as she would reasonably expect to.

Stands out this week

Mona Lewis
In the final weeks Sir Alan has more or less decided who he can hire and who he wants to fire and when one of the chosen ones is threatened it seems he fishes around for feeble reasons to keep them in and fire the one if the "unwanted". Mona who did no wrong this week was fired instead of Debra who did practically every thing wrong


Debra Barr
I was disappointed with Debra as she was one I had picked out as one of the better candidates, but she fell to pieces on this task and I really wonder if there really is any substance behind that hard ice cold facade. She cocked up the posters and her time management was a joke. Why she wasn't fired only Sir Alan knows.


Howard Ebison
In some quarters he is viewed as a potential finalist, but I just can't see it. Too often he has stayed out of the limelight and when he steps up to the plate his impact is barely noticeable. This week he wanted to be PM but was brow beaten in submission by Debra, he spotted the issues Debra was making with posters but again backed down in what was a crucial argument and to cap it all in the presentations had to push lies that were barely credible to defend Debra's mistakes.

Apprentice UK : Love conquers all (...except being fired).

It's Wednesday and we are back with the Apprentice. Today's task took the Apprentices to the North West of England (Liverpool, Manchester) and gets them to pick two products from budding inventors and sell as many of those products as they can. Simple really.

As seems to be the norm, there was more reshuffling, Team Empire is now Mona Lewis, Debra Barr, Howard Ebison and James McQuillan, while Team Ignite is Ben Clarke, Phil Taylor, Kate Walsh, Yasmine Siadatan and Lorraine Tighe.

Mona and Lorraine both volunteered to become Project Managers. I initially felt that this might be Mona's demise as she has been very quite since her win earlier on in the series as a project manager, but it did not take long to discover that was not the case as the editing of the programme very quickly pointed us into the other direction.

Some times you wonder to what degree aspects of the show are contrived. We all know that there is no love lost between Phil and Lorraine but we also know that there is plenty of love, lost or otherwise, between Phil and Kate and this week they were all conveniently lumped together. Guaranteed to kick off fireworks? definitely!

However it wasn't just the pairing that led to their downfall, it was also the product selection. While Mona and her team went for some sort of double handed dog leash and a body suit that doubles as a sleeping bag, not inspiring but still not implausible products. Lorraine and co on the other hand universally agreed to go for what can be best described as a collection of painted cardboard boxes and a lop-sided bicycle saddle/shopping bag. To be fair Yasmina did raise concerns about the saddle bag early on, but those were swiftly dismissed by the bag's 'inventor', but then he would wouldn't he.

Both teams went about their selling. Empire had an initial blip not selling anything on the first day, but by the second day they had turned into a well oiled selling machine with the exception of the ever-dreary, always complaining Howard who at one point literally begged Debra to let him close one deal, like she would ! Mona was the star of the show selling a remarkable £2000'ish of the £4,000 worth of deals Empire closed.

In Team Ignite on the other hand had a clear divide. Yasmin and Lorraine seem reasonably diligent in their work, squabbling occasionally about who pitches what but seemed to get over it. They sold about £1000+ worth of orders. On the other hand Kate and Phil seem to treat the whole thing a romantic day out, the only downer being they had a gooseberry in the shape of Ben Clarke tagging along. Between the three of them they sold absolutely nothing, but seem to have had a whale of a time up North.


Phil Taylor


Kate Walsh

Boardroom time Lorraine brought in the two love birds Kate and Phil. I honestly thought Lorraine was toast, because Sir Alan has shown time after time that he has a soft spot for the 'lovable rogue' i.e Phil, and Kate has with the exception of today put in competent performances.

It wasn't to be and I think it was largely down to Phil's out of control personality. His performance in the boardroom ranged from obnoxious to rude having passed through absolutely pathetic. Accusing Sir Alan of favouritism and heaping all the problems of the world on Lorraine's shoulders, he thrashed about like a drowning man and drowning he was. Even Kate picked up on this and in what I guess was a mercy killing (or it could be the ultimate act of self protection) she too turned on Phil at one point and blamed him for not pulling his weight on the task and so it was that the gob from the North East was sent packing into Apprentice history.

Stands out this week

Mona Lewis:
She won as project manager during the first week of the series, although there was a large body of opinion that the suggest the win was inspite of her, rather than due to her. This week however she showed beyond doubt that the victory was all hers in a dominant performance.


Phil Taylor:
I have always said I liked the guy at the onset but he grew more and more concieted as the weeks went on. This week I think Phil's big failing was he thought Lorraine was far weaker than she actually and was blinded by this. Although he denied it it seemed he almost intentionally wanted her to fail confident that that would be here demisr. He failed to see that his relentless attack on her week after week has only seemed to strengthen her position rather than weaken it. It seemed the more he attacked, the stronger she got and the more infuriated he became. A guaranteed cycle of destruction and so it proved.


Debra Barr:
I am pretty sure that you will never catch Debra listening to Dido's song "White Flag" where the singer promises she will go down with the Ship, Debra does not do group hara kiri. This was best exemplified in this edition when Howard struggling to close any deal literally begged Debra for one of hers after all it was all about the team winning in a sense, as if!. she smugly dismissed such a notion and in the interview clip spliced on to the segment the contemptuous look she had about this alien business of doing something for the team was priceless. She was right in herstance though as indivdual sales were also going to be taken into account.

Apprentice UK : Kimberly Davis was just pants!

"I am a rough tough cream puff from New York " and so we were introduced to the American-born Marketing executive Kimberly Davis, shame though as it turns out tonight it seems Sir Alan Sugar is not a fan of cream puffs.

The task for today's episode was to design a marketing campaign around a healthy cereal with added emphasis on creating a cartoon character which would appeal to kids.

First though a few observations, one shocking and one not so shocking. Shocking: Ben Clarke was co-operative,a team player, gave some good ideas and there was no sign of his obnoxiousness. I still trying to recover from this.

Not So Shocking: Noorul Choudhury probably strung together no more than one sentence in the whole episode. I see a great opportunity for him at the end of the series as the new face of Nytol, or some other sleeping tablet.

Back to the action tonight and I have got to start off by laying down my respect for Kate as the Project Manager of the Empire Team. She has single handedly helped crush any lingering stereotypes about blondes, and in particular good looking ones. She led a tight team with everyone contributing and ended up with what in my opinion was a very viable product, a strong cartoon character and a pretty decent TV advert.

Alan Sugar thought so too and she and her team were rewarded with an evening with a 'laughing yoga' guru, as prizes go this one sounded like a bit of a joke....


Now onto Kimberely Davis she was well up for this task given her marketing background and her experience leading teams of "creatives", but that was just her problem on one hand there was Noorul Choudhury whose only creativty seems to be doing a season-long impression of a French mime, along side Howard Ebison and Mona Lewis who were only slightly more vocal, not that that takes a lot to do.


Kimberly Davis

On the other hand were the constantly bickering pair of Phil Taylor and Lorraine Tighe. It was Phil's forceful nature that was really the undoing of the team. He railroaded through his idea for "Pantsman" a carton character that wears his pant outside his trousers supposedly to remind you that if you have your cereal you wont be caught out doing this. Ultimately the reponsibility was Kimberley's for not being forceful enough to stamp this ridiculous, ill-conceived idea on its head.

Despite all this she could have still saved herself if only she brought Noorul into the boardroom Sir Alan has his card marked and is gaging for the day he can sack him. Like so many before, Kimberly made the classic Apprentice mistake she went for the big egos, the big players rather than picking off the small fry, Phil for coming up with the pantsman idea and Lorraine for bickering.

No surprise when it backfired. Lorraine held her ground and defended her position strongly, Phil whom Kimberly had hoped would help bring Lorraine down, instead turn his anger on Kimberely for having the audacity to bring him in, the man's ego is monumental. It also helps that I think Sir Alan has a soft spot for Phil and so the axe fell on Kimberly.

p.s. We saw the first sign of Phil Talyor's rumored romance with Kate Walsh as the pair shared an intimate peck after he survived the board room...

Stand outs this week

Kimberly Davis: She was weak and ineffectual, but her greatest failing was not being tactical enough, instead allowing her emotions to determine who she brought into the boardroom. The lesson here for future Apprentices focus on surviving, not on getting your opponents fired.

Philip Taylor: In darts they love their nick names and a great darts player of the past was Phil "The Power" Taylor, if our Phil was a darts player he would definitely be Phil "The Ego" Taylor. I like Phil because he is a trier. His failing though is he is a poor listener because he is so cocksure about his ideas being the best, and that will eventually be his downfall.

Lorraine Tighe: First time I have really seen Lorraine in action. While she did come across as a bit negative in this task fundamentally her concerns was valid, the idea was pants. She just needed to have articulate her concerns better, admittedly Phil's "my way or the highway" attitude didn't help.

Apprentice UK : The Egos are back...

...and they are bigger, brasher and dare I say more incompetent than ever. Yes the fifth series of The Apprentice hit the screens this evening and as usual a motley group of smug, narcissistic and opinionated wannabes in suits are all fighting to be the next apprentice of Amstrad founder Sir Alan Sugar.

It seems as the years go by the quality of candidates is deteriorating and it's becoming more like Big Brother or any other downmarket reality TV show. Nevertheless I still find it entertaining.

Today's episode saw the boys "Team Empire" and the girls "Team Ignite" battle for supremacy in task to see who can earn the most money from washing cars. The girls made the most money but also had the highest costs, so lost.

There so many new faces so it is difficult to get a feel for who's who but a couple of people stood out

Debra Barr: Taken into the boardroom today by her team leader, Mona. She has all the hallmarks of the series villain cold, ruthless and not immune from telling bare-faced lies. She'll go far.

Mona Lewis: solely on her role as debutant Project Manager for the girls, did not cover herself in glory but was ready and able to fight her corner to the bitter end.

Philip Taylor : He is an Estate Agent, do I really need to say more. Stood out amongst the boys primarily for ignoring his Project Manager's (Howard) explicit instructions to was only car exteriors and turning around to accuse him of not giving instructions later on.

No doubt more characters will develop over the weeks and we will be here to bring our view to you.