Apprentice UK: Did I mention my Sandhurst Scholarship?

I was going to title this blog post "obnoxiousness reigns supreme", celebrating the return of the Ben Clarke we know, but over this episode of The Apprentice I think Ben reminded us that there are other things about him worth celebrating such as, his constant reminder to us that he turned down a scholarship to Sandhurst and his recurring refrain asking people to "please let him finish" as he launches into another bout of waffle.

Even worse (or better depending on your viewpoint) today we discovered he is ultimately spineless but more on that later.

The task this week was simple, both teams were given a similar set of items of varying value. The teams had to go out, sell these items and the team that got the most money won. Sir Alan appointed Phil Taylor as team leader of Ignite and Ben as the team leader of Empire


We turn our attention to Phil first. I used to like Phil but as we get further into the process I feel the worse aspects of his personality are coming to the fore, especially when it concerns Lorraine Tighe.

Last week they bickered endlessly over the choice of advert, with Phil dismissing Lorraine's concerns of his 'Pants Man' marketing idea. This week Phil promised to listen more and that seem to augur well for his his leadership. That entente cordial however did not last long. Lorraine had at the beginning of the task correctly pointed out that one of the items, a rug, looked promising and they should investigate a little more into its value. Phil wasted no time in dismissing this idea totally.

A fatal flaw but fortunately nothing in comparison to the shambles that Ben considers team leadership. He was unforgivably rude about the buyers behind their backs, he pushed through deals that were clearly unprofitable and his overall strategy was aimless, so no surprise that he lost.

For all his bravado when it came to the point at which he selects the two to go into the boardroom and face Sir Alan he showed why Sandhurst and the British Army were lucky that he chose not to go. For the nominations he initially choose James McQuillan and Noorul Choudhury but when he heard the sound of incredulity in Sir Alan's voice on hearing James nominated, he performed one of the fastest, most spineless flip-flops in apprentice history dropping his nomination of James and going for Debra Barr instead.

Sir Alan always asks that team leaders bring in people who led to the task being failed implying the boardroom judgement was to be based on the task itself. Very rarely is this the case. If that had been the case today we would have been saying bye-bye to Ben, but instead the judgement seemed to made on the series as a whole and once it headed in that direction it was clear Noorul was a goner. For a man who as been so quiet all along he did put in an incredibly spirited defence, but it was too little too late.


Noorul Choudhury

To be honest I think the moment Noorul was nominated, Sir Alan had him down as fired. Plus for some unfathomable reason Sir Alan's side kick Nick Hewer seemed to go out of his way in the boardroom to defend Ben's performance, something that drew Debra's ire and boy did she let it rip, so much so that Sir Alan to issue her a warning about her tone with Nick.

Standouts this week:

Debra Barr : Say what you like about Debra, as long as you say she has balls. Yes, massive cojones as they say in the country that gave us Swine flu. It is not often that candidates defend themselves in the face of criticism from Nick but Debra did that and more, albeit maybe a tad too aggresively. It tells us thoough that you know she isn't going down without a massive fight and she doesn't care who the opponent is.


Noorul Choudhury : There is a inner beast in all of us, we just need the something to bring it out, for some it does not take a lot, for others it takes quite a prompting, for Noorul it just takes Ben. Noorul found his voice in the boardroom and what a performance he gave. Sadly the baggage of poor performance from the previous weeks was too much to overcome.


Ben Clarke : All I can say is thank God, Ben did not go to Sandhurst. Thousands of young men put their lives at risk in the Army to defend this country. The thought of Ben leading these guys into action is not even worth thinking about.

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 : Sandalwood or Cedarwood, the difference is in the price....

...and its huge, at least that was what Paula Jones found out today.

It is our weekly dose of The Apprentice and this week's episode should be probably re-titled 'The Great Escape of Noorul Choudhury'. To describe Noorul as useless would be an affront to genuinely useless Project Managers the world over. He gave uselessness a bad name and it is going to take a while for it to recover.


Noorul Choudhury

The task was to create beauty products from natural ingredients and once again Sir Alan Sugar tinkered with the teams and Noorul emerged as Project Manager for Team Ignite on the basis of his Chemistry background while Empire team chose Paula Jones.

My first thought when I saw this is where did Paula come from?, I hadn't noticed her before, has she been with us all along? You got to give it to her, so far she had executed the low profile strategy perfectly.

Ignite chose a honey based range tagged 'Honey I am home' and away they went with Noorul deciding nothing, selling nothing, coordinating nothing, but simply being a witness as the other team members busied themselves around him.

Paula by contrasts was deeply involved with her team, probably too involved. In a crucial moment that decided her fate she and team mate Yasmina Siadatan got in a spot of confusion over whether they would use Sandalwood or Cedarwood as the essential oil in their products.

To the uninitiated not a big deal, but in the world of essential oil and fragrances Sandalwood is king costing 500 times as much as Cedarwood! Guess what they choose, yes they went for Sandalwood. Unfortunately theydidn't pick up on the cost implications, although Paula had asked Yasmine and the extremely obnoxious Ben Clarke to watch over the costs

At this point the rest of the script writes itself. Despite a high quality product and a good team effort at selling, the high cost base wiped out Empire's profits. To add insult to injury, Noorul's failure to make any decisions meant he failed to make even bad decisions, and slipped through almost by default to win.

As it was all down to costs, Paula dragged Ben and Yasmina into the Boardroom. Ben dug into his seemingly unending stash of obnoxiousness as he went to battle in the boardroom with Paula firmly in his firing line.

Yasmina who apparently was Paula's good friend on the show also had no hesitation about stabbing her in the back. Poor Paula, who I thought was excellent (bar the Sandalwood \ Cedar wood fiasco) lacked the the ruthlessness to really go after either of the other two and ended up getting fired.


Paula Jones


Stand outs this week

Ben Clarke: Small minded, conceited and obnoxious. A walking advert for why people think extremely short men are driven by a powerful need to overcompensate.

Noorul Choudhury: Exhibit A: Initial Strategy Low Profile and cruise through the early rounds. Get to the middle round and show what you are made of. Answer: Nothing. One of the poorest candidates I have seen, will be out very soon.


Paula Jones: Exhibit B: Initial Strategy Low Profile and cruise through the early rounds. Get to the middle round and show what you are made of. Answer: you could have been a prime candidate to win it all but you forgot one thing, if you can't back stab, bitch and crawl into the gutter with the best of them, you are just another name to add to the list of those who didn't, and Paula you couldn't.