Apprentice UK : Getting high on your own supply

Purveyors of illicit pharmaceutical - Drug Dealers to you or me - have a saying "don't get high on your own supply" and it seems that is just what team empire did in The Apprentice today, well certainly Ben Clarke and Majid Nagra were doing just that.

Sir Alan decided to mix up both the teams this week ending the boys vs. girls face-off, and the task was create and market a personal fitness product. Team Empire, which was formerly the boys team, decided initially to create something to tackle Bingo Wings. The team did a product survey and found the biggest sellers were the simplest products. The message to the Ben and Majid who were in charge of product development, keep it simple!

Did they heck, Ben obviously fancying himself as a ultimate body building dude was along with Majid, adds also sorts of bells and whistles. Well you know how a product tries to be "everything to everyone" well what Empire ended up was "nothing to no one".

It had defeat written all over it and so it proved. Enter the showdown in the boardroom and James the Project Manager took in Ben and Majid. James who had developed a reputation of talking a lot but not saying much, proved why this is the case as he astutely failed to point out his clear saving grace, which is that he had all along stressed the product should be simple.

Instead he engaged in circular arguments with Ben. As the bickering went on Majid just looked on confident that the likely apprentice to be fired wasn't him, think again Majid. In a dramatic turn, the searchlight switched to Majid and Sir Alan made clear his displeasure with what he saw as Majid just cruising along, needless to say Majid was fired.

Stand outs this week

Ben Clarke: Proved how obnoxious he can be, calling one of the other contestant obese and wallowing in narcissistic pleasure as seem more interested in demonstrating his physique than concentrating on the job at hand and to my money he should have been fired this week.


Debra Barr: Was the team leader of Ignite. Although she won, she once again proved why she will never win "cuddliest Apprentice of the year" with a barrage of snide comments and put downs.


Phil Taylor: Yes he is an estate agent, but he was the creative spark on the Ignite team and came up with the product idea that won the day. Early tip for the final.

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.