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: 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 : 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.

Yasmina Siadatan is the new Apprentice.

Yasmina Siadatan has won the TV reality show to become the new Apprentice to Sir Alan Sugar. She beat favourite Kate Walsh in the final task shown tonight.

The Press Association reports

The 27-year-old restaurant owner was hired by Sir Alan on what she described was the businessman's "gut instinct" despite rival Kate Walsh being in a good position to win.

Yasmina triumphed after the final task which saw the women battle it out to create a new brand of chocolates which they had to pitch to a roomful of industry experts.

Kate and her team, which was made up of former contestants Debra Barr, Ben Clarke, Kimberley Davis and Rocky Andrews, designed a box of chocolates for couples. The concept was praised by Sir Alan but he said charging £13 for a box was not commercially viable.

Yasmina's team, made up of Howard Ebison, Phil Taylor, James McQuillan and Lorraine Tighe, created a brand called Cocoa Electric which was designed to 'shock' with flavours such as basil and strawberry, and chilli-flavoured popping candy.

Sir Alan told her the branding and pricing were excellent but that the taste - which even caused one model to spit out a chocolate after filming the advert - needed work.

After winning this year's series of the TV show, Yasmina said: "I don't feel like I've beaten Kate because I feel we both deserved that job, and we feel we just had different qualities and Sir Alan needed my qualities over hers.

"(Sir Alan) described it in a nutshell when he said, 'I can't put it into words why I chose Yasmina, it was just a gut instinct'."

Sir Alan revealed that Yasmina will be working in his Digital Display division supplying display units to be used in the health care industry.