Apprentice Watch – Week 4 – The one with the Big Mouth

Dum dum… diddle diddle dilddle.. dum dum. What’s the sound – oh yeah, it’s Wednesday so it must be the Apprentice.

The remaining thirteen candidates are summoned by Sir Alan’s right hand maiden, Francis, to meet at the Wallace Collection. This is a gallery in London that looked like how I imagine Sir Alan’s house looks – rather impressive. Meeting in a gallery gave a little clue to what this weeks task would be – to set up and run a portrait concession in a shopping centre for a day. And not just any shopping centre either. The teams would get a pitch at the Blue Water Shopping Centre, the biggest shopping centre in Europe I believe. Don’t tell Don Nugent that. He’s the manager of Dundrum Town Centre, and there is no comparison between the two. But that’s not important right now; you want to know about the show.

The teams were shuffled around this week. Jenny, Sara and Claire were moved to the boys team and Raef, Lee and Kevin were moved to the girls team.

Salt of the earth Simon Smith put himself forward to be task project manager for team Renaissance. He appeared to be the ideal person for the role. The poor chap got no support or thanks from the others for stepping forward even though not one of them seemed keen to “step up to the plate”.

Where is the gung-ho-ness of all these elite business people? Alex was particularly spineless and wouldn’t take the role of being Simon’s number 2. Gobby Claire agreed to do it eventually, although she didn’t seem best pleased. And so the die was cast for team Renaissance and what was to follow….

Team Alpha was headed up by Helene Speight who I’ve not really noticed so far, but maybe we should all take more note of her as she “has a lot of balls” – her words, not mine. She might yet turn out to be the surprise of the series.

Simon’s team (well, Simon actually) decided on a Beauty and Glamour theme for their days trading. This was actually a very good idea and showed that Simon considered his target market.

Helene’s theme went down the lookee likee route. A great idea also. Does anyone know who the George lookee likee was supposed to be? He might as well have been George from George and Mildred as he looked like no celebrity I’ve ever seen. The other fake celebs they had to choose from were classic. Cherie Blair – is there anyone who would want a photo taken with a Cherie lookalike? A pole dancery looking Britney Spears. Queen Victoria (I think) and Del Boy. The celeb they picked was David Beckham – he looked pretty much like the real thing, and even talked like him too.

Onto the days trading then. Simon had his work cut out for him having to deal with trollop-in-waiting Claire who clearly holds him in deep contempt along with Alex. She really took the biscuit by niggling away at Simon who was trying to do his best to make the day a success. The desperation and pain was etched into the guys face, I really felt sorry for him. Simon could clearly sell and he appeared to have a great way with customers. Don’t know so much about his photography skills though. He had one woman ensconsed in a purple drape so that only her head was sticking out the top. She looked like she was on day release from an old folks home. The order system broke down during the day which really hampered sales for Simon’s team. The whole Claire, Alex and Jenny bitching triumvirate certainly didn’t help matters either.

Helene’s team had customers practically begging to get their photo taken with the Becks lookalike but they were totally let down by the “backend” system headed up by Lucinda Ledgerwood who is a nice girl in a Tim “nice but dumb” kind of way. This lady is just not technical. Helene just couldn’t face that fact and tried to place the blame on her. It’s easy for me to say that task she was assigned was straightforward as I have the “curse of knowledge” being technically minded and I actually do this for a living (making mugs, taking photos etc), but you don’t give the wet blanket of a team the most important job – making product. In the end, they managed to churn out some photographs on bog standard photo copy paper, which people paid over €20 for. Wish I could do that!

The result of the days shambles was Helene’s team making a profit of £145 and Simon’s team making a loss of £73.

Simon brought Claire and Alex back into the boardroom for the grilling by Sir Alan for one of the saddest boardroom scenes ever. Simon was close to tears.. He’s the oldest Apprentice and probably felt he had most to prove. He was totally right to say that Claire was clearly the reason why this task failed, but having a bigger mouth meant that it was, sadly, inevitable she would stay. I was delighted that Margaret laid into her and let it be known she behaved disgracefully and showed downright contempt for Simon. Alex wasn’t a whole lot better, and Nick pulled him up for letting on that he didn’t know about what was happening during the day .

My heart lifted when Sir Alan told Claire he was sick and bloody tired of her… “I’m sick of looking at you Claire. I want you to go.” I was on the edge of my seat, ready to punch the air. “I want you to go back to the house..” . My heart sank. Claire remains in the competition.

Turncoat Alex and Simon were the two left. Simon looked beaten, and Sir Alan put him out of his misery and said the immortal words “Simon, you’re fired.”

He left with his head held high. Sad to see him go. I think it is more evident this year that entertainment is what the show is all about, rather than finding real business talent. The mouthpieces go further than the ones who might actually benefit from having the opportunity to change their lives. Claire is the proof of this.

Finally, where was our girl Jennifer this week? The only word heard from her was at the very end when her team reacted to their win. She said “Thank you very much”… ‘cmon the producers, lets see more of Jennifer…

No lookee likee graphic this week as I’m just about dead here and the eyes can’t hack opening up Photoshop to do anything more tonight. I wanted to do a Claire looks like Miss Piggy or Rosie O’Donnell. It will have to remain in my minds eye for another place and another time.

The search continue Apprentice fans. Tune in again next week for the continuing story of reality tv gone bad.