Apprentice Week 2 Review

Week two review by Ian Walsh

We get more of an insight into the candidates this week, which is why I am always sad for the person who is fired on week one. They are generally not remembered. For those of you who cannot remember who was fired already it was David Neary.

Launching a video game should be easy, or so I thought, especially in this world of modern technology & games we should know everything there is to know. If in doubt though Fight Club must never be used as the 6 lads proved last night, they suffered a knockout punch of their own by using Adidas branding when launching an EA Game. I’m sure Adidas was only delighted of course but the man from EA wasn’t best pleased.

The lads just cocked it up again, there were just too many mistakes, from Stuart being controlling, bitching, & Derek with his Adidas signs which doomed him into getting fired. Mark (the team leader last week), was yet again a high performer even though he was only in the boardroom by default, for taking Ronan in last week.

Mark is certainly the candidate I would tip to win because he is hard working and focused so far. He’s just been let down by the others.

It’s tough when up against feisty girls who never give up as they made it 2 wins out of 2 before the shuffle up next week which well really make or break the candidates.

Rated 4/5 on Sep 30 2008

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LouderVoice review tags: apprentice, review, week, two, game, launch, electronic arts, facebreaker, spore, derek, ramsey, fired

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Now that it is officially the Christmas season, I thought I’d be the first to wish you a happy one.

No, I’m not off my rocker (in 3 months time - different story), but yesterday someone who clearly was made me scream internally.

Having a look at the various products I had for sale, she asks “Have you not got any Christmas things out yet?”.

Normally it is retailers who jump the gun on the seasons, especially the larger chain stores. Penneys, Debenhams, M&S and others started the Christmas creep before the schools went back. Nobody likes it and to be perfectly frank, any retailer that starts decking the halls with boughs of holly in August should be boycotted and have the holly stuck so far up their holes that they start sprouting it their ears.

When “punters” start asking about Christmas stock though, it really is a sad state of affairs. I’d love to ‘get inside the head’ of someone like that and just see how many screws they have loose. I really and truly cannot understand it.

I hate to start off a sentence “In my day” - but I will. In my day, Christmas started in December. That’s when we got the Advent calendar, when Blue Peter was the cue to make an Advent Crown from a couple of coat hangers and some tinsel. It was when we had Christmas exams and knew that when they were over, the festivities could begin in earnest. It was the Late Late Toy Show with simple toys and a presenter who knew how to do these things right. It was making Yuletide logs. It was the annual thrill of picking out a Christmas tree. It was genuinely a time of plenty,

I’ve asked my parents and they concur. They never felt pressurised into buying extravagant toys. We got whatever they could afford and we were as happy as could be. My brothers and sister feel the pressure at this time of year and, I guess, if I had a child I would feel the pressure too.

Quite obviously, it’s pressure that shouldn’t be there and it’s our own fault for letting things get this way. Consumers have incredible power, but only when enough stand together and say “Enough of this, we don’t want Christmas pushed in our faces in September..”.

It’s unlikely to happen and it’s something I wish would, because the day when someone asks “have you got any Christmas stuff out”, you just know there’s something very, very wrong.

Don’t forget the Apprentice Live Blog tonight at 9pm on Deborah’s blog.

I’ll have the popcorn on anyway

Hope you will join in!

This week video featured these stories. How many did you get?

Comptroller and Auditor General report highlights wasteful spending.

Taxi fares up by 8.3% from 1^st November

Another drinking water alert in Galway.

Duvet days no more – especially if you boast about it on Facebook.

New U.S. Visa deal signed, allowing 20,000 school leavers live and work there for a year.

Ireland doesn’t score well on the world league of corruption.

Sham marriages exposed

Ploughing championships draw biggest crowd ever.

World hunger highlighted by Cowen at the UN

RTE.ie is Ireland’s most visited media website.

There are, literally, no areas of life left untouched by the internet.

This site allows anyone to track the mood swings of the women in your life. It may help prove that the “time of the month” excuse is used by some women a little bit too much. It allows them to explain away their random outbursts, tantrums, screaming and shouting.

Guys don’t have excuses for random outbursts, but if it happens the “time of the month?” quip is inevitable.

Right now the site is tracking almost 3,000 women and the overall threat index is 1 out of a possible 4.

Got to love the tagline “Saving relationships, one month at a time!”.

Update 8.30pm 30th September: Leanne Moore confirmed as NOT in the line up.

Update 8.40pm 29th September : Quite possibly the Mirror (and therefore this post) has jumped the gun and this lineup may have put Leanne Moore in, when it should be Leigh Learmont. Will update again when more information to hand.

Lous Walsh’s new €1 million girl band lineup was revealed in the Mirror today.

Are these the new Girl’s Aloud? From left to right they are:

Sharon Condon: Finalist in the RTE talent search competition, You’re A Star. She was hotly tipped to win the competition outright but was beaten by fellow band member Leanne Moore. 23 year old Sharon lives in Co. Kildare but is originally from Dublin.

Corinna Duran: 22 year old Corrina is being dubbed as the “Nadine” of the band - with striking good looks and a powerful voice.

Jodi Albert: Jodi, at 25, is the oldest member of the band and is well known for her role in Hollyoaks. She is currently engaged to Kian Egan, one of the Westlife boys.

Kasey Smith: 18 year old Casey is the youngest member of the group and has done some fashion modelling. She is from Dublin.

The band’s first single will be released before the end of the year. No name for the band yet - suggestions on a postcard….

The Economist are trying to determine what way the world would vote in the US elections.

I think, not surprisingly, it is looking like a landslide for Obama at the moment – look at all the countries in blue. Ireland has 8 electoral vote, and of the votes cast so far the result is 16% McCain and 84% Obama.

The most striking thing for me about the world map is all the white – the countries that have not registered enough votes for the colour of their country to change either red or blue. Regrettably, it’s all too familiar division on the world map.

Voting closes on November 1^st, when a winner will be declared. Doubt if Paddy Power will take bets on the result.

The first show in the season pulled in 237,000 for TV3. The Herald said on Thursday that:

“New figures show that the Bill Cullen-fronted show, which is expected to be the station’s greatest success story, only scored half as many viewers as Who Do You Think You Are? on RTE.”

The RTE1 programme took 471,000 viewers. A comment during the live blog last week pointed out that RTE shifted the start of Raw from 9.00 to 9.55 and showed an old CSI instead. They are repeating that this week, which is perhaps a sign that RTE know they won’t win on ratings in a head to head with The Apprentice. No doubt the viewing figure will be watched closely to see if the interest is sustained over the remaing 11 weeks.

Live Blog of this weeks episode is happenig over at Deborah’s place, so keep an eye out there and join in the discussion.

The house where the Apprentice Candidates were holed up for the duration of the filming is a closely guarded secret. The Herald (again). got a good look at the plush surrounding.

Local newspapers report on their Apprentice hopefuls. Orla McAdam, Ronan Whitty.

Andrea Roche will make a guest appearance and the show bosses hope she will add “some glamour” to the mix.

Bill’s lookee-likee, Mark O’Rourke is getting great encouragement from his mates on his Bebo page. Latest comment is classic – reproduced verbatim below.

“alright mark seen that you where on the apprentice thingy you’ve come a long way from selling crack to kids to selling 5 banana’s for 50 on moore street you should of fit right in with the big gay head on ya lol.(maybe not since the place is flooded with them imports and tiddley winks)
Sure I’m only jokin about the big gay head thing but them kids will never be right after that dodgy batch.
Anywho a big congrats from the Kelly’s in Oz and we hope ya do well”

There’s no mistaking, this version of the Apprentice is uniquely Irish