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The 13th series of The Apprentice begins on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday October 4.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/apprentice-2017-tv-new-trailer-released

Lost ~ 7 IQ points per show in 2016. Can't afford to watch again this year.

Regards,

er...


Tom.

In for the sweepstake!

Lovvvvvvvvve the apprentice!!!

In to donate to sweepstake.

Regards

C

Good to have it back.

Amazed they manage to find so many complete dickheads each year.

Looks like the usual poor quality bunch, but potentially wonderful TV for the next few months.

Welcome back.

These people don’t seem very smart

There's a large pool of them. Volunteering to be PM in Week One should get you automatically fired

Regards

rs

I cant post anything my teams are finalised for my bet as dont wanna give my opponents my insights BUT I am very excited i think it's gonna be siccccccccccccccccck

The auction is over!

And the teams are...

Alex           Stato       Keith     Dave
Andrew   Charles   Anisa           Ross
Bushra   Jade       Elizabeth        Sarah
James   Joanna    Elliot            Jeff
Siobah   Michaela    Harrison          Sajan
           Sarah Jayne      

 Charles was Stato's heaviest purchase? Fcuk my old boots if so.

TBF to Stato, Charles cost 10 (the minimum) and he was the cheapest person bar Siobhan who was technically free as Alex was ultimately forced to take her :) Had she been bid on first then I think she'd have cost more.

Very interested to see auction prices paid / running order of auction if available :)

Was done alphabetically. Jeff, Sajan and Siobhan were unsold and since Dave had the money left to outbid me for any of those three, he got to choose which two he wanted, and I was stuck with Siobhan. Who I actually higher than both those three.

My top 6 choices were

Ross
Andrew
Sarah

Harrison
Sarah Jane
James

Sure.

This was the Order they were auctioned in (alphabetical)

Andrew
Anisa
Bushra
Charles
Elizabeth
Elliot
Harrison
Jade
James
Jeff
Joanna
Michaela
Ross
Sajan
Sarah Jayne
Sarah
Siobhan

This was the prices paid...

Andrew 380
ANisa Kieth 170
Bushra Alex 150
Charles Stato 10
Elizabeth Kieth 10
Elliot Kieth 240
Harrison Kieth 320
Jade Stato 270
James Alex 270
Jeff unsold
Joanna Stato 70
Michaela Stato 270
Ross David 370
Sajan not sold
Sarah J Stato 270
Sarah L David 210
Shiobhan unsold

I bought Jeff and Sajan for 210 each and Alex got Shiobhan.

As the list goes on there is some strategic payments, for example I paid only 210 for Sarah Lynn because the most anyone had left was 200 :)

Travelodge?

<3 The Apprentice.

My word they're hopeless.

They must surely be scouting out the worst possible guy in a suit.

Not a clue amongst them.

If this was a genuine search for a business guru, the person choosing these candidates would be gone after this.

Clearly its almost just a comedy show now.

Still great entertainment though.

That was expensive.

 ;cheerleader;

BTW I think everyone saying tey're all useless is a bit harsh, I think you gotta remember that the genius of the Apprentice process is that the tasks are close to impossible.

Think about what makes it possible to complete tasks like real business world...

1) Genuine field expertise
2) Clear Hiearchy
3) Financial incentives for people to do their jobs properly

Elizabeth for example I'm sure last night everyone was watching thought she was a huge moron and obviously utterly useless at business, but if you think about she runs a florist, she'll be an expert in florist-ing (!), she'll be the boss and have legitimate authority because she's the owner and everyone working for her are suitably motivated to work FOR her because its her paying their wages. In these conditions she'll probably be great.

Now though she's in a field she knows ABSOLUTELY nothing about, working with people she doesn't know, in a Hierarchy that is not remotely respected by anyone, there is no incentive for people to tow the line the only incentive is to be seen by Claude/Karen/Lord Sugar to be doing something sick.  NOT ONLY THIS, that you're expected to do a very professional job with people you've never worked with who are incentivised  to screw you over but you've only got 48 hours to do it.

I'm pretty sure that expert teams of people who've been designing hotel rooms for years and years would take several weeks to design and prepare a hotel room like that.

Basically the tasks are set up for them to be pretty impossible for anyone to ever do a good job ever (at first in particular) and its that not the ineptitude that makes the candidates look so clueless at the start, that's what makes it so fun to watch :)

I agree with your points on one level. However, no one expects the best designed bedroom ever.

What makes them so stooopid are the fact they all talk over each other, and no one spots they have fiscal targets to meet etc. Im sure a lot is in the editing, but there is no smoke without fire etc.

As the boys were designing in the bedroom, when they put four suitcases in the room, I just laughed with the wife and said "wtf, no one wants more suitcases in a room, there is never any space to put your own one in the first place", to then hear them say they were the clothes storage, it was the final straw. Bring a case to move it into 4 cases on top of each other??!!

I call that pretty clueless if not one of 7/8 of them couldn't spot that, regardless of whatever else they might bring to the party.

The first week's task could not be more straightforward, Dave.

1. Ascertain best footfall.
2. Decide cost per unit.
3. Decide desired margin / cost of production.
4. Get a wiggle on making them.
5. Be present and sell hard for lunch rush.
6. Sell excess to trade.

Agree that this one is a bit fiddly mind.

So well cast every year. Where do they find them?

They'd do better at a lot of companies I interact with - distinct lack of Americanisms -no one circling back or reaching out so far. Very disappointing

Regards

n

I think the other thing as well is you have some good people in there for sure, but at the start its always a certain type of person who sticks out - those loud, over confident ones who think themselves business gods superior to all others with actually no real talent or results to back it up... Even the good ones got caught up in their nonsense!  Sarah Jayne might be ok, if she was in an actual team she was actually the leader of she'd maybe have done a good sub-team job, however she had Elizabeth with her who was in a mood because she wasn't made sub team leader and just ignored her and went off donking about, Sarah got made to look pretty shit in last nights episode.


True - the girls did a pretty decent job, only thing that let Sarah L down was that her sub team went opposing instructions and bought cheap meat so the burgers were pretty rubbish. The boys faffed about for far too long because no-one listened to anyone and Charles wanted to show the world how clever he was.

Also, as simple as that sounds in your list (and i'm sure you're right) I think its actually quite a bit tougher than that, under the time pressure. I've been involved in successful food pop up projects and the planning takes months, working with people I know.

When you're making them work for a sustained peiod yours is a genuine challenge, however. In that you need sustainability of proposition, brand, 'buy in' etc. In the first episode of the Apprentice literally all they had to do was make some burgers, cook them, and sell them. The presence of a film crew in an area of high footfall ensures traffic from those who can't wait to feature on TV - I dare say they could be serving up shit sandwiches (almost literally) and still get away with it. You can only sell it whilst there's footfall, however. Missing the lunch window in that task is just horrific.

The early weeks are such compelling viewing as the participants are all Chiefs and no Indians. A collection of individuals desperate to prove their own ability with no sympathy or understanding of synergy and working as a cohesive unit. I always wonder what would happen in those weeks if one team was granted a 'wildcard' of a genuine business superstar who they could not but help listen to. I feel like they could do 500% that which the typical team achieves.

Excelled themselves this year. Not two brain cells between either group.

Regards

Ri

All those incredible business minds and not one of them pointed out that they should probably try to sell some burgers during lunch hours.....doesnt seem that hard imo

Less of the bad mouthing Charles please.

Regards

C

Charles is an idiot :)

Got to be tits who register for "extra" roles with casting companies. 

I missed the first two week so just watched both back to back and also youre fired straight after them.  Jeff was comedy but that accent grated he had to go, if he never had that annoying twang I'd have liked to see him stay for shits and giggles.  That Elizabeth, lol.  That has to be a trans no?

lettttttttttts go again, hoping to get out of last weeks hole!!

Boys win this for their new PM. 

Fucked it.

What a bunch of absolute morons.

Changing Geffrii to Siimon, when it's exactly the fucking same and the robot is already programmed to say Geffrii.

Nice one.

You cannot dream up the levels of incompetence that this lot find.

And how many times does the worst team win simply because the other team fuck it up even more?

It winds me up no end; then I watch The Apprentice: You're Fired and calm down again.

Jeffrii*

Im pretty shocked the PM didnt get fired, she was responsible for all of the biggest fuck ups and got off fairly lightly in the boardroom.

You're quite correct, Jeffrii, or Siimon.... SO basically it's called Jeffrii but there's a board here with Siimon on it, and we're calling it Siimon, because that's what the board you can't see says, only the robot gonna call himself Jeffrii, it's like his nickname you know, like at school I knew this guy called Craig James, his name is Craig but we all called him James. It's actually very simple.

But yeh Siimon Jeffrii (real name Siimon, but everyone calls him Jeffrii) £750 robot aimed at the over-60's market who frequently forget to take their medications (because, as we know - everyone over 60 needs to take medication daily) but when they are not forgetting to take their medicine they are doing the downward facing dog  rotflmfao My parents are over 60, they don't like technology, would never spend £750 on anything that wasn't a holiday or a car, neither of them are on regular medication, my mum is an excellent cook and goes to Yogo classes 3 times a week (as a social thing mostly, because as we know...over 60s are SO VERY VERY LONELY)

I'm surprised that the other robot, which just says the 3 times table and tells you how to say colours in french in between random completely pointless and un-balancing karate moves would have been 10x more useful

TO BE FAIR. It was a pretty stupid task  ;tk;

You could tell she was never going though. She's favourite to win the whole thing imo and pretty much no bad she fucked up here she was gonna survive imo.

Elliot always going there, Sugar hates candidates like him.

Hating Siobhan massive, even though she's in my team. What a horrible person to have to deal with.

Liking my boys James and Andrew and also Bushra is strong. 

Big +1

Would like to bet James/Sarah Lynn and evens for fun sweat vs last nights pm.

Anybody interested?

No way she's a real person. Couldn't get on Big Brother, so invented a couple of multi-million turnover businesses, and found a pair of comedy secretary glasses in her daughter's dressing up box.

I'll take Micheala vs James @ evens for a sweat - last longest or no win no bet?

Wish I didn't have Ross, why oh why do I have Ross :(

Elizabeth ftw

That was the most cringeworthy one yet.

Harrison singing ONE song, and they accepted it. You have to be kidding!!

GTFO

Regards

B

 Paper plates of wotsits and crisps on arrival.
 Bring your own soft drink to a 2.5K wembley box.
 Run out of welcome champagne....run and buy more.
 Run out of wine....repeat.
 Waiter "sings" a song...not even "Abide with me"!

wtf, you can not pay in full....the clients knew it was a "task" and they could and should have made a reduction.

Regards
Ri

Rule 6.
Fired with regret.

If you're fired "with regret" at any point.

+£300
(Win £100 from each player)

Managed to lose my biggest donk in style last night! GTFO Siobahn

£2.5k for a box at Wembley for 14 people with the booze and a 3 course meal thrown in??? sign me up for that please!

Somewhat hilariously I think she was unlucky in this instance, as glad as I am to see the back of her

TBF I think the boys probably deserved to win it purely because whereas they put on a much worse show they kind of knew that making loads of money was the key to winning and that was the main focus, above client satisfaction. There biggest donk off was not buying more booze as they obviously were going to have to get more at some point and do their brains on the bar.

Think this was a pretty simple task really.

Dont go for some crazy £6k experience which you're not capable of providing, offer a good value piss up. Get some nice champagne as people will be stone sober when they drink that, then go to the wholesaler and buy 2x bottles of gin 2x bottles of vodka, 2x bottles of run and several 2L bottles of coke and lemonade, 1big box of beers and 6 decent bottles of red and white wine, that'll cost about £250 with a load of bags of ice and some lemons and limes. Get some decent but not too OTT food (3 courses) at about £25 a head max - £350. Have 2 of your guys behind a little makeshift bar make sure everyone has a drink.

Dont bother with entertainment for £700 or something, get like a football quiz or something organised themselves. Have someone with some personality hosting it, when they say they got £2500 to spend, tell em you'll do it for 2 bags for the whole thing which is a fucking bargain for a wembley day out and if the food was paletable, everyone has had plenty to drink and had a bit of a laugh theres no way they'll ask for any money when you've promised a friendly day out.

Girls went too fancy, couldn't get paid for it.

Your right but the task does seem joke limited in some regards. Remember the drive around London task that doesn't allow google? Pretty sure they had to buy the overpriced booze, which is what made the women's decision terrible, despite how awful the shots of the team running back to the bar were. Not a single muggle in shot btw. kinda awkward for tv.

Thought about offering women at 6/5 for the first 3 rounds as they have lost the last umpteen from memory. Glad to be proved wrong here.

well if they were forced to buy the over-priced alcohol then thats very silly. Boys were right to be ulta stingy if so, seems weird they would put that restriction on.

I do remember the driving round London without google, and thinking wtf was the point of that? Lord Sugar needs a business partner not a navigator, who the fuck cares if you know your way around London if you got a smart phone! Some of them aren't even from London!!! London is really big too!

It's standard practice:

If you want to do a Corporate gig at Wmbley (or any other premium site for that matter), you have to use the house catering inc. booze. Would be naive of Wembly management to allow use of Costco/Bookers/Tesco product in their boxes, no?

Agree about the entertainment, though. Both clients said "nothing awkward", and my pref would have stopped at the first word, but I suspect that one of the T&C's from AS was that they MUST provide some form of entertainment. Would definitely have ditched Bushra's botched pressie, but more the PM's error than hers.

Regards
4KS

Ahhhhhhh yes. You're right, of course.

Agree entertainment was bad call, some sort of high morale thing when everyone is pissed would have been my preference.

The task was really limited, they had to go with the caterer no matter what and couldnt negotiate the price and there were limited options from them.
They had to go with the overpriced booze from the supplier
Limited entertainment options, not much room to negotiate (£750 for a 30 min crap magic show!!! wowzers!!!!!!)
Then the client is telling them they want 3 hot courses, champagne reception and free booze for the duration for a max £2.5k and they kinda have to take it because there isnt any other clients to pitch to.

Being able to restock the bar mid-task seems to defeat the purpose of ordering in advance and eliminates the sweat of running out.  Since that was an option its pretty incredible that they wouldnt just order the absolute minimum and reload as they need it

Well, you can stop gnashing your teeth now.

The only surprise in this episode (disappointing, overall, IMO) was that he let the other two incompetents go back to the house. I also get the impression that there's more action in the house than there is on the tasks.

The wife told me that she read somewhere when the series started that several of the candidates are sleeping together in the house and its supposedly causing a lot of the tension.

God what a mess. Feels a bit brutal the late fine was a fixed £100. Wtf was the strategy about asking everyone for a Spurs scarf? The found one in a fairly obvious tourist shop but surely there must have been umpteen sports shops. The women selling the Amstrad got absolutely bullied by the cameras, I felt kinda bad for here. She got pillaged by two teams competing for the same item!

Agreed it was pretty limited, but did anyone else think there was more budget available?

Surely the conversation with the clients should have been, what would you like, the price for that is this, oh your budget is that, unfortunately at that price we cant offer unlimited alcohol it would be half a bottle per person, but for an extra £500 we guarantee to get you all super smashed so lets call it £3k.

Difficult to judge, but as they were missing a few items, it would have been a better tactic to get all items and be late.
Can't believe they left the "meet half way "guy hanging there with the computer!.

regards

Ri

Man I am raging about this episode, done my brains obviously.

1. Wtf was Harrison thinking chasing that Amstrad computer, what a totally brain dead thing to do. The other team got there first accept and move along, get your bricks sorted and find another Amstrad. That was what cost them, they get the bricks and save that £50 fine, the other team get the handkerchief and save £50 there and maybe they could have spent the 1.5 hrs they wasted finding another Amstrad. Ross was obviously a stupid guy bragging about being a genius to Lord Sugar, genius IQ but knows fuck all about actual life...but that was Harrison's fault that task.

2. Adam, obviously the best way to buy sports memorabilia is from a friend of your local Jewish baker...not somewhere like...oh I don't know...a Sports Shop??

3. Wtf is Sajan doing, offer the guy with the Amstrad an extra £25 to bring it to Westminster...its 5 stops or something on the tube. Clown. Buying a hankey and not embroidering it. Dickhead.

4. These tasks are so obvious. You need to go to places that are close together...find the toughest items to locate (Amstrad doe skin etc) and plan the rest of the purchases geographically.  You can get something from 1947, a Tottenham scarf etc in 1million places. Frantically driving around London obviously never ending well is it. Pretty silly they can't use public transport, obv they need to drive for big things but why the hell can't they tube about for little stuff.

Harrison should have gone frankly if wasn't the fact Karen fancies him he'd have been toast on merit. Ross a weaker candidate though.

Who you reckon banging Who?

Charles and Bushra
Elizabeth and James

Harrison & Joanna
Andrew & Michaela

Bushra's too canny to get involved with any of the bloke muppets left in there. She probably fancied The Genius, though.

I think it's 95% chance one of the women. My 3 picks are  Bushra, Sarah Jayne and Sarah.

Regards
4KS

I was genuinely going to say I reckon James and Jade, googled it and yep!!

Anisa and Andrew apparently another one, when Anisa had a fiance!

Apparently last year Grianne was sleeping with Paul!!!!!!!

No wonder they don't do any bloody work.

Amazing that you can find out who is banging who by doing a Google search.

Frightened to do one for myself & then see a pic of my right hand 😳

Meanwhile, back on topic, the BBC website states Anisa’s age as 36. Really? If that’s correct then it’s even more surprising that she’s getting it on with the 26-year-old Andrew from Cheshire. She didn’t strike me as one who’d be impressed by a testosterone fuelled, booyaaa shouting chest thumper.

Can’t wait for next Wednesday!

Regards
4KS

I lolled :)

You didn't see James's cat getting the cream look during the first car journey :)

How Charles didn't get fired there I have no idea

Funny how desperate Charles is to put himself into the firing line but they just wont let him :) Every single week he's there "PLEASE LET ME TRY BE FIRED" and they don't let him.

TBF Sarah J was awful, she literally had no idea what was going on, that's pretty unforgivable in the big guys eyes I think. It's actually quite a rare donk off that, usually they are just shit and lose control, but SJ just basically sat it out, teams had no idea what was going on, Anissa dumped in the brown stuff with her tour guide, put charles in charge of directions when the guy couldn't find his way from his cock to his kneecaps and the commercial work she did behind the scenes were pretty terrible. Did you see how fast the beer guy snapped off every offer they made - whats that? 30 bottles of beer for 95 euros?!?! Shake her hand quickly before she leaves pal. Then the keyrings... 100 euros for 50 keyrings, the guy in the shop must have been on cloud nine, he's not paid more than 10c a piece for them probably. Then they're trying to get £6 a pop for them on the boat.

Yep gotta go SJ. TBH I think Andrew was pretty bloody lucky there too, what a clown, running around like he's in Alicante with his mates. Charles got lost, but it's tough to criticise a man in a vacuum for not knowing his way round a city he's never been too, although undeniably he's the weakest of the 3 ni the boardroom.

I live to fight another day.

Regards

C

Advertising campaign assignment tonight. My favourite task, and I think it may one of Lord Alan's too as he likes to get digs in about advertising types as much as he likes sticking the boot into the legal eagles.

Always opportunities for heroics or Hindenburgs in this episode....

 ;popcorn;

I'd feel a bit robbed going tonight. Not sure how Elizabeth survived, felt like there were more behind the scenes going on. I was surprised James even mentioned Sarj, definitely Joanna and Elizabeth for me. Elizabeth punted this week super hard, perfect week for her to sit back and stay in the trenches. What a terrible name too.

Yeah, thought for sure Joanna was getting the boot there, Saj probably a little hard-done by.

I've now got 1 person left, luckily that person is Sarah Lynn :)

Well, that was fun. About time Sir Al got down to business in the boardroom!

Spoiler alert.........








Elizabeth may well be the dark horse in the field.

I was willing him on, double eviction looked on the cards from a fair way out but the rarely seen triple! Excellent stuff

holy f****************k

A triple, a mthrFKN triple!!!!!!!!!!

Shit got real, real real. Some deadwood drifted down the river there.

The two most likely to go now, Joanna or Elizabeth are on the same team...reckon Sugar will move one of them over so he's defo got someone to fire next week?

Gonna make some predictions :)

Joanna

Weakest by a mile, no way she wins, only way she can make top 5 is if she wins every task, maybe she gets moved to a team with Sarah/Jade/Micheala and they carry her into the top 5!

Elizabeth

Ridiculous person, I think Lord Suggy has known for 6-7 weeks he is never going to work with this women, but has some sort of hidden respect for her bullish methods.  Also he knows she is a real nightmare to work with and its a good test for his legit candidates to see how they handle her. I actually think she's probably a good business women and I wouldn't be shocked for her business to be legitimately good and her business plan might be one of the best...

Bushra

Not shown much really, been pretty solid and stayed out of trouble, very unlikely to make any massive donk offs so has a fair chance of making the top 5, think she's got a lot of ground to make up on the strongest people. She's won a lot of her tasks and a strong few weeks along with a good business plan could easily see her make an Alana style run at the gold though, wouldn't rule it out - would love a big price bet on her!

Harrison

Made a few pretty big mistakes in tasks and lost a lot of them, Karen and Claude like him and everyone seems to respect him, seems to be improving and the kind of guy Lord Suggy could work with as he'll be a real grafter, he might not turn his £250k into £25m but he'll probably die trying. I think he might struggle to get away with a huge mistake but might be forgiven a few little blunders as long as someone else is there to fire.

James

Seems confident and strong, but has actually made loads of stupid mistakes, got bashed from pillar to post by Elizabeth and think Suggy reaching the end of his tether with him. Very well presented though and handles himself pretty well, can see him getting to the final 5 barring not mistakes and can see him having a solid business plan, think he's an unlikely winner but probably favourite for top 5 and got an outside shot at heads up.

Micheala

Strong, bossy, handles the boys, gets the job done - made a few clangers (the Jeffriii / Siiimon incident was inexcusable) but she's good with sales, works hard, gets stuck in - can't imagine there's much for Sugar to dislike about her at this point, hardly lost a task and never been in the boardroom. Seems to already have a successful business too, which has pricked Sugar interest - I reckon she could be forgiven a medium sized blunder in the next 3 weeks.

Jade

Hardly lost a task, never been in bottom 3, strong, good at sales, seems very well liked, doesn't take nonsense an strong in the boardroom, also on the strongest team at the momet regardless of who joins them alongside Micheala and Sarah - I think for her to get booted before the top 5 would need to be a series of huge donk - offs. Close to a lock for top 5 and without seeing her business plan, I think she'll be sick in the interviews but have a feeling she might have a stupid business plan... decent business plan and I reckon she could be a close favourite.

Sarah

Last weeks incident with the bird crap was her first real wobble, she lead the rabble to victory on week 1 with everyone loving her, you can tell everyone thinks she's great, she's super solid, talks a lot of sense and I think ticks all the boxes Lord Sugar is looking for, like Jade she would be forgiven all but the most horrific of errors in the next 3 weeks and has to be close to a certainty for top 5, seems pretty unflappable and should interview well so would have to make her favourite at this point.

8th - Joanna
7th - Elizabeth
6th - James
5th - Bushra
4th - Micheala
3rd - Harrison
2nd - Jade
1st - Sarah

HEARD IT HERE :)

James goes next time he's in the boardroom imo
Elizabeth looking a bit of a dark horse. Pisses everyone off, which sugar loves, but isn't full of bullshit like most of them

Elizabeth FTW

Regards

C

Dave,

You've lost your head

Bushra FTW

Regards,

AG

This bunch would have made for a fine series of Big Brother.

Regards

C

Elizabeth nailed on for the final.

Bushra, Harrison, Sarah Jane all punching.

I just got a Linked In connection request from James White. He runs a recruitment firm and he is prospecting for business with me. The perfect time to link with as many in house recruitment, HR and IT Managers I would say.

Definite to make the final:
Elizabeth, Sarah

Definite to not make the final:
Bushra, Joanna, Jade

Undecided:
James, Harrison, Michaela (although she definitely won't win)

I still owe you £100 from last yr!

Jade vs Elizabeth last longer wash if 5th/4th/3rd?

Booked for £100 I have Elizabeth!

I'm envisioning Apprentice 2024 thread, Dave still hasn't settled up his apprentice debts and offers double or nothing for £6400.

Haha with any luck! No doubt BTC will be at £10m by then and I'll still be a bear so it'll all be ok

We made rule that debts have to be settled face to face and with a warm friendly embrace :)

Only a couple of these progress with any real credit after tonight's fiasco.

How on earth can Sarah think that Crusader is an appropriate brand name in today's world? Incredible lack of awareness and sensitivity. But staying calm and articulate under pressure in the boardroom saved her.

Harrison allowed himself to be easily manipulated by Michaela - and is he so naive to think that Jade & Joanna would magically find a way of working cooperatively? Needs to do better next week.

Joanna is just too defensive, taking any slight or rejection of an idea far too personally. Fragile personality and not a team player.

James still needs to grow a pair, and I think he's on his final warning in this respect; Elizabeth completely steam-rollered him, but left herself exposed when failing to deliver on her long list of boastful pre-presentation claims. She reverted to type in this task after last week's good perforance, and she's too bull-headed to realise that she has to stop being such a control freak. She's her own worse enemy.

Jade won the battle of wills with Joanna, but she failed to crack the brand-name, made schoolgirl errors in the packaging and was fortunate to avoid a grilling in the boardroom since the other team were more rubbish than hers. I still fancy her, though. And I think she has a good chance of winning this as long as her business plan stacks up  :)up

Definite to make the final:
Elizabeth, Sarah, James, Michaela

Definite to not make the final:
Joanna, Jade, Harrison

Anyone wanna give me 2/1 on Joanna to be the next fired?

Would also add that I completely hate the way this week was judged. It essentially boiled down to a) who had the better cook on their team b) popularity contest. The branding of the name, box, recipe etc was all completely irrelevant, it was entirely down to who can cook and who can pitch. I'd have had no idea that the word crusade is somehow offensive; personally I found Natrofuel completely bewildering - sounds like some shit protein shake. Should have just had the 4 experts have a vote each and let the audience take the decider.

Bushra had to go the way it played out, she was really insufferable. All talk no doing.

Ul Lil Dave, pretty sure i heard the phrase 'with regret you're fired'

Yep.

I think that in reality Alan has very little sincere regrets.

GG Dave, can almost get your flights + meal to Edin on the bet ;)

Final 2 is really hard to predict as we don't have much info on their business plan... I think Sarah will win but not too confident. I'll go with Sarah and Elizabeth as final 2. James close third, Michaela fourth, Joanna fifth and no chance.

I think Joanna has to be favourite.

Won 10/12 tasks
2/2 as PM (convincingly both times)
Smashed the task that was in her industry

I'll be generous and give you 4/1 on Joanna win. And trust you won't have looked at any markets that give the final away obv :)

She was up against two complete idiots. The 2 tasks she didn't win she was in the boardroom for. I'm not convinced she can come up with a good business plan or get it past the interviews. Jade won every task before being fired.

Credit to Sarah for being capable of stitching Jade up without an ounce of conscience. Threw the hospital pass on this task and just stood back while Harrison did zip and Jade found herself out of her comfort zone.

In truth, Jade's performance at the catwalk was horrific, and Sarah had nothing to do with the script, it seems.

Really can't see Lord Alan choosing Joanna nor Michaela as his dancing partner, so that just leaves Elizabeth and James along with Sarah. Given we know very little about the business plans, and I'm avoiding the betting markets for clues, it's a tough call.

All things being equal, I think big Liz would be his best bet for the gig. Lady Sugar will be getting fresh flowers every week!

Looking for Sarah vs Joanna last longer action

what odds?  Sarah looks the obvious favourite to me.  I haven't seen any bookie odds all series.

i'll bet Sarah at 4/5

I was was surprised he fired Jade. Didn't see that coming and I would've been on Lil Dave's side in the match bet.

She made mistakes (with the designers range name, not sorting a discount) but she was also forced by the other two to take control of the whole task and got the magazine on side.

I had the first firing at: 1/7 Harrison, 9/2 Jade, 8/1 Sarah but had no idea it was the last week before the interivews and really didn't think two would be going.

Right now it looks to be between Sarah and Joanna.

Always enjoy the show but haven't really been able to get behind any of the contestants personalities. I find myself longing for the days of Stuart Baggs (rip) and James McQuillan.

Come on pads, if you think she's favourite, you should be max betting 4/1!

what price can i get that if we hook pads up to a polygraph and ask him if he thinks Joanna is actually favourite he'll say yes and fail?

.

Caught up on the last three weeks. I was sorry to see Anisa go – Joanna wins the tightest-dress section unopposed now. I was pleased to see the three-way Harrison/Jade/Sarah boardroom. Harrison wasn’t the brightest candidate and has been well out of his depth since the start. I took a dislike to both Jade and Sarah, especially Jade, so that was a win/win week for me.

This must be the weakest final group for a long time. Usually most of the finalists have established themselves as strong contenders from way out. This time, I think there are only three who can win, so they have a slightly easier task. Elizabeth gets things done, but her lack of social awareness must rule her out. Sugar could never be sure she wasn’t going to do something inappropriate. I’d like Joanna to win, but she is the weakest candidate left and has been lucky to get this far. Only James, Sarah and Michaela are viable at this stage imo – and probably all of them could have been fired by now in a stronger year. James has wilted and been walked on a few times and Michaela might have been cast as the bossy one no-one can work with if Elizabeth wasn’t there. Of the three, I’d like to see Michaela get it, but I’ll be content so long as it’s not Sarah.

norrrrrrrrrr gotta be sarah

No bookie odds as the result has already been decided.

Christ - Michaela's hair looks like someone attacked her on the way to the interviews.

The Bolton bird looks a good thing to me if they can see past the flat cap image.  The other four look clueless and very inexperienced at growing businesses and making money.

I love the obsession with turnover on this show.  Who cares about turnover?  I could turnover £5bn a day as a bookmaker if i offer 11/10 each of two on coin flips i would be skint in an hour though.  They hardly ever talk about margins and profits just turnover.  It's very tilting.

I agree. Based on what we've seen so far tonight, I'd say it's her plus A N Other.

Incredible how terrible they all are

Would love to see 15 blondes on a 'blonde apprentice'.  Wonder who would win?  Wonder who the runners and riders would be?

Pooh I thought Michaela was nailed on. Other two are lightweight compared to her

Corporate image is so important to Sugar.  He is such a nit this show gets really boring.  Giving what a bullying, barking barrow boy he was at the start of his career in a clapped out van selling aerials it's incredible really.

The other incredible thing is they said 'Sarah would back a horse ew in a one horse race' because she is such a nit.  Sugar then says i need risk takers with big numbers and business ideas then puts the uber nit into the final who could fold aces pre flop.  Makes no sense at all.

Sugar already had one recruitment consultant: Ricky Martin. If he has done well then James has this in the bag, no contest.

Ricky Martin done well yeh - he was even an interviewer one year recently!!

I think Micheala kind of blew it this episode, she is certainly the most credible in terms of the business plan and background plus her performance in the tasks has been good, think it was just an overall poor performance from her really.

Joanna and Elizabeth out their depths here, I found the line "Believe it or not Elizabeth I do really like you" quite funny, James got fired from his £200k a year job, which I would have thought would have gotten dragged up some more but was barely mentioned, once he got past that he looked to be a strong favourite...I think Sarah strolled in by the fact that she ticks pretty much every box, just a bit boring :(

I think it's defo the most interesting heads up match out of the 5 possible. I've pressed on Sarah, because she's my girl and I need to try get my money back!!!

Well everyone on here seems to be such
Rinswun would win I'm sure!

 

And I've pressed on James cos he's my man and I'm only gambling like 7% of my apprentice profits muhahaha :P

If only pads had had a flutter on his pick Joanna!

/smug post

It was only ever those 3 and I think if Michaela had said "I'll quit my other businesses and focus on this with you Alan" then she'd have got there.

So Sarah (sweets), Elizabeth (flowers), Joanna (clothes) all presented commodity businesses. One commodity business is always in the final so Alan can give his whole "but I'm a product man" shit. If someone comes up with an original product then even better, they get in by default if they aren't a complete tool. Clothes was obviously never going to make it especially as the business plan was horrific - who wants to invest in a reseller. I thought could make a good case for flowers or sweets to make it and was a bit gutted Elizabeth didn't beat Sarah.

In terms of the services I thought it was pretty absurd to take James over Michaela. The website Michaela was proposing will crush it if executed well.

After seeing the business plans I would have loved an Elizabeth vs Michaela final but now we have two shit business plans by two boring but smart people. I think he ends up with Sarah FWIW, she's just easier to work with and has a lot of stuff in place already so his £250k isn't a complete write off.

That must be one of the worst decisions Sugar has ever made. Fire someone with a proven record and a decent business idea, who has a realistic possibility of mega returns, in favour of yet another recruitment consultant who fancies going out on his own, who has no experience of running a business, and won't make the same returns even if he is successful. Inexplicable decision.

fk sake :D

just saw joanna thing btw alex, would have probably bet i think, think she had a very hard time.

THANK YOU FOR APPLYING!

Your applicant ID number is: b2933a-1-335308

 ;goodluck;

This has to be one of the weakest final two we've had?

After hearing the plans I thought Micahela was nailed on to win but then he goes and fires her because she's essentially been too successful at being an entraproneur. Wtf.

Regards

C

I dont really think Sarah is that weak? She's completely composed, been so sensible throughout, been great in the boardroom, everyone respected her, no major mistakes and has a business that has survived and made money for 8 years. I think people are confusing her with being a little boring, which she is.

What she is though is a completely safe bet - James is young, unproven and going into the toughest market around, could easily burn through the £250k. Sarah is just never ever dusting the £250k - she's literally nailed on to make him a return of some sort and won't really need that much attention in the long run...and as much as he talks a big game Sugar about being a gambler he's literally played it safe in every spot in all past seasons.

Think she's incredibly credible and if she rolled into a bank to try get a business loan she's get it 10/10 times.

She looks/acts like a couple of girls i trained as an accountant with 20 years ago.  Proper nits who are built to count other people's money for a living rather than make their own.  She is solid enough but Sugar keeps banging on about it isn't about being safe and he wants big numbers.  How the fuck you going to make big numbers out of selling over priced pick and mix, put in a fancy jar with a bow on top?

Sugar is the real bore of the whole show for me more than the contestants.  Think its time for a proper gambler to step in to his shoes and take some risks.  His jokes are getting very dull as well.

yeah agree, he always says "I'm a gambler" and takes the safe option every single time without fail. Alan mate, you're in your 70s you're worth £1bn just have some fucking fun and a punt with the £250k, will make more than that from the show anyway.

He not fancy a challenge - can he turn Elizabeths little florists into a milion pound business? That would be a good achievement.

Why the fuck a 70 yr old billionaire would want to invest in a recruitment agency is beyond me.

For the business he backs he will almost certainly cop £150k of SEIS and £100k of EIS anyway.

I won't bore on about those here but the risk to capital to Suralan is pitiful and, I suppose fairly evidently given the 'talent' on show, the programme has no need for the end-backed business to actually do any good. Capped downside, gte'd publicity-based upside.

I am sure Alan knows the value of the £ as well as the next guy, but the reality is he could throw £250k in the thames and it would not affect him, his business, his family, or future generations of Sugars in the slightest.

I think the problem with the show nowadays is that £250k really isn't enough to attract a high calibre of candidate, if you have a great idea and some experience you can raise that amount of money, not saying it's easier - but it's easier than auditioning for a show, then leaving your business for 12 weeks to do a TV audition. You get Lord Sugar, but you also give away 50%.... doesn't really stack up, I think they should be able to pitch for as much as they want and Sugar can decide, he could easily plough £1m in to the right business, that way might get some real candidates.

Sarah should have just gone to the bank and got £150k or whatever, really didn't need to do this, Micheala too, give away 50%? With her track record, kinda dumb imo.

So many fired wannabes have told us in the taxi that they will show Sugar he has got it wrong and they will earn millions without him anyway. Michaela was the first one I actually believed. I see Harrison is now working for her in one of her companies, demonstrating who was the real contender and who wasn't.

Maybe Alan Sugar is smarter than most.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07269784/filing-history (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07269784/filing-history)

Collapsed with a massive director's loan outstanding.   

None of these has filed any accounts of any note.

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/KEEr5n-hjMr7Sd-UwPZuns_d-tA/appointments (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/KEEr5n-hjMr7Sd-UwPZuns_d-tA/appointments)

Not many distractions there for her.
 

Can certainly agree he's a smart bloke.

As much as I like Sarah, you go to any school fayre these days and mums working from home are selling plastic cups filled with sweets. Look in any FB group you'll see it too.    Certainly not unique, she's done well to build a business turning over £400k pa doing it.  As for not having a website that works, an off the shelf solution would cost about £25-30 per month and she could be up and running in an hour.

Wouldn't putting that you are a member of an official body on your site when you're not be fraud?  I would have expected that they could even bar him from joining ever again.  Money talks though, I expect it will easily be forgotten.

I almost thought nobody has mentioned it and could not believe it.  Sarah is selling sweets online and her website doesnt even work!! That has to be incredibly amateur, selling online these days is so important its just beyond stupid to not have at least a simple website that works.

Shocked Michaela went, yes she has other businesses but none of them turn over any more than 3m and she would expect this one to be turning over tens of millions so obv she is gonna give more attention to the bigger one surely?

I'm not sure that there's many other groups who take this programme and the candidates as seriously as we seem to.

SuperDave has already pointed out that the £250k is pretty small beer for any serious, talented entrepreneur these days. I've seen more talented types on Dragon's Den in a week than we've seen in the last two series of TA. They might just as well rename this show "I'm a Businessperson, Get Me Out of Here!" since it's really just about the car-crashes induced by putting people of limited talent and an oversupply of ego in situations where there's intense pressure. Wednesday evening from 9pm to 10pm on BBC1 followed by 30mins on BBC2; and a finale on an absolute prime slot on Sunday night tells you that this is all about entertainment and not real-life-business.

From Karen & Claude's comments, it seems Lord Sugs really does just make decisions in the boardroom 'on the hoof'. In the end it boils down to whether he thinks the person is a) someone that won't irritate him, b) won't irritate the people involved in the enterprise and c) the person has a business plan that makes commercial sense and has scale-ability.

I agree entirely with those who've said this is the weakest line-up we've ever seen. The finalists are embarrassingly bad: Sarah's business can't really be scaled up, and she's not really shown any serious initiative with it (not having a properly functioning website the biggest sin) whilst James is simply a shady chancer, having been fired for trying to poach his former employer's clients.

Not sure I'll even bother watching the final tomorrow.

Feels like it...I mean even if somehow it's not (it should be) shows James up a bit, "shady chancer" as 4k said is perfect description. Remember when he started selling the dog training for £40 when Elizabeth was selling at £25 - think he's a bit immature, kind of guy who'd steal £50 from a man who'd probably give him £60.

Thanks for calling me superdave 4k - had a rough weekend and my ego needed that :)

CMOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN SARAH!

This is the final ffs. Feels like we are at week 1 levels of competence here.

And now they've left the story board behind. This is an absolute shambles.

Simply the weakest final two in the show's history.

Not even close though this is it? Sarah's winning it every time.

The world has gone mad

WTF

Should've fired both of them

regards

rs

That's bollocks. Official jumped the shark moment. Won't be watching next year.

My prediction was neither gets it. Am I watching the same people he has been?

Why is everyone going on about how terrible they are? Not seeing it at all, Sarah has been very solid throughout the show, has an existing business and a decent idea. It's super low risk and almost gtd to make money, chances of it kicking off and making him £20m are pretty slim but it's pretty much a shot to nothing, far worse places to put £250k.

James is a young city chancer who did very well on the corporate ladder and wants to have a crack at his own ladder - fairly reasonable chance he dusts the 250 and cant make it work, tiny chance he smashes it and builds a monster. For totally different reasons to Sarah once again way worse places to stick £250k, if you've got the roll for a gamble like this.

I think they are both pretty good, Sarah would have gotten funding from virtually any corporate lending facility and James would have found backing at some point in the few yrs with his charming/networking manner, everyones talking like neither of them could lace their shoelaces, don't get it.

I loved this, great TV, some massive donkery and some good stuff in there, if i has to be critical I'd say that the tasks were a little samey, more money making tasks where selling to actual people would be nice - would like to see some changes to the structure but can't wait for next year already. Think people take it all way too seriously and forget it's a bloody TV show!

What a load of nonsense in this thread! You all must be millionaire business gurus or if you're not, apply next year cos by the sounds of it Alan would jump across the boardroom table to invest in you lot!

Dave's right, both good investments for different reasons. Sarah made almost no mistakes all series and her business will pretty much always succeed. James is a punt but a sensible one and when you've got a billy you can take the variance.

And the double investment was great TV - unexpected, unprecedented and dramatic - what more could you want?!

And me and Dave chopped the first prize in our side bets - whoop!

So, James and Jade had an affair in the house then. Both split up with their partners straight away once they were finished with the process.

Guy got caught faking an industry accreditation on his website. Hard to imagine any corporation following in after that. Very shady guy, wouldn't touch him with a barge pole personally.

Sarah is pretty boring, if it wasn't for Sugs shes largely drawing dead on doing anything other than making a small amount of money. Remember all her competitors with exactly the same branding and packaging? No inspiration, her yellow dress during the presentation was the only bright thing about her.

Great tv and finish but its awfully boring during the last few weeks when we find out half the people left have no chance with their current business model.  Such a waste of time, and who knows whether there was an actual exciting business plan out there.

Budget Shark Tank which could be so much more.

It's surprising they glossed over what James did. They destroyed Baggs the Brand for a similarish thing - saying he was fully-licensed when be only had some licences. For that, the interviewer told him he had no ethics and Sugar gave him a proper kicking on the way out. Not very consistent.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__XbfPMkha0

Not just that but getting fired for poaching clients from his employer, joke that got overlooked. Then there was how he got walked all over by the girls every week in the tasks, even the final

It’s nearly time...


https://youtu.be/3ss-59fi4nM

Could someone fix the link please?

Here they are

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p06jv20z/the-apprentice-series-14-meet-the-candidates

No doubt we'll end up shouting at the telly again.

Glad she's gone.

Everytime she opened her mouth wide she looked like a spitting image mask.


Regards

B

Would have been good entertainment though! Surprised he didn't fire the Canadian Doris

regards

Ri

lil dave, stato and keith are having our annual auction for candidates today at DTD. If anyone fancies themselves as an auctioneer then let us know, we need one!

Regards

AG

Missed the first episode, so this was my first encounter with the class of 2018

My god, what a bunch of incompetents, although there were a few flying under the radar. Biggest LOL was the look on the face of one of the retailers - he seemed to be in shock about how bad both the products & pitches were.

Lord Sugs, hardly surprisingly, is showing barely any enthusiasm for the process.

Things can only get better.

Regards
4K

The funniest show on TV. Not even close. Where dooo they find them?

Regards

C

Who's team do you like?

*Whose

Regards D

Beginning to see the wheat from the chaff.

Jasmine & Kayode look likely to run deep. I think Tom will have learnt a lot from his overly collaborative PM stint, and should run good.

Kurran? Apparently he has a law degree. Surely he's next for the finger.

Kurran is awful. He’s so laid back he’s almost horizontal. But if his team keeps winning then he will avoid the chop for a while!

For anyone not watching, when his team appeared in the board room Kurran’s arm was in a sling. It transpired that the night before he managed to sustain a break by arm-wrestling  rotflmfao  That will surely hamper him over the next few weeks as many of the tasks have physical elements.

It’s pretty hard to see any merit in anything that has been done so far. All three tasks have been lost, rather than won.

Regards

D

My Thoughts So Farl

Kurran

Kurran is shit, so far he's shown an incredible lack of aptitude towards any task, no matter how significant, he couldn't even have an arm wrestle without breaking his arm. Soon as his team loses the PM will bring him back regardless and pray it's not a double firing - god help Stato if he gets PM!

Rick

Rick seems to talk a fairly good game and looks somewhat presentable, however if you look at the facts he's basically been terrible. I'm biased because he's on Alex's team and Richard Branson could be on Alex's team and I'd find something negative to say about him.  His major contribution so far has been the octopus incident and a few sexist comments which will go down BADLY with Karen.

I would make these two currently the weakest.

Tom

Redeemed himself with some sales tekkers on the Saunas but aside from that he's been crazy average, his PM performance was a total joke and seems like it's all a bit of a laugh to him, could be one of those guys who starts out ladding it about but then starts to take it seriously and shows some strong improvements, needs it though, same attitude like this and he's going to run into a brick wall very soon imo.

Daniel

Talks about himself like he's some sort of genius guy, but has done precisely nothing as of yet - which doesn't mean he's not good just means there is nothing really to suggest anything about him, again comes across to me like he's in there for the bants and not really a serious guy. All the "Better to cry in a bentley than a banger" bullshit is pretty cringe, I mean "we spent $16,000 on a night out in vegas" come on mate who hasn't done that :P

Sarah - Ann

Lawyer from tee-side with an eyebrow piercing, on first appearances didnt look like a serious candidate. She hasn't really done much prior to her PM but everything she had done seemed pretty sensible and relatively intelligent, her PM performance wasn't flawless but she handled it in a relatively competent manner.  Might have just run good so far, but dark horse potential, strong dark horse potential.

Camilla

PM display was ok-ish, seems a bit hot-headed and wreckless to me, seems to have a bit about her though, don't really know what else to say about her...

Jackie

She's on my team so gotta back her up, has had a successful business which apparently was sold for a decent wedge, but then Sugar gonna ask why she doesn't use her own money, from what I've seen she seems to know what she's doing, talks well, competent in sales and has shown some strategic thinking, certainly hasn't done anything donk yet - biggest worry is she is quite abrasive, unlikely to be that popular and likely to cause a few bust-ups, can see her appearing in the boardroom a few times and Sugar might go tired of her. She's also Canadian and that can be annoying. I think she has a great shot at top 5.

Sabrina

Her PM performance was a bit wooly, she didn't show great leadership, made some silly mistakes, didn't really demonstrate a "big picture" approach. Having said that she seems very personable, and has some spunky boardroom tekkers. Has her own business, she's for sure one who needs to improve as the weeks go along, but if she can learn from whats happening and being said I think she's got a final 5 in her.

Khadija

On the surface she seems aggro, brash and shouty, but I think there is a very appealing humility to her, when she was told in the boardroom by Sabrina she was intimidating she seemed genuinely upset to hear it and since has come across way less aggressive.  Despite how it appeared for most of episodes 1-2 she also seems to me to be quite popular. Hasn't set the world on fire but most of what she's done so far has come across as fairly intelligent to me. She also, according to reports i read o ngoogle, is the only candidate (I guess you exclude Jackie from this) who runs her own business and submitted profitable accounts for the past year.

Kayode

Went in for PM on week 1, which, putting it mildly, is brave. Seemed to automatically gain the respect of everyone, seems popular, very capable in sales - although we're yet to actually see anything else from him yet - and the way he handled not being on the product team last week I thought was thoroughly professional.  My favourite line of the series so far was in EP1, he said he thought about going to the off-license for salt, to which Karen replies "You were going to an off license to buy salt"
Kayode's response - "I don't know Karen, I've never been to Malta"
Think he's going deep.

Jasmine
Seems very solid and very credible, the hot sauce on the donut was of course complete headloss but you can have a headloss over a donut and still be a good businesswomen. Karen likes her, she's firey when needed, calm when needed and seems pretty smart. Top 2 for me.

Sian
Strong, feisty, calculated, seems to fully grasp the early stages are about staying out of danger "coasting" as Claude put it. Looks to be the one with the business sense, self awareness, strong will and character to navigate her way through, I would be very surprised if she doesn't top 5.

Stato's team would be far and away the strongest if not for Kurran, who's a brains timebomb waiting to happen, Keith has two solid guys including Jasmine who's a big shout to top 5. Me and Alex and in a bit of a high variance spot, could easily get 2 in the top 5 or be next 3 out, need to see some movements or could be an expensive season!

Always really enjoy your write-ups, SuperDave.

Tell me, though; what's the part about being Canadian that's annoying? Is it the part that's nearly American?

i love a Canadian myself, Sugar though he's a grumpy old man from the streets of laaandan town, Jackie got a whiny american sounding accent and likely to be in the boardroom a fair bit, i reckon the old geezer might just flip and decide 'grrr had it with this american sounding women'

Regards (and no offence to Canadians!)

LD

Certainly fair comment about whiny-accent Jackie. She's probably from Toronto or thereabouts, as the accent is more similar to the US than elsewhere in Canada... although I haven't checked. Yes, she's definitely annoying.

Your comment suggested a general, anti-Canadian sentiment, which I found curious. I'm Canadian born (English mother) and although I have lived in England the vast majority of my life, I'm still (perhaps too) defensive about my birthplace.

In any event, no offence taken

Regards
PH

Well, that was a first...

Should have fired another couple.

FYP :)

Kadija, Kurran, Sarah Jane

Kurran clearly has something on Sugar.

Felt sorta bad for Jackie. She knew exactly what she was doing with her choice of who to bring back. It’s never gonna work but fair play for the effort.

Regards
C

I think one of the best PM performances ever from Jackie that, she lost because her team was maybe the weakest team in history, task was basically just her and jasmine.

No idea how Kurran survived the dbl there, actually quite happy about it as looking forward to seeing the shenanigans he creates as PM. It's terrible for me as Jackie is likely to upset him at some point and Kurran will bring her back even though she's never getting sacked unless she does something truly horrific

Think Jasmine and Jackie are #1 & #2 now, Sian behind on #3. Think Sian was somewhat poor on her own standards although she did some fairly intelligent things and people seems to like working with her.

Bizarre episode, was like everyone knew Kurran was for it and just sort of ambled through....

As far as quality of performances went, it was pretty horrific - I think the safety net of Kurran made eveyone switch off + was a tough task anyway.

Regards

LD

Jackie just blitzing this. Even nearly saved the task in boob tube with some newly found wit.

Regards

BA

I thought she was pretty poor actually, didn’t think she was great pitching either

Their combined level of incompetence soared to new levels this week.

Brand name incorporating an explosion ("of fun" ffs)
Stewardesses dressed like cheap hookers, and Jackie firmly culpable
Highway to Hell backing track (Thought they'd get the irony?)
Kayode guilty of a childish pun-joke and still insisting it was humorous - I was wrong about him, he's still a boy.
Kurran? Beyond words. Probably in it trying only to get something for his acting reel.

I found myself cringing during the entire pitch presentation process - although there was a lot of unneccesary gurning by the judging panel, both pitches were indeed pretty horrific. Sugs was struggling to determine the basis for a winner: finally he realised that only one of the two ads had any discernable consumer proposition and everything else was just terrible.

I may be biased, but I thought "killjoy" Jasmine was one of the very few who emerged with any credit. She had that look of desperation on her face as she saw Kayode's performance & realised that the boardroom was probably beckoning.

Regards
4K

Complete headloss episode for sure.

Think Sian, who was hottest property in our auction, has steadily lost value every week. Kayode excels in spots that involve approaching people, speaking or selling small things, but comes completely unstuck in the face of anything else and mostly just waffles.

Jasmine the best.

Regards LD

I must admit, I didn’t mind the JetPop name, but thought they were going to use a bubble about to burst rather than an explosion!

The JetPop uniforms were terrible, especially being designed by women.

I thought for a second that both teams were going to plump for the same market (business). That would have been the first time ever, to my knowledge. I wonder how they fix it so they always choose opposing markets? And why do they do this because it would be easier for Alan to pick the winner if both teams selected the same target market...

Wow what a terrible decision

Her business plan was for an app that enabled you to store everything you have in your phone. Either she has made a massive scientific breakthrough, or she’s deluded.
She’s an Apprentice candidate so it’s clearly the latter.

Dan gets stronger by the week.


Regards
D

Very bizarre choice for the Lord Sugs finger this week. I think there's a subtext that he hates all things "Corporate" - it's his way of categorising the candidates who don't conform to his "every-person" preferences, and it's often delivered with a sneer.

The other two were pretty awful in the task (nothing unusual there, then) but in the boardroom at least the tree doctor stabbed Jasmine in the front.

I find it incredible he can sack a lawyer for failing to make chocolates without taste, especially when you can leave a completely clueless idiot in the final 5 instead

There were six clueless idiots on display tonight. He sacked one, which one would you prefer him to have booked a taxi for?

It would have made sense for him to just tell all six to go home. There isn’t one amongst them fit to even match up with Tom ‘the nail file’ Pettigrew. Let alone Ricky Martin, or Joseph The Plumber.

Good episode. Would be sick to be on. I would have done “20 days of Footmas” each box has a sticker of different premiership team, Man City most rare card, kids keep buying them from December 1 till whenever trying to get full collection of teams.

Sian cleee favourite to win imo.

You should apply. Looking at the current crop you’d be a shoo-in as part of the original sixteen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/takepart/apprentice

They all are clueless, but his reasons for turfing people out are getting less plausible.

Last week he kicked Jackie out for being the finished article. In other words, she knew what she was doing and its better tv to keep this hapless bunch thinking they have a chance.

I put a lot down to editing in these shows, but this lot are clueless. I find it insulting to think of all the great people I have worked with over the years, who could never get a sniff of this kind of investment, and here we have 5 morons left looking at a quarter milly as their reward for, no doubt, more clock ups and embarrassing moments.

Won't stop me watching the rest though!!

Can't wait for Lord Sugar to say 'So Patrick, you refer to yourself as Best in the Business....'

Every year people say the standard is terrible and they only get idiots on because it's good for TV etc, and whereas I cannot disagree with either of those sentiments (people are largely idiots, and with guys like Kurran it would be worse!) I think though people are forgetting a crucial part of the makeup of the show. £250k is not actually a massive investment in the grand scheme of business, I think (and i might be completely wrong!!) that if you're a strong candidate with a strong idea and relevant credibility and experience - the apprentice isn't really for you IMO, you'd probably wanna structure your own deal, retain a bigger share of the equity and you'd likely not have too much trouble raising the money, certainly wouldn't need to complete 10 tasks, face 4 gruelling interveiws and make a pitch to a room full of people whilst living in a house away from home for 6 weeks - only to get a yes/no from 1 potential investor.

This show is for really undeveloped candidates, who most likely dont have capital to contribute themselves, who don't have the credibility to go down institutional money raising routes or the contacts to raise privately, also they win Lord Sugar's mentorship which given this is for people who are very early in business careers is a huge plus, and why they give away such a big % of the end business. The fact that it's a genuine life changing opportunity for most of them and not just another pitch for some investment money (like it was for Jackie, who would likely get funded by a host of different platforms) is what makes it such good TV (for me) and whereas they do come across as highly incompetent a lot of the time, and Sugar not instantly firing them all seems unfathomable, it's because the premise of the show is they are basically challenging amateurs with the prize of a life changing prize.

It's billed as "scouring the nation for hottest business talent" it's not really what's doing, they looking for enthusiastic, inexperienced guys with a good idea that Sugar can turn into business wizard to show the country enterprise still works! If it was 10 slick polished business people with shit hot idea's all 10 of which Sugar could profitably invest in (which they could find im sure) would make a boring TV show.

Roll on tonight!

Stop being so f***ing reasonable  ;hattip;

I should have said.

THEY ALL USELESS C***S

Regards

LD

(p.s who do anyone think will win? Im kinda lost)

Good post, SuperDave. Agree with all you write.

But I still don't get why they all find it necessary to be so outrageously unrealistic with their business plans/sales forecasts. And then there's the blatant lies (er, Daniel?)

I agree with the three that got the Lord Sugs finger tonight. Although it would be hard to argue against any 3 of the 5, lol.

Toss a coin job here, but maybe go best of three if it falls for Nut Milk Girl first time.


Regards

PP

I suspect that if he hadnt had Brady and Claude in his ear he would have picked Daniel.

Very much doubt that The Lord hadn't told the odd little porky or stretched the truth in the old days, with some fanciful claim, to help get things going. He seemed reluctant to be as vocal as the other two, who were like conscience bubbles on his shoulder.

Can't believe the nut girl has made it. Found her to be one of the worst candidates of the series, and boy have they been bad.

Camilla is the weaker of the two candidates but has the potentially bigger product. If I had a spare 250k to throw at something it would be that rather than the swim wear thing.

I’m glad Daniel got given the boot. They made a point of the untrustworthiness and the bs and good to see it meant something.

Felt bad for Sabrina being first to go. But I’m not quite sure what her plan was beyond I already have a business can I have 250k please. Same with Khadija. But if I was going off which two candidates I liked as people and would want to see do well it would be these two.

1-3 Porn Princess's Nutmilk, 9-4 Bikinis.

Found myself not caring at all who won

Found myself assuming that the decision was made halfway through the process.

Surprised he didn't go with the nut milk potential. She has a contract with Holland and Barrett now.

It seems the swimwear has been worn by some y/z list celebs in the past and had some publicity , so maybe that influenced him.

Regards

Ri

It doesn't take a lot at all for Alpro et al to copy her flavours and better her marketing if it's successful. Designs for swimwear are a lot harder to copy

edit: also sad I didn't get my £50 gift from Dave this year - Edinburgh must be on your no fly list by now son!

It's back tomorrow folks.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1lwTYYkjVp7n4XDwrsmHZbX/meet-the-candidates


Regards

b

Oh gods not again!

Regards

C

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10026467/bbc-bosses-apprentice-brags-final/

Supposedly the most annoying bunch so far.

Same format every year but stands the test of time. Bring it on.

Regards,

C

looking forward to it as usual.....gives us all hope  :D

What a show:)

These aren't real people are they? Do Shamstrad grow them in a lab?

Shamstrad was 1.01 the reason for the firing.  He was a hero for just going on there and suggesting it.

Lewis should have gone, even if he was calm and disciplined in his head.

Regards

D

Standard stuff from both teams, and utterly predictable that both sales teams would over promise.

I thought Tom Allen was excellent as the new YF host.

Regards
Pp

On the boys side at least I didn't think they looked quite as useless as usual. Yeah they over promised to start with but I got the impression that was engineered by the shows premise of go and sell whilst at the same time the other team get information you need and then find out later in your one phone call of the day.

The tour team did s good job I thought. The edit was doing it's best to try and show them up at bits where they didn't know some facts but of course they don't and they handled that fact well.

Girls shambolic so obviously won. Would be nice to have this show have a concept of customer satisfaction. Yes the boys made less but they'll have got good reviews and repeat custom.

Would also be nice if the show acknowledged phones can browse the internet these days and are capable of making more than one call per day.

Anywho, nice to have it back.

Regards

C

anyone watch this weeks show ?

Plenty I expect.

well records were broken

They plumbed new depths in so many ways.

This week’s episode is the buying task which is always an Apprentice highlight. But someone needs to step up and make this properly interesting.



Regards

Pp

i can't believe the bike episode, they measured it on total sales not profit, i could of sold $5 million of the bikes at £50 each and makr a massive lost

Indeed. Although the winning team actually sold more, and at a higher price.

Yeah but the flaw was highlighted when one of the women sold 20 bikes for 24k but tried to change it to 25 bikes for 25k, surely those extra 5 bikes cost more than 1k to make

Highlights how brain dead all the candidates are that they don't even know the rules they are playing to.   If they did they would surely have done this as profit was never discussed as a KPI in the brief.

Trying to work out what they're going to do is fun but almost impossible.

You could try and come up with the worst toy imaginable, but then it'll never be as bad as unicorns and slime.

All hope died in the moment when one of the teams didn’t know when WWII started.

Would have sacked the other two last night and kept Ryon.


Regards


Pp

Yeah that firing confused me. Assume business plans are coming into play.

Is that the first time a team has acquired all the items? I think he finds them for an incomplete item but if that was the apples then that's nonsense.

Regards

C

neither team had all the items but one was fined £65 pound the other team £250+ i think

Just caught up!

Cant believe this thread is so quiet, this season is TV gold.

Thomas loving every task.
Lottie keeps rubbing people up the wrong way.
Ryan Mark on the roller coaster had me crying with laughter.
People accusing Alan of ethnically cleansing the boardroom.

And this whole back story

(https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/10/31/08/20414678-7634273-image-a-3_1572511059851.jpg)

Love it!

Regards S

Lord Sir Alan’s rationale for firings gets ever more tenuous.

Predictions:
Next 3 firings: Dean, Marianne, Scarlett
Winner: Pamela as long as her biz plan isn't a huge heap

Lottie The Racist Lion and Thomas would grace any cereal.

The Apprentice gets better and better. Shame about the spin-off.

Pamela/Lewis to get heads up

Oh well I was way off the mark this year! Bit disappointing that the only vaguely original ideas (Pamela/Lottie) got shut down. After Sugar's nightmare with Alana's bakery and the big success he had with Ricky Martin's recruitment, I presume he'll just go with Scarlett.