As sure as I've got a hole in my arse: The Apprentice UK, Series 3.

Be interesting to see if they run tonight's episode, in view of the fact that they meet sirallan aboard the Cutty Sark.

I hope they do, however, since if leading authority Metro TV listings is anything to go by this episode is where Katie gets hers.

They made a point of saying "LOOK LOOK IT'S THE CUTTY SARK!!" on GMTV this morning.

Well, Metro's TV listings got that bloody wrong didn't they?

It's going to end up being Tre versus Katie because THAT'S WHAT THE PRODUCERS THINK WE WANT

This weeks' a bit cut and dried, really.

Soon as I heard what the task was, I knew it wasn't Katie's boot day.

I only saw the marching orders bit, but it all seemed quite reasonable last night.

Katie thinks she looks like Barbra Streisand.

Whereas she actually looks like Marilyn (the one who doesn't talk to Boy George any more).

Crossed with Fatcher.

"SIMON WHAT WAS YOU DOIN' ALL THIS TIME?"

"Er, um, sirallan, actually sirallan I was spending two-and-a-half hours on ILx the internet."

Tre talking about his "philosophy" was pretty funny- it was along the lines of "if you keep saying you're great, eventually everyone else is going to believe it too". He's certainly done the former part of that sentence, I think he might be waiting a hwile for the latter!

i am starting to wonder if anyone in this series is actually good at business at all.

Including Alan Sugar.

He wants an apprentice but doesn't want to teach them anything.

Also he still appears to think that he's chairman of Spurs.

at a party in bradford at the weekend, i discovered that my cousin works on this show! she's part of the "production team"; i checked on an old episode we'd taped, and sure enough her name is there.

coo ur.

she wouldn't tell us anything about who the final two are, though. nor was she desperately forthcoming with any gossip (damn these professionals).

she did, however, say that sralan was quite a nice bloke (turns up, does his bit, is professional, fucks off again); that nick and margaret are lovely; and that adrian chiles RULES. so nothing we didn't know there, i suppose.

oh, and there will definitely be at least two more seasons after this.

I heard that Delia Smith was on the cards for being "the Boss" if/when Sir Alan leaves?

i think that's maybe bollocks.

still ...

C'mon, let's be 'aving you!

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2005/03/deliaSKY010305_450x280.jpg

I think Michelle Mone's after it as well, judging by appearances on the Adrian Chiles show.

(xpost, good work on the "yr coding skills are shite" message, Keith!)

(xpost, good work on the "yr coding skills are shite" message, Keith!)

?

Oh, I arsed up my img tags and got a red message telling me I'd cocked it up. Which was nice.

it wasn't even an xpost, but it was a thing that stopped me posting without hitting submit for a second time so I treated it as such.

Keith doesn't even read this thread, but I bet he's got shit like people congratulating him on features wired to his brain or something. So, hello Keith, I'm glad you brought it back because otherwise I'd have had some half-arsed fake-html and no-one would've clicked it because it came from the daily mail website.

Ha, I think my posts all look disingenuous and sarky even when they aren't meant to be.

Set yr vids tonite, I guess!

I'm not at all tempted to watch Big Brother - Live Launch.

Radio Times has mixed feelings about tonight's episode.

The British Soap Awards appear tempting.

Everyone hass mixed feelings etc.

So, we have "Woman in a burkha", "Woman from the WI", "Woman that is a bit promisc", what else?

hang on, where am I?

IN THE VILLAGE

I KNEW YOU etc..

Sirallan as Number 2:

"You is gonna tell me why you resigned and I don't want no arty-farty tosser award winning turn here or else you'll get fired."

OK, the groin level "this is so much fun" and "if you have kids you can unscrew them" was TOP LOLZ.

Also "you can climb on and bounce around", HAHAHA KING OF INNUENDO

(worst task ever, but Lohit and Katie were really quite good at it)

Also Simon's knowledge of how ANYTHING works (wheelchairs aren't a niche product, also teh disabledz have nothing to do all day except watch daytime telly and wish they had a wheelchair to let them escape from the dullness of their lives) = OMG, fists-stuffed-in-mouth toes-curling cringing terribleness

"Naomi, you are pretty and might have sex and get knocked up and leave me up shit creek like what Michelle Dewberry did - you're fired!"

Seriously, Simon should so have gone there. He was totally clutching at straws to fire Naomi for, um, what exactly?

Margaret called her out for the 'service task' week, when she eventually set up the kissogram thing which Sralan didn't like.

Right, so a random thing from *another* week. That's OK then.

I can see what you mean about Simon, but he did make over half the money up. *From a Sralan point of view* that entirely possibly redeems him.

*"you made <10% of what they would normally make in the same hour" notwithstanding.

Yeah, but he had the "big" product and sold, what, two of them (and he wasn't the one selling it)? Also, we both thought Naomi's point about selling to the craft types was good, and that in better hands (i.e. not cockfarming "this is apparently useful for something I know fuck all about, but I'm not going to explain it" Simon) her decoupage kit might have sold a bit more. The other products didn't sell because he was the one selling them, and after weeks (OK, years) of "you can't sell" to everyone he wanted to fire, to suddenly decide it wasn't about selling ability at all. Hmmm.

Basically they all had shit ideas. Tre and Naomi seemed more committed to trying to sell Simon's shit products than he did about theirs.

Agreed, and Simon was the shitter producer. But when you're faced with three twunts, the things that stands out most most is enough to get you sacked.

Plus he has to keep Tre to humiliate him next week, after promising this week he wouldn't.

The thing that stood out = SIMON IS A TWAT.

(that whole "do you really want this job Tre, because I don't think you do" thing = I wonder where that's going, eh?)

Never mind all that:

What was all that "Tre, do you want to win for the wrong reason?" speech?

"If you win, you are having this job right, no-one makes a fool out of me"

Reckon the last three shows have been re-filmed/re-edited?

I do.

Mark G has killfiled me, or else I have completely lost my ability to make myself understood :-(

SORRY!

Didn't see the second sentence.

big soz.

ha, I was joking. Big Brother has killed me.

I said to Neil I thought it had been edited in, so, yeah. I think this whole series has seen more scripted, more "reality TV" than actual reality.

Dis-reality TV, more like!

seen = seemed. Or else add some other words in to make that make sense. I'm not half typing some unintelligible pish right now.

OK, OK, OK.

Naomi was an incredibly dull contestant.

Adrian Chiles was quite stretched in trying to bring some interest to his follow-on programme yesterday.

The dullness was probably the key factor in her firing - Sralan has historically been proven not to like people who stand out least or maybe it would have made for low ratings if they'd all ended up in the final.

Interview episode next week which suggests that the budget has been reduced - last year they went to Istanbul, this year it was Peterborough. I doubt whether there will be a Series 4, and if so it will probably be without Sralan's august presence ("August presence? I'm here every bleedin' month of the year!").

I liked how AS read out the e-mails and included the senders names - real people intrude on disreality.

They should stick the losers in the BB house next year, and get The Twins TM, Tracey and Carole out wheeling and a dealing

They'd at least not try and make a camping gaz cooker out of an old bean tin!

The emails: I assume they asked for permission. It'd be easy to ask for.

Names were presumably changed to protect the innocent.

i dont think any of the contestants are even TRYING anymore. or maybe they just really ARE that dire at their tasks. last night was pitiful. and worse it was just quite dreary. even the boardroom showdown was a bit boring. sirallan seems to be less like a business bigwig and more like a frustrated school teacher.

"it's intricate and...um...uh...challenging..."

that was just totally fucked up. after the profits were read out and team simon had lost, i said to mrs f: "hah! told you simon would be gone before the interview episode." there seemed NO FUCKING WAY he could survive. the fact he did ... hmph. something, somewhere, has gone very wrong with this show.

I doubt whether there will be a Series 4

see my comments above. according to my cousin, it's all go. now, i'm not saying my cousin is the fount of all knowledge, but she does work on the thing, so ...

and if so it will probably be without Sralan's august presence

but this i won't disagree with. i can't see what's in it for him any more (unless he really wants to become a laughing-stock).

i also wouldn't be surprised at all if they re-tool it next year and have different tasks/more teams/viewer interaction/"surprise" elements/big piles of shit/etc.

But this year saw the big move to BBC1 so won't the budget have gone up accordingly?

I'd bet money on SAS being in it for the long haul, he won't admit but it's screamingly obvious he loves the increased celeb status this show has given him - he's hardly doing it for the money (despite his earlier comment "I wouldn't be sat here if I invented the bleedin' ipod". Nowhere near self-aware enough to predict and avoid laughing stock status.

Simon deserved to go but I'm glad he's still there, he's amusing viewing and seems like a nice guy.

Charlie Brooker on Katie:
"Katie - like a female Blue Meanie, but pink; boiled-baby pink; an evil, peeled dormouse that can't wait to watch you die."

Katie = crush of shame. She's like a recently divorced schoolteacher.

Dom, OMG!

something, somewhere, has gone very wrong with this show.

i don't think this is quite right, grimly. Simon has been one of the strongest contenders throughout the competition - it would have been madness for Sralan to keep Naomi over him. what went wrong was, crucially, that Sralan didn't come clean about his reasons for getting rid of one over the other.

"ok Simon you buggered up this task but i'm keeping you on because i have more faith in you than i do Naomi and conversely, Naomi did marginally better than you this time round but i don't think she has been a particualrly strong contender throughout the series"..... type thing. i mean why the hell was he grasping at straws when the truth would have been much more palatable to everyone involved and to the audience?

SrAlan's reasoning has *never* been terribly on the level though. What's wrong with this series is that it's all about comedy and staging and ratings, not about him actually finding the right person for the job, whatever the job is. The glitchy reasoning has been around at least since he got shot of Karen (?) last year because "he didn't need a lawyer", um, why keep her in that far, in fact why shortlist her in the first place?

Also, next week = Tre going "um, Amstrad, what do they do, yeah, maybe I should have googled them, haha" - DID PAUL TULIP TEACH YOU NOTHING? Seriously, these people are all ridiculous.

I watched a fair bit of BADGER OR BUST last night.

What's wrong with this series is that it's all about comedy and staging and ratings, not about him actually finding the right person for the job, whatever the job is

yes, i agree completely. i mean, we're all grown-ups: it's telly, it's got to have a bit of the ol' reality-TV nonsense going on to keep the plebs happy ratings up. but it's getting to the stage where the reasons being given for keeping in/getting rid of a contestant are so spurious/straw-grasping that you just think, right, whatever's going on here is so far from the stated "truth" (ie the search for an "apprentice") that i'm not really sure i can be arsed watching any more.

i will, though. i've come too far to give up now. and i want to see them all make throbbers of themselves come the interviews next week :)

Katie Hopkins, 31, from Exeter, a single mother-of-two

I cannot believe this woman is a mother. And is she really 31 years old?

did anyone see that "behind the boardroom" or "inside the suits" thing or whatever it was called that was on tonight (sunday)? we caught the last half of it (lucky us), which included - da-DAA - katie's friends and family saying how driven and wonderful she is. (actually, no: her parents seemed slightly dismissive, which could explain a lot.)

but katie herself came out with this extraordinary statement along the lines of "so when i got pregnant i just couldn't belieeeeve it, i mean i was soaring through my career and now i'd have to stop for a BAY-BEE, yah? so i did the new york marathon and i decided that if the baby survived that then it was fated that i'd be a mother SNORT SNURK CHORTLE."

which seems, to me anyway, to equate to: "i got pregnant and decided that if i lost the kid doing a marathon then hey, fuck it".

which i might at least think twice before admitting on national TV. still.

Yup, what a mentalist.

and Xtina almost endeared herself to me.

GF, yeah I couldn't believe that either. So shocking. When she was filmed with her children she seemed so stilted and out-of-sorts, like she wasn't so well acquainted with these little pink nuisances. Tre seemed to have genuine warmth for his son and came across well, I thought.

I'm at a loss who could be the winner now. My money was always on Simon but he's seeming too jokey and daft after that show so I'll choose Christina. I warmed to her after hearing her story then de-warmed when she dissed the lovely Lohit (whose partner is the spits of Bryan Westlife). I'll be astonished if SAS chooses the PR shitstorm that is Katie but in a way I'd quite like him to.

I saw some of this. It was intriguing to see Katie's ex-husband and current boss. Well, a bit interesting.

Is that meaning "same person" there?

Yes!!!

She was "briefly married to her boss".

I was disgusted, frankly.

WHAT THE FUCK IS SIMON DOING IN THE FINAL?

Also Katie face turn: C/D?

i is in your final twisting your trampet legs

reckon the katie thing was planned

She's back to panto villain role in the post-show, tho.

That Scottish woman is even scarier than Katie, who is looking surprisingly hot tonight.

Maybe it's the fashions/make-up from after 1987 that do it.

Tonight was the first time I realised that Katie wasn't just ruddy, but actually has a red wine birthamark. I wonder if, like Chris Morris, her anger at society comes from the shame she has at this disfigurement.

What's Chris Morris' disfigurement? Acne?

the IT Crowd.

What's Chris Morris' disfigurement? Acne?

Morris, without make-up, also has a birthmark that covers the majority of his face.

that scottish woman was really quite horrid to katie i thought - almost bullying. she took her 'im speaking for the nation' mouthpiece role a bit too seriously. katie seemed to come off a bit softer in her interview (probably on purpose), but i think they were a bit harsh on her.

Indeed, it was pretty clear that Katie was playing to the gallery a lot when she was being interviewed through the series. No doubt there's probably a good deal of truth in the way she presented herself but I doubt if it's the whole story.

i thought her bitchiness was quite funny really and a bit put on, like panto bitchiness. not sure how much she meant it all but i think people just took it at face value to have someone to despise as the villain of the show. her upper middle class toffo status just made their job easier.

Morris, without make-up, also has a birthmark that covers the majority of his face.

really? isn't this just another part of the self-perpetuated morris myth? (i genuinely don't know, and i guess i'll never be satisfied unless i meet morris myself. and he proves his identity. in triplicate.)

that scottish woman was really quite horrid to katie i thought - almost bullying. she took her 'im speaking for the nation' mouthpiece role a bit too seriously

absolutely: speaking for a fraction of a number of viewers etc etc. i've no time for mone at all (although i can't remember why) although i did think a couple of her katie-zings were fantastic. nothing to nick hewer's thing about the lips, mind. that was superb.

anyway: hmmm. obviously the whole "one of them turns it down for family life" thing had been well trailed, and i think it was evens it was gonna be katie. that said, i did think sralan handled it like a pro; ie he gave her enough rope and let her do the damage.

anyone else (eg ifti many weeks ago) i'd have had some sympathy with; however, for the woman who made yon comment about her unborn child (i mean, i'm an infinite distance from being any kind of pro-lifer, but even i found that slightly ... well, wrong) to suddenly collapse, going: "o noes i didn't ring mummy and daddy to see if they could look after thingummy and child #2" was just fucking pathetic. fuck off, katie. if we never hear of you again (and we won't: anyone remember jo?) it'll be too soon.

still: simon in the final? noooooooo. what a dobber. what a throbber. he gives all of us simons a bad name (and believe me: with a name like that, it's not hard). i was BUST when tre went; yes, i'm very drunk, but i don't often shout at the telly like that. (hellfire, i cut short good early-summer drinking time in a surprisngly nice pub to watch this.)

the one thing i would say is that it sure as fuck ain't edited for telly, 'cos in viewer-friendly terms a tre v katie final would wank all over the one we're gonna get. i can't see any way xtina won't win, although i've been wrong about everything so far this series, so ...

the other thing: how difficult would it be to get through those interviews? cockney geezer: lean back, look cocky, give as good as you get. older dude: be respectfully keen to learn. goatee dude ... bugger, i can't remember what i thought. still: i don't think any of the candidates would be going in to see him after two and a half bottles of (very good 2006) rioja and a bottle and a half of arran sunset beer, so fuck goatee dude. and on that note i'm off for more booze.

Simon seems to have developed an array of new and interesting twitches. The stress must be getting to him.

Simon did actually look like he was going to faint during those interviews.

as for him being a dodgy landlord ... can you imagine?

<ring>

"hello? simon inc, global megacorp (inc landlord of 23 shit street) here."

"all right mate. er, the telly's fucked, and the washing machine's knacked. can you fix it?"

<lengthy silence. eventually a PRODUCER, or maybe just A PASSING BLOKE WITH A VAGUE IDEA ABOUT, Y'KNOW, SHIT AND THAT appears, suggesting simon actually says something.>

"oh, you don't need a telly. i'll come round and breakdance for your entertainment. and you can hang your clothes off my arse and flick water at them. that'll wash them. i'm putting my arse on the line here. the clothes line, hahahah! do you see? hey, did i tell you my daddy ran a global megacorp and i went to cambridge?"

"actually, tell you what. i'll come round and kick you in the bollocks for three months solidly in lieu of rent."

i mean. i've had some utterfuckingbastard landlords, but never one who i felt i could beat in a fight with both arms and my fucking head tied behind my back.

I'm just trying to work out how someone who's entire business career appears to be "leaves Oxbridge, gets inevitable Oxbridge grad job, gets fired, then buys house" qualifies as an entrepreneur. He's not got 15 offices like Tre.

Grimly - All this booze is having an effect on you:

"Cockney Geezer, Older Guy, Goatee Guy, Simon tosser - I'll take you all on...Come and have a go if you're hard enough".

why didnt RICHARD BRANSON lead this quest???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CtDyepJ23A

"Cockney Geezer, Older Guy, Goatee Guy, Simon tosser - I'll take you all on...Come and have a go if you're hard enough"

exactly!

wonder if i can apply for next year's, on the condition i'm drunk throughout?

i mean, we bought an amstrad pc2286 in (?)1989. sralan fucking OWES ME.

(that said, i did manage to sell the fucker for a half-decent profit, which IIRC i spent on a) a drum machine and b) beer.)

Sooooo glad Katie gone.
Shame didn't get to see her go.
Glad got to read grimly's posts. Compensation indeed.
Very glad Kristina is going to win (surely?).

By the way, why is Katie saying something like "As far as I'm concerned I won The Apprentice and I turned it down."? Did she actually win and they had to re-shoot, or did she just win a place in the final? Or is she just that much of a bighead that she would say she won it when she hadn't? Sorry, I'm quite behind.

When did she say that?

She won a place in the final and turned it down 'cause of her kiddies and parents. In what seemed like a scripted or bizarrely artifical climax. xp.

I just heard her on the radio. (Radio 1). I was *sure* that's what she said. Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe we've all got a Katie filter in our heads that makes us all think she is horrid and really she is a nice person.

I suspect there was a lot of re-editing of last night's episode since I don't think Sugar's quite bright enough to engage in the art of the double bluff.

xpost
http://www.upseros.com/usuario/perfiles/chamot.jpg

I really hope that's true. I hate think of people like Katie existing.

xxpost - indeed.

insert more xxxx before xpost

you love it!

So Katie is exposed as the nasty fraud that we knew she was - no marketing/brand expertise, as revealed in the trainers scenario, and the whole 'ruthless career woman' thing was all bollocks too. If she was planning/hoping to 'win and then turn it down' why not simply say to Sir Alan 'I have a nanny at the moment, and I can easily get one in London', then get through to the final. Maybe she thought that she couldn't beat Kristina (who will win) or Simon.

Why did they make such a balls-up of those interviews? As grimly said - surely you can guess what you're going to be asked and should be able to come up with good answers. Also - don't lie!

I like Simon - I think the line of questioning that went 'why haven't you achieved anything' was grossly unfair. He has a decent degree from Cambridge, has worked in the city and has had a couple of small-time businesses on the go. He is still only bleedin' TWENTY-SIX!

x-post to MArcello - SAS is definitely clever enough, or has advisors who are clever enough to bluff people out!

This shows up the central flaw of the whole series - who wants to work for Amstrad anyway?

I really didn't like some of things Katie said about being a mother - SO disrespectful and ignorant of the situations that real working parents (without a flippin' nanny or mummy and daddy round the corner) have to deal with. Cow.

Aren't poor people all on benefits anyway?

I've not seen any spoilers or tabloid articles about any of the Apprentice so does anyone know what the real story is with the Katie thing? It was obviously re-edited with a lot of re-jiggery going on there. I'm glad it means she's out, though.
K-Grimes to win (on the condition that she never wears that pastel pink suit again). I thought the interviewers were dead annoying when interviewing, all just semantics and trying to catch people out without seeming to be actually trying to understand them or genuinely find out about them. Still, when they were discussing it all with Sralan they seemed pretty OTM.

Nick should win the series for his comments on Katie.

Remind me what he said...

I'd imagine that Katie would be blacklisted by most legit nanny agencies by now - who'd want to work for her? Nightmare!

SaS might let Simon win to avoid a Michelle Mk II/"you say you don't care where they come from but you always pick the underdog" scenario.

Then again Kristina's boy is 18 and at uni so maybe he'll think "I won't have another Michelle scenario here if I hire her."

Says a lot for the mindset of SaS' "trusted business colleagues" (I don't quite know what Charlie Gillett was doing there with his goatee) that you're finished by the time you're 26. FFS isn't anyone allowed to get things wrong or fall through a career hole every now and again? Crap landlord status notwithstanding, I've got a lot of sympathy for Simon.

Tre and his fifteen overseas bedrooms, sorry offices, and it's his dad's business anyway...that all came apart pretty swiftly so it was no surprise he went.

Radio 1 calling Katie: "THE WOMAN WHO GAVE UP THE APPRENTICE FOR HER KIDS."

I am switching to Radio 4.

Oh hang on they also just called her 'posh horsey Katie". Balanced journalism....

She has lips shaped for sin, apparently.

I thought it was good last night, certainly more enjoyable than the usual.

I was thinking, like, how nice that Katie had done the decent thing, but then it dawned on me that in fact she is just frightened of her mum and dad and what they might say.

Unless it really was all a big set-up. I don't think it was though. I mean, come on, no one could come up with such a grotesque caricature through the powers of their imagination and interpretative ability.

I think I might have put an extra syllable in there.

And I thought Nick was being a bit unwittingly homophobic on Chilesovision with all that big red steak business.

i'd heard a rumour from a fairly reliable source that someone had turned down the job or whether that was just the katie story miscommunicated...

As it stands, it wasn't that far away.

I had various people ask me "HOW DID YOU FIND OUT!!????"

'Apprentice' star Katie 'applied for Big Brother'
Thursday, June 7 2007, 16:11 BST

By Nick Levine, Entertainment Reporter

The Apprentice's Katie Hopkins is so desperate for fame that she once applied for Big Brother, her step-daughter has claimed.

Charlie McKinney, whose father Damian married Hopkins in 2004, claimed that her step-mother was once a stand-by for the reality TV show.

Hopkins has become infamous in recent weeks thanks to her appearances on The Apprentice, during which she slayed her fellow contestants with a series of sharp put-downs.

McKinney told the Daily Mirror: "Katie went for Big Brother and was a stand-by. She's very into celebrity. I wouldn't be surprised to see her on the next Celebrity Big Brother."

I suspect there was a lot of re-editing of last night's episode since I don't think Sugar's quite bright enough to engage in the art of the double bluff

hmm. thinking about this some more today, i really think the most logical explanation for the whole WTF-katie thing is that, er, she really is a total knob and hadn't thought the thing through at all. i don't think there were any sinister shenanigans; i think she's just a tit.

(and, if the BB rumour is true, a tit with a burning desire to be on the telly, as opposed to behind a desk in bloody brentwood.)

as for sugar's intelligence: okay, he ain't brain of britain. but he is a very rich businessman who spent a lot of the eighties and nineties selling people not-particularly-great stuff (the CPC excepted) that they didn't particularly need, and making good cash out of it. yes, he's a has-been now ... but surely a bloke who's been in the game as long as he has must have some basic skills in a) bluffing/double-bluffing, and b) reading people. it didn't take a genius to work out that katie was uneasy about something in the boardroom; similarly, we don't know what else she might have said off-camera. one comment along the lines of "o god, i haven't thought this through: can i really move my family?" would be all it took.

i'll ask my cousin at some point, but i don't imagine i'll get anything more.

xpost

then love island?

or her and paul to record a cover of especially for you in time for christmas?

And I thought Nick was being a bit unwittingly homophobic on Chilesovision with all that big red steak business.

I didn't think it came across like that. And surely Nick is quite camp himself?

Simon uses hair straighteners!!!!

(the Katie thing was ridiculous, and looked very scripted to us)

If ANYONE ever interviewed me for a job the way those associates of SrAlan did to that lot, I'd totally walk out. Fucking going behind Simon's back to get "references" from his tenants? Also, I'm still waiting for Tre to actually be allowed to finish his own explanation of his business, rather than SrAlan's minion putting words in his mouth then rubbishing him for the things he didn't actually say.

Simon was really quite crawling and desperate, wasn't he? Poor lamb, he must really want to prove himself to not just be a cleverish posh boy from a privileged background. Shame he's totally going to get his arse kicked by Xtina next week.

(what the fuck sort of muppet puts "nicking someone's husband" as an achievement on a job application, btw?)

katie also said in the interviews that she wasn't having any more children so wouldn't need 'maternity leave or any of that bullshit'. which was bad.

It wasn't the question!

(the q being "what, are you going to uproot your kids? o rly?")

It was more "in what way is she going to answer this one?"

She'd answered most things by "what does the questioner want to hear?" method.

So, she's totally ruthless, and utterly indominatable!

Actually, "the one in the middle w/goatee" mentioned Christina has having integrity. First mention of integrity! If they'd asked / pushed Katie, she'd have banged on about having high levels of integrity and all that.

Maybe they should have got in Paul Anka to interview her. "I'm on THAT kind of an integrity kick" etc.

nah, lost me there.

I also said she'll be on Celebrity Big Brother next, so top marks for me for having psychic connections to her step-daughter (WHO REALLY SHOULD HAVE HER OWN SERIES TO SPILL THE BEANS).

It wasn't just Nick who was basically telling Lohit to stop being a poof, they were all at it. But fair enough, I may be splitting hairs here.

Paul Anka's Apprentice interview questions:

- Where's Joe?
- What is the confusion on these endings?
- Do you want your jobs?
- Who are you watching?
- Do you get full value on your cheques?
- Can someone add to the confusion here?
- The blue light all the way through "Time Of Your Life," what was that all about?
- Where's Joe?
- Do you understand where I'm coming from with integrity?
- Who are you watching?

Love how the interview task really sorts the wheat from the shite. It was similar to last year with that chubby guy (Paul?), how he lasted all the way to the interviews only to be torn apart and shown to be completely useless and crap at business and a liar. Same with Tre this time. I warmed to him in the recent episodes but it was glorious to see him demolished and cast out of the boardroom, head bowed. This is always the episode where I feel faintly embarrassed for not realising all this earlier - prior to this episode I would never have picked Christina for the win but now it's clear she's the best choice - though I said the same last year re: Ruth Badger.

And really, what on earth went on with the Katie thing? That seemed sooo scripted and weirdly-edited - I'm not having that Katie got to that stage, after saying "I'll move abroad if I need to" only to turn round and say "Actually no, I'm off. Seeyerlaterbye". It's all too tidy and tabloid-friendly for her to leave in that way. Still, if SAS's decision to use her was genuine then I'm impressed, choosing the UK's most hated mum shows the Apprentice isn't just one big PR exercise after all.

I have a question for all you Apprentice viewers out there. Who wants to try and explain the timeframe of the Apprentice for me? The tasks all take two days as far as I can work out because they have one night in the middle of each task. When Jadine was evicted in Week 11, she said it was tough as she has been away from her family for eleven weeks. So: what the hell do the contestants do on the other five days a week including the weekend (even taking in to account one day in the boardroom or one day enjoying that week's prize)?

Yeah I'd like to know that, and what happens with this final task - was it filmed at the same time as the other 11 episodes or much later? I was under the impression it was the latter as when the series begins there's a big fuss about the winner not having been decided yet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729621.stm

Mostly filmed at the end of last year but not the final.

Who wants to try and explain the timeframe of the Apprentice for me?

not me; it's beyond comprehension. yon article above sheds a tiny bit of light, but yeh: i'd still like to know what the fuckers are doing the rest of the time.

i'd forgotten about that "working for sralan for six months" thing (again, it's all in the link). it is more than a little disingenuous, this programme, isn't it? that said, i still don't buy the "sinister scripted katie" thing. the woman is a total fucking arsehole, and it's as simple as that. and if we ever find ourselves in any doubt, let's just ask ourselves:

(what the fuck sort of muppet puts "nicking someone's husband" as an achievement on a job application, btw?)

exactly.

surprising level of nonsense in today's guardian (find it yourselves!) from various commentators sticking up for her. louise wener (who i like a lot now she doesn't make music) OTM calling her "jordan with A levels", though.

How did you feel when Sir Alan finally put you out of your misery?
"It was a bloody relief. It was doing my nut in being in that boardroom. We were in there for two-and-a-half hours - you could see the relief on my face. I wasn’t worried; I was bored. I was just thinking: ‘Get on with it, if you’re going to fire me, do it, do it now!’ When it happened you could almost see the smile of relief on my face. I was like, ‘Thank god I get to go home now’."

Why did it take Sir Alan take so long in the boardroom?
"It’s 'cause he likes to waffle a lot. He just chats and chats a lot of the time - much like myself, actually."

How did you feel when Sir Alan told you that you were aggressive and unable to accept criticism?
"I think criticism has to be of a certain standard to be taken seriously. When someone says to you: 'You were crap and you did this s**t’, you think to yourself: 'How am I supposed to use that now?’ His criticism was pointless. As far as I’m concerned a leader needs to be aggressive at times. I wasn’t aggressive all the time, but I was aggressive when I needed to be. A leader needs to be ruthless, shrewd and brash. A leader needs to have the ability of the gab and I believe have that. However, I don’t believe that he’s looking for a leader; he’s looking for a puppy."

He also said that you were a bit of a loner. Do you agree with this?
"I’m working at three companies at the moment, so I have three different sets of colleagues. I like to work autonomously so maybe there is some truth in it. If I’m leading a team, then I have to be a loner. As a leader, you’re not meant to be everybody’s friend. A leader gives his team direction and then monitors it. You’re not interacting with people in that role; I don’t need to interact with people unnecessarily."

Which candidates do you think should have been selected for the final?
"I think if Katie and I had been in the final it would have been clash of the titans, not clash of the mediocre. Honestly, do you know how many people have said to us today: ‘If it had been Katie and yourself it would have been the best final ever’. They've also been saying: ‘With you two gone it almost feels like The Apprentice is over’."

That would have been personality overload!
"I honestly believe it’s not just about the characters. I believe that Katie and I were the two most qualified to take on a leader's role within his organisation. I just think that he realised he didn’t want that. He makes out like he figured Katie out, but Katie was too smart for him."

Do you think she really wanted to work for Sir Alan?
"All of us wanted the job when we started it, but Sir Alan had a really good way of making you not want to work for him, and by week seven or eight I had realised that actually I didn't actually want to win. I just thought, 'Let’s just get as far as we can'. I think Katie did want to win, but was put off by the way he spoke to her in the boardroom. If someone had spoken to me like that, I wouldn’t have wanted to work for them. I really don’t blame her for not working for him. I don’t think he could have handled her. She was too sophisticated and too ruthless for his organisation. She needs to be in a Top 500 company where she’s challenged all the time. You know, Amstrad wouldn’t challenge her and I think she realised that. You’ve got to understand that there was no job description, so you are potentially giving everything up to become a £100K tea boy. Look what Michelle got. She got a computer disposal company. I would have told him to shove it up his rear-end development!"

What do you think of Sir Alan after appearing on the show?
"I know it sounds really horrible, but though I do respect him as a person, I don’t necessarily respect him as a businessman. I believe in innovation and in moving forward, but the majority of his wealth comes from his property, not from his business. After meeting him, I was even less impressed. To be honest, I didn’t want to work for him, it became more about winning the competition, to be honest."

Did you realise how funny you often were on the show
"Nowadays you’re not allowed to speak your mind and just be succinct and to the point; you have to waffle, waffle, waffle and make everything sound pretty and flowery. I don’t do that; I say the first thing that comes into my mind, and if people like that, that’s brilliant. I’ve always been a funny f**ker anyway."

Especially on the art gallery task...
"Can I just go on the record and say I have no problem with t**ties whatsoever. They are one of my favourite parts of the female body. Well, two of my favourite parts of the female body! If there’s only one it’s slightly dodgy. But at least you can focus on it, rather than being confused. You know, ‘Shall I switch now, orshall I switch later?’"

Have you maintained your friendship with Simon?
"What about last night’s episode? Did you not realise that he was more two-faced than Katie ever could have been? Katie is not two-faced; she just says it to the camera to avoid saying it to someone’s face. If Katie does not like you, she will tell you: ‘I do not like you and I wish you were not here’. She said it to the people she does not like. She and Kristina had conversations about how much they hated each other. And she used to tell Adam: ‘Don’t come near me! I can’t bear the sight of you!’. She is blatant, not sneaky like Simon. You know what, I did really like him and after the show I took him to footballers' parties with me. But after this week’s episode I thought to myself ‘What a little scumbag’. He’s using hindsight to make himself look good. I really did like him as a mate, but the one time I needed Simon to come through for me he turned round and said ‘I know nothing’. That’s why I called him a w**ker, because if you ask anyone in the world what Amstrad does - they'll say: 'They make computers'. So he was a bit of a w**k artist. That’s when I realised he was a bit of a pr**k, and that’s when I realised I wanted to disassociate myself from him. It's sad really, 'cause I did like the boy."

Do you think he's talented?
"He is, actually. He's phenomenally smart for one simple reason - he has a photographic memory. So once he reads something he does not forget it. This boy can tell you every pub and club he’s been to in his life, where the toilets are, what night he went on, what drinks he had and what outfit he had on. The boy’s memory is phenomenal, but logic and common sense kind of evade him a little bit. He’s a scatterbrain. That’s why he needed help all the way through, and that’s why I helped him, 'cause I liked him. I had to say to him: 'Simon, I don’t really want to win this; I’d rather you win if I’m going to lose'. That’s why I gave him so much support and why I didn’t take him into the boardroom. He taught me a lesson about being nice the first time I was ever nice. He showed me it’s better to be a tosser. Honestly, I’m much happier being an arsehole than being nice, because when you’re nice people take the p*ss out of you."

Did you learn a lot from your time on The Apprentice?
"No, I didn’t learn anything! I learned I’m better at more stuff than I thought, and I learned I’m a better driver than Simon, 'cause he kept saying he drives better than me and then he lost the race! I also learned that I’m a very expressive person. I didn’t realise I give so much away with my facial expressions. It shows on my face if I think you’re scum, put it that way."

good god. tre's philosophy on breasts. well.

think the whole "not sure about sugar as a businessman" thing smacks of sour grapes, though. the guy is way, way too arrogant for his, or anyone else's, good.

another sunday-night apprentice spin-off thing there: "what sralan thinks of the candidates". didn't do much except fill a slightly brain-dead hour (which, believe me, i needed) and remind me what a total throbber rory was (and paul, too) ... but sugar's comments on katie were interesting.

basically, he says he sussed she wasn't necessarily dead keen on the job about halfway through the thing -- and, in fairness, they did show a clip from a couple of weeks before (not sure which task) where he basically asked her in the boardroom: "do you still want this job?"

he also claimed that, although he told her she was "definitely in" the final if she wanted, if she'd said she'd stay he'd have turned round and said: "you know wot? i've changed my mind. you're fired." but ... well. i'm not even commenting on that.

even so, it's interesting that, only three series in, the strongest candidates don't necessarily want to work for amstrad. and can you necessarily blame them?

We were talking at work the other day about whether SrAlan broke any employment laws by effectively discriminating against Katie for being a single parent. I *know* Katie is a massive idiot, but if she was forced into not putting herself up for a job solely because of her external circumstances, then, well, that's not terribly good, is it?

I'm pretty sure if that was a _legit_ interview, Sugar would have broken all sorts of equal rights legislation.

APPRENTICE superbitch Katie Hopkins has sensationally revealed the astonishing truth about her man-eating love life.

In her first exclusive in-depth interview, the tough blonde who dramatically turned the tables on Sir Alan Sugar by firing HERSELF from a place in the show's final, boasted:

"I've had TEN lovers. I'm a passionate person and I'm athletic — I'm voracious in the boardroom AND the bedroom. How would I rate myself in bed? Ten out of ten, of course!"

Ruthless go-getter Katie, 32, then confessed having no guilt over:
# LOSING her virginity at 17 after leaving convent school,
# REVELLING in illicit flings with THREE married men, and
# ROMPING with a secret Army lover in the barracks at Sandhurst Military Academy.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/apprentice/news_1006_katie.shtml

There's so little scandal there. TEN WHOLE LOVERS. LOSING HER VIRGINITY AT 17. MY GOD THIS WOMAN IS SEX MADDDDD.

The question was unfair, but then it wasn't really part of the acceptance/rejection process.

It was more about how Katie had only one objective, to win the programme, and actually the details of claiming the prize seem to have not been even considered.

16 weeks later? If it had been me, I'd have already asked relatives, helpers, friends, myself etc about how my life may need to be altered to suit taking the job.

Oh look, final in 20 minutes.

I FINK THIS AS BEEN A BLADDY DISARRSTAH

"You're nothing to me" RIP, heaven needed a ex-military dude being pwned

BUSINESS CLASS

A MEANINGFUL INNOVATIVE BUILDING. PLEASE BUILD IT.

This task, it is fair to say, is probably gonna be a notch up from holding a costume party in a corridor.

ACTUALLY WE WON'T BUILD IT, PSYCH

SIMON
Tre
Lohit
Jadine
Rory

KRISTINA
Naomi
Adam
Natalie
Paul

TRE, SIMON, AND RORY.

Oh look, Adam's had a haircut!

BOAT-TYPE STRUCTURE

Simon truly is the Craig to Tre's Anthony.

Maybe Rory will fuck himself with a wine bottle to complete the metaphor.

"Can we buy a space shuttle from the Russians?"

If this were a game of "What Fast Show sketch are you?", Adam would be "WOW! A DIGGER!"

Is Paul one of Adam Buxton's comedy creations from hit TV show Rush Hour?

Margaret joining in with the snubbing of the other three, there.

"He's a good boy."

"Isn't it amazing how so many creatures live in harmony, while humans find the smallest differences to fight about?"

"Anchors. Ships. Boat. Ships anchor."

lol at continual zinging of Adam for being a Northerner.

Fuckin' surveyors. Mis-valuing houses. Bastards.

"REALLY FUCKING GUTSY, REALLY SPUNKY"

I wasn't aware I'd missed Rory. But I think I have.

"I wish I'd never bothered coming."

A LARGE OBLONG WITH ANGELS ON BOTH ENDS

RORY: PLZ TO STOP REMINDING ME I WENT TO PUBLIC SCHOOL

"The phoenix from the flames is like Jesus coming back to life"

Jadine's stopped crying for long enough to be on this show, anyway.

"We're regenerating the area". Of Thames-side London.

"Nazi eagle", says the architect. Exactly what they're going for, I would think!

Nice mustard-hued blazer from Simon

"To say that "I'm gonna take you on a holiday with Jadine, Lohit, and Rory" is like saying "I'm gonna stab you in the eye with a rusty screwdriver""

"TRE IS SELF-TAUGHT" Rory brings the class warfare!

x-post Line of the episode thus far.

Adam has dead eyes

RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS

RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS
RORY WANTS TO SELL THE CONCEPT TO SIR ALAN WITH DANCING SHOWGIRLS

Rory is such a closet case

"Are you an ex-ballet dancer?"
"No"
"Are you a gymnast?"
"No"
"Can you dance?"
"... I've got an imagination, Tre"

"Stop acting like a bitch. You're a complete moron, you fucking nonce"

Natalie's not done anything this episode, has she?

he's like a great white with a loaded hairdo.

lol at computer generated penis followed up with Rory giving the "thumbs up"

Rory is attempting to turn Simon's event into the entertainment at a canal boat convention.

Nick's face...

Jadine doing the "I CAN'T HEAR YOU" working mens' club style intro to a room full of multi-millionaires.

CHECK THE WIG ON THE HOTEL DUDE

awesome, he's won

dancing girls, inspired

She should have stuck with the Nazi Eagle.

Shot down in flames!

"beneath the surface of the idiot is someone quite smart", wow zing!

It's like the devil and the angel on his shoulder, except, y'know. Not.

Simon: you're hired. I despair of this nation.

WHAT? THE? FUCK?

Dancing. Girls. Passantino.

Bizarre. Sir Alan obviously relishes his grandfatherly role.

Eh, soddit, Sugar Rush is on in a bit.

Jadine appears to be rocking the Gabrielle circa 1992 look on Two.

Kristina wuz robbed. I hope she gets a job at Apple.

So do I. And maybe there they don't make you work your cotton socks off.

Sralan now admitting on BBC2 "Yeah, basically I wanted a posh white guy for presentations"

And he got his bullshitting grinning estate agent headboy.

Tre zinging Lohit in the post-show!

and SrAlan killing off Katie's job prospects once and for all.

Even though she went round all last week saying she would have won undoubtedly.

I haven't been watching this.

I went to school with the winner, he was a cunt then; i take it his personality is still glistening?

Whenever he did something wrong, or appeared to be an idiot (e.g. interview stage), he giggled like, um, an idiot.

God, I hope them CDs have turned up!

That'll be panto in Grimsby for Katie this Christmas then!

For next year's contest can we have Mark E Smith doing the hiring and firing?

fucking unbelievable that christina didnt win. simon did look a bit more 'professional' in last nights episode but christina was so much more impressive. and i dont know what sir alan was watching cos her presentation looked a 100 times better too.

poshness won out in the end i suppose.

simon and tre were funny. it was like a 7 year old boy and his naughty imaginary friend.

Kristina however didn't look as though she needed to learn anything and thereby didn't really qualify as an "apprentice."

yeah but sirallan kept going on about how he didnt want to have to spend time teaching someone the ropes for half the series. if all he wanted was someone to mould from scratch he should just go and pick up someone from the local kfc who presumably knows nothing about business. would save him 12 weeks of the year.

Yeah, but he also cracks on about not liking "Arse kissers, yesmen,..." etc.

TBF, when SrAlan went off on one about "who's bright idea was getting Wheelchairs?" Simon stood up and showed that they made the best money from selling three, to which he did actually concede the point. Just.

But who could have resisted his fatherly, Sid James-esque smile which accompanied his rhetorical question "Am I gonna have to be the headmaster again?"

Kindly form a queue on the left.

For next year's contest can we have Mark E Smith doing the hiring and firing?

Wow, that's a great idea!

THE APPRENTICE-UH!

I went to school with the winner, he was a cunt then; i take it his personality is still glistening?

-- Ed, Thursday, June 14, 2007 7:25 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

he's only 26 and i imagine you're quite a bit older than that, ed - how much of a cunt could he have been at the age you knew or knew of him? he certainly didn't seem cuntish.

ed is 28 i think...

If Ed, who is 27, says someone at his school was a cunt, they were probably a cunt of the highest order.

I just read the whole series via this thread (I stopped watching for some reason after about 4 weeks). I can now see the attraction of "watching" BB via ILX.

the final task really actually had no effect on the final decision didn't it?

Sir Alan even give the christina presentation the thumbs up when it was given.

it was all down to like "OMG I'M SHIT BUT I KNOW I'M SHIT BUT THAT MEANS I CAN LEARN" vs "ERM I ALREADY KNOW LOADS YOU DON'T HAVE TO TEACH ME ANYTHING" which was a shot in the foot i think for her.. should have said a bit more about "BUT I WANT TO LEARN FROM YOU STILL INNIT" because that's more exciting.

THE APPRENTICE-UH!

"You're totally fired-uh!"

:)

ken OTM about the final meaning shit, really. (and let's not forget there's still that weird rumour about the final two candidates working for the mighty 'strad empire for six months in between the final being filmed and the decision being made ... if that really is the case, it's enormously disingenuous. next time i see my cousin -- which will probably be 2054 or something -- i'll ask her.)

the problem -- as tre said in that interview above, i think -- is that the job in question is so nebulous that the entire process means very little. it's not as if they're competing for something with clearly defined parameters and so on; sugar is just looking for a dude to do, you know, shit. if simon had been booted out a couple of weeks ago (as ISTR he should have been; i can't remember the details but i'm sure there was a very lucky escape) and, say, tre had ended up in the final, it's very unlikely that the winner, whoever it would have been, would have been given the same "role within the organisation" as simon's been given (ie selling real estate to knobs).

ach. he's young, he's enthusiastic, he's allegedly a cunt. probably the right decision, all in all. but as a viewer i was deeply underwhelmed by the final.

He should have been out the week of the TV show thing, the week Naomi went. Also, his design for the final looked like three enormous dildos.

the problem -- as tre said in that interview above, i think -- is that the job in question is so nebulous that the entire process means very little. it's not as if they're competing for something with clearly defined parameters and so on; sugar is just looking for a dude to do, you know, shit. if simon had been booted out a couple of weeks ago (as ISTR he should have been; i can't remember the details but i'm sure there was a very lucky escape) and, say, tre had ended up in the final, it's very unlikely that the winner, whoever it would have been, would have been given the same "role within the organisation" as simon's been given (ie selling real estate to knobs).

I've said this since last year, when Karen got fired with an "I don't need another lawyer" parting shot. It is completely about entertainment rather than SrAlan finding the best employee. Christina absolutely didn't need whatever job it was, tbh. Simon did. At least he had the good grace to recognise that on the Adrian Chiles thing afterwards.

his design for the final

rory's design, you mean!

Yeah, but it was Simon who got, and gratefully accepted, all the credit. See, they'll make a boss of him yet.

my cousin is going to be in glasgow next month for the S4 auditions.

she's not exactly alan sugar, but i do intend to hassle her about some of our, er, unanswered questions (eg the truth about katie; do the finalists work for sugar for six months; etc).

so if anyone has anything they want me to ask her, just so she can say: "ooh, no, we're not allowed to talk about that," let me know.

Can we just take her to the pub and get her so drunk that she squeals?

Otherwise, please ask her if there's a job in mind for the winner before that winner is decided, or is he just making it up as he goes along e.g. did he sack Kristina because he didn't think she would be a very good property manager, or did he make up that job because he couldn't think what the hell else Simon could do?

When Sir Alan comes into the boardroom, he always looks as though he's just been for a slash. Is that where he's been and if so does he dribble?

It's a fakey boardroom.

But, he does have a bucket.

GF, ask how long they're in the house for and what they get up to when they're not taking part in a task. Do they have internet access in there?

will do.

Sir Alan Sugar is to sell Amstrad to Sky

Sez the beeb.

he was on "today" this morning, waffling.

don't think this bodes well for "the apprentice", does it?

(nb: failed miserably to catch up with my cousin. might e-mail her. feel a bit daft doing so, mind.)

Teen Apprentice anyone?

"who wants to buy anything from ugly people?"...

Lord Sugar doesn't want no Facebook parties: Junior Apprentice.