The Apprentice UK 2013

Starts next Tuesday, 9PM.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0071b63

Here we go.

the quotes in the trailers have been priceless but i need my fam around me to enjoy this show properly

ok, there's a few new angles on the Dara show, to make it more "Big Brother's little brother'..

They have to play it for laughs even more this year, because they're all so hateful. Jaz was probably the most human candidate.

Yeah..

So, it's on tomorrow as well?

Seem so.
Losing candidate interviewed by some Radio 1 DJ I've never heard of in their pants? WTF?

why do I watch this every sodding year

Bunch of indistinguishable wankbags so far. Some blonde lassie turned up in the boardroom who I swear wasn't in the tasks at all. Is it on tomorrow too then? Could do without it being on a Tuesday because that's our pub quiz night and we need to watch it same night before people at work spoiler it the next day.

Flogging Chinese restaurant cats direct to restaurants in Chinatown was next-level stupidity though.

It's on Wednesdays from tomorrow onwards.

Gawd look at those striped pajamas.

Boys all been working out for their morning shots in the shower, I see.

OMG @ eyebrows' coat!

Hands-like-windmills-in-a-hurricane Tim (Evolve's PM) is massive entertainment value, so I suspect he'll be kept in the show for a while.

Evolve and Endeavour are really shite team names, btw.

Terrible, but still better than the series where one team was called Synergy.

And this series we have an early visit to 'purgatory for graphic designers'.

And an early introduction to "maths? wtf is that?"

Uzma seems a bit threatened by dark-haired lassie's unflappable professionalism.

Turning up to do a sales pitch without a product sample, classic.

"Hi, can we sell our beer in your pub?"
"Sure, what does it taste like?"
"Um...."

Wankers.

xpost

Yesss I love it when they use Home Alone music

Some blonde lassie turned up in the boardroom who I swear wasn't in the tasks at all

Spotted in the car just now - doesn't seem to be doing anything except making a just-sucked-a-lemon face?

No, that's a different one! I was talking about Francesca, car lemon-sucker was Dr Leah (ex-gf of Celtic goalie Fraser Forster, my gossip spies tell me)

I don't think Sugar realises that all real ales have stupid comedy names.

Even with the sound off and subtitles on the boys are insufferable.

I genuinely can't look at the dude with the eyebrows any more.

He looks like the CEO of a company I used to work for, if he played Widow Twanky.

"drier than a cream cracker in the desert". oh, my aching sides.

welsh bloke looks like a waxwork.

Hands up who foresees bitchiness (before waggle-arms gets the boot)?

Lol Nick and Karren doing their homework while waiting for Alan to come in (i'm abt 5 mins behind)

Waggle-arms will stay in I think, for luls.

I think Usma is going here.

Oh, wait, who fucked up the sums?

Oh, OK, Francesca for the boot, because, she was sums woman, wasn't she? Rebecca being stitched up something stupid here.

I quite like Rebecca, mostly because she is not 100% extensions and slap.

oh, and she has a bit of a brain. She's obviously toast here.

Tim was the obvious bullet, cmon!

Yeah, but when does Sugar ever take the obvious route?

His jacket on You're Fired makes him look like a 50's doo-wop singer.

Straight from Louis Walsh's wardrobe.

It's shrunk a bit.

Eyebrows Alex has a business, and here it is: http://dynamolegal.com/

Oh, its servers are borked, presumably because everyone else just found out about it too.

Try now..

'lovely legal solicitor'

Display name in wwaiting

Oh, I didn't know that "Junior Apprentice" has been cancelled

This once-a-series 'AlSug addresses the candidates while looking down on them from a balcony' is always so awkward.

It's a typical 'design a physical product' task this week. One team always comes up with something pointless and stupid, the other team always comes up with something overdesigned to do a whole load of unrelated things.

Actually, (said this halfway in), I could use 2 of those chairs..

"5:20AM"

FUCK.
OFF.

Neil looks like Danny Dyer.

Well that was tedious. At least she's gone...

Omg Rick Stein has morphed into Jeremy Clarkson

Except that Stein is actually talking sense.

Zzzzzzzz. Amazing how much better Usma looks on You're Fired, when she (who is in the making things look good business) isn't doing her own makeup.

Kurt looks like Peter Crouch. Zee reminds me of an indeterminate Simon Pegg character. The posh one is really fucking irritating.

Next up: comedy racism ep.

low life tactic to take the person who'd been in the bottom 3 past few weeks. if sugar had any decency about him he'd have clocked that and fired the amoral toad who brought her in. (sure she didn't really deserve to be in the series anymore but good god how i despise those two guys)

this is tonight

BBC messing around with the scheduling already? What's on tomorrow, football or something?

Nothing, as far as the schedule shows. Unless Constable Gappy's new nursing drama is normally Monday night fare and has been bumped by the BH so gets Wednesday because it's better than Tuesday?

nothing i could see (Waterloo road, frankie). maybe the last week (or two) was the anomaly... xp

Nurse Gappy's usually on on Thursday, I think, might all be to fit in this month's Crimewatch?

No, after the first double episode week Dara said on YF that Weds was the proper night. xp

Oh wait, are Englandshire playing football on Wednesday? Perhaps BBC decided Nurse Gappy was better up against that, since less of a crossover audience.

No soccerball but something called 'Frankie' on BBC1 tomorrow and on BBC we're 'treated' to the return of Beady Eye on Jool Holland.

Soccerball is on ITV in England I assume, because we've got a shite film on STV.

Frankie = nursing drama starring Gap-toothed Gwen from Torchwood, something for the ladeez while the boys watch soccerball.

I dunno if that's the actual reason, just guessing.

Ah here we are: Eng vs ROI on ITV1 (gawd ITV's website is a mess)

Dubai: full of wankers, so what's a dozen more?

LIST OF EIGHT ITEMS
(...)
THIS IS A PAGE WITH WORDS ON IT

12cms in a foot...

also, an oud is a musical instrument.

http://boomkat.com/vinyl/311595-keith-fullerton-whitman-variations-for-oud-synthesizer

*SPOILERS*

Oud is also very expensive perfume.

Very expensive if it costs them the task.

wasn't the purfume 'oudh' with an h? and not mahogany or standard size...

http://beauty.about.com/od/fragranc1/a/What-is-Oud.htm
Made from mouldy wood, but not mahogany.

but the arabic spelling has an h...

"(in Arabian ‘oudh’)"

"Napoleon never got fired from Phones 4 U'

Next episode see Alex looking like Carlos the Jackal.

xp there's an 'Arabian Oud' shop opposite Selfridges and it's all about the agarwood oil there, but the logo is in the shape of the instrument!

Yeah, they went into a branch of that in the mall in Dubai. I can actually see how Zee was confused, he'd be aware of the store and its association with perfume, no?

Leah was really annoying in that boardroom ("I'd be better, I'd be better, here are zero examples of how I'd be better"). Zee was crap though. Too many candidates to single folk out still - weird how it was all "Natalie was in the background, what did Natalie contribue" when, for example, I don't think I saw Francesca do anything all task either.

only halfway likeable person in this is the halfwit welsh dracula guy. his line about not needing viagra because he's from wales was A+.

wonder if there's more to the 'zee hates women' accusations flying about at the end? doesn't seem overtly sexist and a fair bit more likeable than those two loathsome guys (scouse & loach). leah was a terrible teammate, constantly undermining zee. (gona stop doing this post-match analysis actually, it's just dumbo lols innit)

but yeah *sharp intake of breath* when pathetic posh guy was talking to dubai folk in a cod-arabic accent.

been long-meaning to set up a tumblr of alan sugar's top bants:

[talking about palm trees]
"so did the shop assistant help or did she... palm you off?"

[after kurt mixed up inches and cm]
"miles... or kilometres as kurt would call you"

and oh so many many more

similarly, also love it when one contestant gets so caught up in the task that he/she just can't let it alone, even when it's over. eg winning team are celebrating after say, winning at a perfume task, and our truly un-fun hero will raises his glass and say

"ahh, the sweet smell of success!"

and everyone will laugh heartily

but yeah *sharp intake of breath* when pathetic posh guy was talking to dubai folk in a cod-arabic accent.

Oh, that was awful. There's always one, I sort of suspected it might be him. Eyebrows Alex seems the best of a bad bunch, yes (watch him crash and burn next week, my seal of approval is always the heralding cry of some major jizzwaddery). I sort of think that Jordan might be OK as well, then he says something stupid and I forget that he seems quite sensible in terms of getting things done. I think he'll be like Ricky last year, he'll just creep up and win it by dint of being less of a massive fucking tool. Though the foreshadowing of Sugar letting on that he knows the business plans means the whole thing is ever more of a charade then usual.

The Miles/kilometres gag at Kurt's expense is the first time I've ever laughed at one of Sugar's jokes.

btw, they all fail for not referencing either Falconhoof from Limmy's Show or the Ood from Doctor Who as we did in our house (also, seriously, wtf sort of hotel has hooded falcons? I was totally waiting for a falcon hood to be a candle-snuffer or something, but did we establish that it really is just a hood to put on an actual real falcon?)

Oh, I just remembered the bit where one of the identitwats was walking around the souk shouting "we want an oud*, does anyone have one", and I was desperately hoping that they'd be surrounded by opportunistic market traders trying to convince them that their entire backroom full of useless shite was exactly what they were after.

* might have been the coffee pot, actually, because mega-hotels often need one individual coffee pot

Yeah, I did think the "Falcon Hood" was the 'cloche' from last year.

Anyways, the big "EH???" moment was when someone (Leah?) said "Can we pay you in advance?".. um, explain what possible situation is that a good idea.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/BlackGrape_GreatWhenYoureStraightYeah.jpg
"It's great when you win... yeah"

honestly believe neil is one of the top 100 most despicable living englishmen. the way he launched into his motivational speech (aka great opportunity to promote his personal brand on national tv) by referencing his dad's cancer - the giveaway was how he looked directly to camera when he said the word 'cancer' to make 100% sure they'd got it. his every move seems designed to screw over his teammates first, and promote himself second.

jordan seems like an ok sort, not utterly ruthless anyway.

could barely watch some of tonight's episode, the sumo wrestler scene + build-up was excruciating. francesca coming out with all that utter garbled nonsense about 'experiences' etc. really tough going

Don't understand how Francesca didn't get the boot after Sugar going "if you bring someone in for the wrong reason you WILL be fired" then her utterly failing to justify her reasons for bringing Luisa in.

Reward was surely just so we could see Alex getting his eyebrows fake-waxed, yes?

Sugar certainly made the wrong choice there but he should have fired Luisa.

Ravens leave the Tower of London as Sugar arrives.

He's already giving the teams a bollocking and the task hasn't even started yet.

Leah's face is never going to sell anything to anyone. She's my least favourite this year.

oo shock

I felt a teensy bit sorry for Natalie. Gone right off Alex this week, really negative and moany. Jason is comedy gold. Leah should be shot headfirst into the heart of the sun.

Strange, Alex and co in the car going up, checking out all the caravan drivers' ages etc.

Then they did the opposite.

Yeah, we thought that was actually a great idea when they started checking out the people who had caravans as they were on the motorway. So stupid to ignore it.

You're Fired was dreadful - two candidates to chat to and it was all "ooh doesn't Natalie wear stupidly high shoes?". The "next week" clip was terrifying though, I fear I may not sleep after that clip of Alex in make-up.

This week's task has potential for being as bad as the 'rebrand Margate' task from a few years ago.

My hatred for Leah is bordering on the irrational now. She's so sneery!

Far enough in that I'm calling Jordan for the win (he'll be fired tonight now)

Definitely a week where the PM of the losing team gets the chop regardless.

Ie Jason
His face cracks me up

<3 u louisa

Jordan needs a pair of red braces to go with those round glasses, just to to add the final touch to his 'yuppie advertising exec' look.

I'm sure he had red braces on the other week.

(sweaty Alex cavorts around a park)
Leah: "No, this is wrong"

Alex looks like John Barrowman playing Dracula.

Alex looks fucking ridiculous and using "perverts" in a TV advert is every kind of wrong.

Oh, it was "herberts". As you were.

I can't believe this shower of shite are in the last eight. This year's candidates have really been lacking in, er, everything?

Next week:
http://prettyfantasmagorical.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/haunted-pasta.jpg?w=320
vs
http://www.thomasnet.com/articles/image/iStock_cardboard.jpg

I love Miles, he is a total dude.

That camera shot of Lear yawning whilst she watched the other teams video was classic.

depressing how they're setting up neil as 'someone who is good at business' when i can't think of anyone i'd less like to work with, or be in the same room as. genuine psychopath vibes off him. louisa is an awful human being too, those two should have got together in a coulson/brooks twinning of evil, rather than louisa and the (likeable) jordan

I basically like Jordan in the same way that I liked Ricky last year (how's his recruitment business working out for him and Sugsy, by the way?) in that he seems to have some sort of common sense and he isn't a complete fucking tool.

Yeah, some of us heard "pervert" rather than Herbert, too

How many food puns will they make us swallow tonight?

can't decide whether Oh! My! Pow! is the best or worst name in the world.

It's up there with 'Octiclean' in it's mix of clever and stupid.

i quite liked the Popty Ping idea.

blandness of food never hurt innocent veg pots.

I've got a feeling that AlSug has a soft spot for Alex (or at least his business idea), and Leah's going to get the boot.

(Miles is terrible but he knows when to soft pedal his attack)

Leah has an annoying duck face.

I like the popty ping idea to. They would have won if he had gone with his gut instinct.

Yeah I though that was a good idea. A real forehead slapping moment when Alex made the decision to go the other way.

This week, a predictable result that was signposted less than ten minutes into the episode.

Also, if all the business plans are on the table already and in play for decision-making, why are we even bothering with this charade?

Since several series back when it was apparent that the winner always bailed after a year?

Sorry, that didn't make sense. I mean, since several series back when the producers realised that the winner always bailed after a year, and that the entire idea of finding an apprentice (or business partner as it is now) was just a complete joke.

So since then the programme has been entirely about ratings and nothing else.

Yeah, but they always at least pretended we didn't know what the business plans were.

Myles so dull they've decided to spend all of You're Fired talking to Ricky Martin instead.

Dara: "Why not apply for next year's Apprentice? Meanwhile, here's a VT of the current five remaining candidates being humiliated!"

This week, a predictable result that was signposted less than ten minutes into the episode.

― Meine Damen und Herren, ein grosse sh*tstorm! (snoball), Wednesday, July 3, 2013 8:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, but the highlight was the discussion about Jordan's 'other' business partner..

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy

fucking love the interview show, really really hope this is the point where hairy sociopath neil clough comes unstuck like that one absolute cock from about 4 yrs back who sailed through to this show then got disembowelled

also, tv box guide thing says tonight's episode was 10/14, there's the 'final 5' show which is 11/14, next week's interview ep which is 12/14 - where it goes down to final 2 - then the final which is 14/14. what's 13/14? is it just another zzz 'more about the two finalists' show?

The Jordan thing is just weird - his model is actually kind of transparent in that he's got a friend who does a bit of Android/Apple coding and the two of them have come up with the idea of selling out his skills to turn people's games ideas into actual games for cash. By extension he would also offer this to companies to develop apps for them. The bit he doesn't seem to get is that AlSug doesn't care if he's the frontman for a consortium, that consortium will still only get 50% of the new company between them. I would have fired him purely on the basis he failed to understand such a simple business proposition tbh. It's not exactly an empty marketplace either, added to which I'm really unclear who his target audience is. People who want to play a game on a mobile device that they've invented but can't be arsed learning how to write it? I'd guess the Venn diagram of 'people who play games on mobile devices', 'people who have translatable new game ideas' and 'people who aren't prepared to learn how to do something which could lead to $$$' is a pretty small intersection.

Talking about previous winners, I looked up Ricky Martin's "recruitment for science" company. It's a pretty broad brush definition of science as it's mainly in the pharma/biotech sector and covers any job in that sector so has warehouse managers, assembly line workers etc... about half of the roughly 100 jobs he has are <£25k so it isn't exactly the raging success he implied it was, certainly not to the stage he needs more staff.

you're saying that like writing android games is easy. would easily take someone who already codes 6 months to learn the android ins and outs.

I don't mean to imply it's easy, what I think I'm trying to say is that anyone who's got to the point of thinking of making a game of their idea and is prepared to pay to see that as a reality is a) pretty likely to have tried to learn Android coding themselves or b) not the hobbyist Jordan suggested was his prime customer and/or c) will probably have looked into it already and either done it or been scared by the prices (which might have pushed them back to a).

I was thinking about this today, and it seems to me that Ricky is The Apprentice's equivalent of X Factor's Leona - someone who basically had it together but needed a bit of a push. Ricky became a lot more polished and confident as last year's series rolled on. This year, there's no-one like that, everyone seems to be Leon Jackson. Especially Jordan.

It cracked me up that all three blokes are/were proposing a 'revolutionary' online platform. What is this, 2003? Miles looked like he was trying to reinvent Achica and Neil admitted that he'd be going into direct competition with someone very successful.

Jordan clearly doesn't win, because he's still selling his services on his website and is doing some game development because it's his 'passion'. Also tarting himself about as a motivational speaker and an expert CEO.

I believe the winner is announced closer to transmission time, and they film each finallist getting the "You're Hired" speech ..

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy

Really hope this is something along the lines of "Jordan you are a parasite for basically trying to hire out your programmer mate(s) while you take a cut of the money for doing sod all."

I thought Stella said in her employment tribunal that she had had to work effectively without pay for 6 months as she'd been expected to start after winning but didn't 'start' until broadcast? (I suppose it might have changed as a result of that case, but we're two weeks from transmission so the winner will be known. OTOH contracting all the finalists to do something for you knowing that one will have to default on the contract might be a decent short-term business model if you can agree good enough compensation...)

Since we do it every year, let's look round the finalists' websites.

Jordan - done, although it does reveal that he's got quite a high opinion of himself as an Android/iOS coder making me wonder whether he was actually going to be his own silent partner and try to blag a bigger share.

Luisa's cupcake business has a dreadful Innocent Smoothies tone and was last updated in 2011 when she stripped off for a charity calendar. They have an up to date twitter than only mentions her as "founder", not owner. Hmm.

Neil's business idea certainly isn't going to be a beard grooming salon.

He said what it was but I can't remember... was it estate agency?

Online estate agency? Like, hello, is this 1999?

The thing is, I don't think he has any experience as an estate agent, so not only is his plan laughably behind the times, he probably wouldn't be able to make it work anyway.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrggggggghhh!!!
http://static.bbci.co.uk/programmeimages/224x126/images/live/p018cksy.jpg

Luisa's other two business btw are an online cupcake tat reseller (food colouring, cupcake papers, baking tins etc) that she co-owns with someone she shares a surname with (was she married when she had the kid? If so, it might be co-owned by her ex-husband; if not then it's co-owned by her dad or a brother/other relative) and a 'cupcake academy' that teaches icing and things but crucially didn't launch until December 2012 so maybe implies she didn't make it. If she was using the series as free advertising then she'd surely make it easier to find as it doesn't come close to flagging up on any obvious google hits.

Leah set up a cosmetic surgery company in Londonderry in Feb 2013 and has acquired a building to expand into in Q3 2013 so I think we can rule her out too. (Guessing that's her business proposal, so it may well be her that gets called a parasite)

Francesa has a personal website under construction that's due to go live in 10 hours. She's still listed as principle choreographer at a dance company. Did we know she choreographed the iLiKETRAiNS video for "The Christmas Tree Ship"? Now we do. She still owns a look-a-like agency.

Rebecca's business plan was online sales of moissanite jewellery as a cheap alternative to diamonds.

neilclough.net is a horrible framed website which has next to no detail on it and doesn't seem to sell anything except his time as a motivational speaker. On the basis of his web presence, he's the winner (as Francesca's website launch isn't timed to coincide with the finale).

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy

Really hope this is something along the lines of "Jordan you are a parasite for basically trying to hire out your programmer mate(s) while you take a cut of the money for doing sod all."

― Meine Damen und Herren, ein grosse sh*tstorm! (snoball), Thursday, 4 July 2013 10:02 (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In fact, more than *hope*, I'd say that's the only scenario where that comment would be 'acceptable'...

Someone on Digital Spy has turned up that Luisa's companies have a net worth of £194, according to her directorship notes in the parent company. And yes, her husband (who she apparently still lives with despite the alleged 6 month thing with Jordan and the pimp boyfriend from the press) is co-owner. He's dissolved three companies over the past couple of years, over £1M in the hole in each of them.

Yes, but that form of parasitism is part of the definition of modern (and ancient) business methodologies and prenciples.

Principles, even.

some excellent sleuthing going on in this thread

had to lol at neil clough's 'about' page:

I now have over 15 years experience in business working for different companies predominately in the leisure industry.

ultimate in cv-padding nothingyness, basically saying he didn't have work at all until he was 17, and 'in business' could mean 'local video shop'. his whole blurb reads how he speaks too, that tinfoil-chewing pleading neediness combined with unpleasant aggression that so many pricks thrive on

also odd how luisa is meant to have had a fling with jordan but shows little to no interest in him in the show, but is constantly on hyperflirt with neil

I really really hate Neil and his stupid fucking neckbeard. Twerps like Jordan are ten-a-penny in my work, and he'd probably do alright under the old format where he could work for Sugar pushing other chumps around. I'm basically now warming to Francesca purely because she hasn't really done anything to annoy me yet.

Francesca would normally be ahead, yes, except for one thing:

http://i1.cdnds.net/13/18/300x225/uktv-the-apprentice-2013-contestents-10.jpg http://i2.cdnds.net/10/39/reality_tv_the_apprentice_2010_stella_english.jpg

Yes, that hasn't gone unnoticed in our house.

IDGI?

She looks like Stella who won it a couple of years ago, who is not Lord Sugar's favourite ex-employee.

This is fairly interesting, I suppose. In January, Neckbeard registered a company called Oh My Pow.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-COetZBZiNiQ/UdWqbW6o34I/AAAAAAAAHgw/1OhKqXRImZM/w659-h424-no/NC1.jpg

So, he doesn't win, and decides that his online estate agency is a shit idea but maybe the ready meal from the task is worth a shot?

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sdhCuV4Ba78/UdWqbVTiuJI/AAAAAAAAHgs/mzI45JgIzdM/w832-h423-no/oh-my-pow.jpg

just watching this now. why oh why send jordan out shopping AGAIN when he took 4 hours and came back with £50 candles the first time?

(so you can shaft him in the boardroom obv)

Isn't Jordan's plan just (an aspect of) what a normal digital agency does?

just watching this now. why oh why send jordan out shopping AGAIN when he took 4 hours and came back with £50 candles the first time?

Was I the only person who went "Podgy the Bear and Jasper...."

(he forgot the matches. And the buns)

I am so glad someone screengrabbed this, as tiny wee Jordan just standing on the end looking tiny is the greatest thing ever. Do we think he has a booster seat in the boardroom?

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j11/NotPatrick/Apprentice%202013/NewPicture71_zpsffa6a4af.png

Was Jordan coughing or gagging in the boardroom this week? I just can't decide.

I got the feeling he was trying to disguise the fact that he was starting to cry.

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy
Really hope this is something along the lines of "Jordan you are a parasite for basically trying to hire out your programmer mate(s) while you take a cut of the money for doing sod all."

― Meine Damen und Herren, ein grosse sh*tstorm! (snoball), Thursday, 4 July 2013 10:02 (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In fact, more than *hope*, I'd say that's the only scenario where that comment would be 'acceptable'...

― Mark G, Thursday, July 4, 2013 11:53 AM (6 days ago)

KA-BOOM!

I've been buying dill this week and I keep giggling to myself thinking 'are you hungry for this dill?'

Jordan still full of shit and unrepentant on YF.

Yeah, Jordan is an awful person. No real surprises there, other than Francesca being stupid enough to make shit up on her business proposal. I genuinely can't call it now.

Also, YF has turned into "who can wedge themself furthest up Neil's arse".

Well, obviously after the interviews it was clear the girls were the three choices.

I did call the doctor surgery as the finalists, did think the cupcakes might not make it through, only would dance studios be the one to take the place?

Just catching up with YF right now, but why is self-belief such a wonderful thing in this process? What happens when you are wrong? Carry on anyway?

Neil was so bizarre. Something he'd supposedly researched for a year yet couldn't present any actual fact or reason or argument as to why everyone was wrong, just that 'i believe i'm right'. Like a little kid or something. I can't imagine actually being in a conversation with someone doing that?

it was his self-belief, unwillingness to abandon a bad idea that got him fired. that said, if he had trashed something he'd been working on for a year for another idea, i can't see that going down well either.

Its called having a contingency plan. Some people call it Plan B, some other laugh and reach for a CD album..

I found Neil's back story fascinating and sad. I knew his dad had died and that gave him his drive but I didn't realise his dad was bitterly disappointed in him for not becoming a pro footballer. Then when Neil said he didn't take a single day off after the death because that would be "weak", it started to seem fucked up. So it kind of made sense that his self-belief would have this manic, unyielding, almost magical thinking quality. Unresolved issues with a hard-driving father mixed with years of self-help/elimination show rhetoric about the power of drive and self-belief creates this character who's seriously impressive in many ways but utterly delusional in others. And Sugar's Godfather-like disappointment in him sealed it. I found the whole thing incredibly dramatic and revealing.

But obviously the highlight was Claude demolishing Jordan. I half-expected Jordan to be led out the back of the building and shot in the head after that.

Lead out the back and given a dubstep edited beating.

Did the "You're a parasite" comment get aired this episode, btw?

In the main programme it did, but then when the scene was re-capped in YF it was edited out.

Ah, I must have missed it, will be seeing it again, probably, later.

Leah's business is a bit ethically troubling but tbh Luisa is so evil that I'd want Leah to win even if her business proposal involved harvesting organs from orphans.

Eugh, both finalists just come across as horrible people, and now I don't care who wins :(

i want luisa to win. she's just so brazenly awful it's brilliant <3

this seems like the first year where they've not made an attempt to have a 'goodie' in the final - the fact that luisa is even in there, along with the constant "neil you're an incredible man" patter, makes the whole thing seem like a pr campaign to promote dim-witted evil in business.

DL, that's a fascinating point about neil's dad etc. goes partway to explain why he's so ruthless and dumbly singleminded. the whole 'new sugar daddy rejects you ALSO' is some harrowing shit, though i still can't bring myself to feel any sympathy for a man so humourless, so sly, so dismissive of everyone else's feelings. tenner says he undergoes a massive meltdown next time he gets sacked.

as for a winner, they're both appalling people so i don't really care but the way luisa treats people is revolting so it'll have to be leah.

Yeah, I was worried that Neil might crack in the boardroom and accidentally call Sugar dad.

Business and Personal shit shouldn't be mixed, therefore neck beard just comes across as a massive emotional fuck up.

jordan's business plan aside (and i'm surprised by quite how brazenly freeloading it is) i warmed to the guy over the series, was never unlikeable or cruel to the other candidates. but that business idea, jeez. not much different from how a lot of scumbags make their money these days, (hi buy2let folks!) but still.

'Why I Fired Them' on BBC1 at 10:35PM.

Here we go...

I've been buying dill this week and I keep giggling to myself thinking 'are you hungry for this dill?'

― kinder, Wednesday, July 10, 2013 10:00 PM (1 week ago)

lol

This is like the bit in the Mission Impossible TV series where Jim Phelps looks through the personnel files and selects who's going to do the mission.

Luisa's team: lemonface, neckbeard, useless guy, posh useless guy
Leah's team: terrible ideas guy, run with terrible ideas guy, contestant Leah beat into third place, early bath from episode 4

Here's a real question: why would a properly qualified doctor work in a clinic that just does three procedures on an assembly line basis? Surely they're not going to get paid very well. Is there a massive surplus of qualified doctors in the UK?

I don't know, but suddenly 'Your're Hired' has turned into 'Question Time'.

It also seems to me like this could be a disaster for the BBC if anything does go wrong and someone decides to sue them for putting it all together in the first place. This seems like a much higher profile final than previous years'.

As far as I know there is currently a bit of a surplus in many medical specialisms in the UK. With that in mind at 24 Leah is possibly only just into core training? She could easily go back and re-train/carry on. She would have to build a client base quickly to maintain a business. There is plenty of competition that eclipse her in terms of experience. An odd choice of business to invest in, I can't really see it as very scaleable.

xp Not sure, but given the amount of backside covering in this final bit (Jordan gets a kind word from AlSug after Claude's "parasite" mauling), it seems that they must have all angles covered.

takes a certain kind of person to go through all those years of training in medicine, with all the life-saving heartwarming goodwill and decency that surrounds it, with the sole aim of making a fortune from preying on the insecurities of young women. all this at just 24 years old, impressive

the only apprentice final i can ever remember where there hasn't been one slightly 'nice' person to root for. both awful people with no redeeming features. someone tell the bbc that the words 'business' and 'character' doesn't nec mean 'truly hateful'

Yeah, I also reckon the most training she'll have done in aesthetic medicine will be four months - if she's 24, she'll have done a 5 year degree then two years of foundation training since leaving school, which will be 3 specialties a year i.e. 4 months max in her preferred field, unless she's been supplementing her student income by doing botox on the side, but even then, surely not specialised enough to be training all of her practitioners personally.

Sorry, foundation training = 2 years covering 6 specialties.

Anyway I've just googled her, and turns out she trained in cosmetic procedures alongside her actual studies, which is fair enough, student doctors need to make money.

yeah that was weird, how it was never ever brought up that she might not be fully competent at this considering she's just 24, instead it was all 'you're brilliant leah, all your clients will want YOU'. i guess the set-up of the show dictates they can't really bring that up but seems pretty immoral to ignore it. didn't know the breakdown of a medical degree but that makes it even more dodgy. surely you'd expect some medic types to pop up in the press saying ALERT ALERT

xpost, ah so she's fully trained. still though, she's v young to be the head honcho/key trainer of something as dodgy as this, and that wasn't once brought up (unless it was in the you're hired? i couldn't bear to watch that or YF this year, can't hack the shameless brown-nosing of such toads)

Also, ffs, they're calling it "Doctor Leah". Really? She was all about the clinical ethical blah-di-blah image and now it's bimbo-fronted bimbo-named fluff of the highest order.

also spotter's badge for the person elsewhere on the internet who remembered/found this:

http://www.amstrad.com/press/news/news_firstday.html

http://www.amstrad.com/products/integra/

ha! all that shite about taking a leap into the unknown, a big risk etc

have any of his apprentice winners been a success with (or post) sugar?

that pic of tim though, recall him as being a bit dull and prob not much fun to know but fundamentally decent and fair, not like the naked greed and shameless lack of compassion of this lot. 2005, britain's tv business bods glory years

Well, if you'd watched You're Fired, you'd have seen Inventor Tom all excited about his baby nail clippers to stop you chopping your baby's fingers off.

xpost

btw, Inventor Tom's nail-files were not his actual business proposal when he won (it was actually something to do with a chair that stopped you getting backache, iirc). I don't think we'll be seeing Doctor Leah branches down the high street any time soon, I expect she'll put her face to something that Sugar's health and beauty empire has up its sleeve (probably Tom's fucking nailfiles) and be back practising medicine within the year.

Also, also, spurious firing reason: he didn't want Luisa because she has other businesses and it might deflect from her flogging cake-tins on the internet, but Leah said she wanted to continue to practise medicine, which wouldn't be AT ALL distracting from training flunkies in skin peeling, no sirree.

she has to, otherwise lose registration

I have a feeling that 'Doctor Leah' is just going to be the face of the product, and that someone with a lot more experience is going to be doing the actual training.

Maybe the company name could be changed to Amsface, in line with AlSug's other businesses (Amscren, Amsprop, Amscrap, oh wait that was Amstrad). In fact, I fully expect a) AlSug himself to appear in Amsface ads as the 'before' picture (much like Hitchcock appeared in that 'before' picture for that fake weight loss ad in the newspaper the survivors were reading in 'Lifeboat'), and b) the term 'Amstrad facelift' enters general public usage.

In other AlSug invests in health & beauty news, remember Susan from 2011 that was just too young and inexperienced and was fired for that reason?

http://www.tropicskincare.com/news/tropic/lordsugarinvests

I'd like to think the real reason that Luisa didn't get the gig is because everybody realised suddenly that she'd lied about her businesses in her plan/cv. I've said it before, but the only registered one (the cupcake shop in St Albans, which is defiantly "bimbo-fronted bimbo-named fluff of the highest order" with cutesy/sexey uniforms to match) has a net worth of £194 and a turnover of about £100k. And is actually owned by her husband, who has liquidated three other businesses since 2008 with debts in the £M each time. Her 'electronics' business, which she claims is the "4th biggest electronics retailer on eBay in Europe" currently has 6 items listed one of which is a pair of second-hand hair straighteners. Neither than one, nor her online bakery tat store, is registered for VAT or corporation tax which means to be within the law they can't be turning over more than £1k. Or that she appears to have at one point in the past been listed as a director in a business using the honorific "Lady", which is ever so slightly against the law. But I suspect it's just that after yet another tabloid expose on her she just became too toxic.

Well, if they branch out to breast procedures, it could always go by Sugartits. xp

impressive sleuthing aldo, esp "currently has 6 items listed one of which is a pair of second-hand hair straighteners" lol

re: leah's age & inexperience, as if by magic there's this (daily hate link, sorry):

consultant plastic surgeon Nigel Mercer, a former chairman of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, warned yesterday she lacked the requisite medical skills to carry out the procedures.
He said: ‘At her level of training, she will have a basic knowledge of immunology and some knowledge of anatomy.
‘She may have done a few weeks’ training in aesthetic medicine, but that is simply not enough. It may not be quite as dangerous as putting a hairdresser in charge of cosmetic surgery, but it is still putting patients at risk.’
Miss Totton – labelled ‘Dr Totty’ by some of her detractors – works in the A&E department of Newham General Hospital in East London having qualified as a trainee doctor at the University of East Anglia only last year.

gotta love the needless use of 'hairdresser' and 'doctor totty' but hey, it wouldn't be the mail if it didn't.

each apprentice winner year on year seems to prove more useless and/or more troublesome than the last. here's hoping this is the one that finally forces the bbc to kick sugar out, head bowed in shame (the whole murdoch thing has given me a taste for old rich scumbags ending their lives drowning in ignominy)

could have gone for the maxwell version there...

actually getting round to watching this now.

Did nobody notice or tell Luisa her logo is the same as the Food Network, just in a different colour?

Luisa really has a confused model, with no clear focus on who she's actually selling to. And who these days would dare claim 3 days is an acceptable delivery time? Amazon Prime is overnight FFS.

Interesting to read that Luisa's used the final basically as an advert for a crowd-funding/investment company called Angel's Den to fund her business model, and is letting them use her runaway success to promote their company.

tbh I'm very disappointed that Claude in particular at the interview stage, given he was her most vocal proponent in the OH AREN'T YOU GREAT SRALAN HAHA YOU MADE A JOEK HAHAHA section, failed to pick out or discover the basic stuff I have and instead chose to compromise his morals to suck up the programme narrative that Luisa was the sexehy one who was going to make it to the final 'for the dads' even though she's maybe one of the most obnoxious contestants not justbthisnyear, but any year.

I liked her, by the end! Best not to think of them as real people.

By the end, yes..

the guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jul/18/apprentice-final-bbc-lord-sugar-viewers

"The Apprentice final: fewer than 6 million viewers watch Leah Totton win

BBC audience hits a seven-year low as Lord Sugar chooses winner during two-hour special broadcast at 8pm"