Giraffe! Giraffe!
The Apprentice: it's a jungle out there
Tre didn't like the smell when he and the rest of the candidates walked into London Zoo, but you'd think he'd be used to horseshit by now. Week four, and Siralan dummied the troops by briefing them at Hamley's, "the most famous toy shop in the world" (well, London), but they weren't going to be selling toys, they were going to be making sweets and selling them in the zoo. This task, I admired, because it involved industry, the physical act of manufacturing, which meant less scope for jargon. Equally, it was less fun to watch, except when whichever team it was walked away from the chocolate machine and was told by the stern chocolatier that they'd have to wait another two hours before it would be ready, because you could make fingerprints in it. (I honestly don't think the kids in London Zoo would have minded that, as long as it had a monkey face on it.)
Problem: I found it difficult to keep tabs on which team was which. They both made chocolate lollies, one with the monkey face, one with a paw print, but these were supplemented by bags of fudge on one side, and the infamous Natural Orange Lolly on the other. Sorry, Tiger Orange Lolly. This was Adam's team, although what they were called, I can no longer tell you. Adam, a man who should stop eating sweets, judging by his forehead, is a bluff, no-nonsense northerner who could fill in for Shaun Keaveney on 6 Music should car sales go belly up, and I didn't mind him as a project manager. Nick was out of order when he bitched about him behind his back in a pantomime style ("An animal theme? In a zoo? Fuck off!") - and Adam was at a disadvantage from the start: he wasn't named after a zoo animal. Meanwhile, Gazelle's team designed the cuter product, but only made "150" of them out of the proposed 300. (I say "150" because that's what Gazelle, sorry, Ghazal, intercommed her marketing team. It was, in fact, 110. But that's business. Buy for a penny, sell for a pahnd. Make 110, say you've made 150. Buy and sell, buy and sell. I'm actually feeling quite intimidated just writing about Ghazal. She intimidates people - I know this because she fluttered her spider eyelashes and said so. But then, as she also said, she's not here to make friends. Good job, as you can't understand what she's actually saying. Now that's intimidating.) Somewhere in the background, Tre was saying that this was all fucking bullshit, which now seems to be the only record on his jukebox. I am losing faith in him.
So it was that the two interchangeable teams, made all messy and non-gender-specific by Siralan's meddling, set themselves up at London Zoo, that spectacular wonderland of concrete, bars and scrub by the road in Regents Park, Adam quite prepared to do so next to a generator and some Portaloos behind the business centre, until wily Simon stepped in. (You have to watch what you step in at the zoo.) I like Simon, although it pains me to like any of these idiots, because he wanted to stop and look at the animals. "Giraffe! Giraffe!" he squealed, while the others went, "Bring it on!" and "I am dynamic, and have nothing to learn." Anyone else get a whiff of the Mighty Boosh from these zoo-based antics?
Tre was notably quiet en zoo, but they had to make some room in the edit suite for mystery 25-year-old Arab, Lohit, who seems quite camp, especially when holding Unnatural Orange Lollies up to the sun to reveal the hallucinogenic patterns created by the supermarket-bought hundreds and thousands and the carcinogenic E numbers therein. Could he be the first gay candidate? (I'm not a sales expert, but surely you don't buy your ingredients in Sainsbury's?) The labelling of the lollies was Adam's team's downfall, and looked to be the cock-up that would sign Natalie's death warrant. Adam made it quite clear that the sweetmeat was to be labelled a Tiger Orange Lolly, and Natalie, who has a child and seemed to care about stuffing it full of chemicals, gaily labelled it Natural. It took a lot of hustling before she'd admit this in the boardroom. However, she had an unecessarily rough time of it, being taught how to sell by a man in a lion suit, and then being accused of having something personal against Adam. This isn't personal. They're not here to make friends.
Siralan was on form. Looking for all the world like a man wearing the head of a lion costume himself, he berated Sophie for her failure to want to make a profit (she sold virtually no lollies, hampered by the fact that they weren't worth the money, ie. they cost more than a penny). This, he surmised, calling her "love", was because she was more concerned with her "scientific protons and neutrons." (He also had a go at the pharmaceutical industry, which would almost have got him a column in the Ecologist.) Gazelle's team won by ten quid, which, fittingly, earned them just an afternoon out at a bowling alley, albeit the bowling alley of the stars. (The stars weren't there that afternoon. I daresay Tre thought it was all fucking bullshit.) Quite how they managed to make the winning of the two paltry profits when they had run out of product by about 2.30, I don't know. It was a bitter pill for Adam's team to have to swallow. Mind you, they did give a lot of their stock away, the only time Sophie was comfortable as an E-number usherette. Paul, by the way, disguised his lack of chin with a part-monkey costume, and really seemed to get into it. Perhaps it reminded him of a game they used to play at Sandhurst, albeit without the broomstick up the arse. I am constantly awestruck by these prop hire shops they find in business parks two hours outside London. Who knew such places existed?
It was between Adam and his nemeses Sophie and Natalie in the end. I hoped Natalie wouldn't go, as she has more spirit than the despondent, wobbly-chinned quantum physicist, and she said "shit" in the boardroom, which I suspect scored points with the vulgar Siralan. Sophie got the finger. Philosophically, in the cab she decided that she didn't want a job in business after all and went back to her protons and neutrons.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the distance, a couple of hundred kids finally came down off their Tiger Lolly high.
Archive:
Episode Three
Episode Two
Episode One
posted by Andrew Collins @ 4:31 PM
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22 Comments:
A request, please, Mr Collins.
Could you perhaps not always use a photo of the fired Apprentice as the illustration for your recaps?
It's rather massively spoilerific for those of use who haven't watched last night's episode yet.
Without having a chance, I now know that my favourite useless "quantum" "scientist" is getting the boot.
Ta muchly!
Good point. I've now replaced it for this very reason. Although I hadn't even spotted the theme! I just nick whichever main illustrative pic is up on the Apprentice website. It's only now you've mentioned it that I realise they are rather unimaginately using the firee every week.
I preferred the pics they used last year: much more esoteric and non-spoiling.
It won't happen again.
I used to work in a theme park but I sold balloons rather than unnatural lollies. The great thing about selling balloons was that you just had to stand there because everyone came to you - you wouldn't catch me pushing sweets to kids.
I was sad to see Sophie go because from a purely selfish point of view, I had developed a bit of a strange crush on her...
(if thas gone through twice then I apologise!)
Andrew, do you ever watch the "You're Fired!" show on straight afterwards on BBC2?
It's worth a watch, as the fired candidates come across as slightly less freakish and, dare I say it, almost human.
Regretfully, I am beginning to like Tre. His theory of selling solely to fat people made the show for me.
Also, Mr Collins, I am sorry for the needless slander against you in the blog I set up, in the list show 'critique'. It wasn't me what done it. And the majority were fighting your corner in the comments.
Billy, that's exactly why I don't watch You're Fired!
Last night I was able to watch the whole thing without hiding behind a cushion once.
Oh no - I forgot - there was *one* cushion moment - when oneoftheblondewomen (Kristina?) smilingly thrust sweeties into the hand of a small child, then turned to the dad saying "that'll be two pounds fifty please"
I think Nick's getting too big for his boots.
Is it just me, or is Katie David Walliams in drag?
Never try to second-guess Sir Alan, eh?
Even he could see that the boiled sweet lollies looked like child vomit. And the market research had suggested that they wouldn't be popular. (Why do they do market research? It’s a waste of valuable mistake-making time.) It was mainly Adam (from what we were shown) who wanted to make the vomit lollies, based purely on cost. It was Katie who picked up on the "natural" selling angle. It was Natalie who unilaterally decided to put "Natural" in the name. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that they didn't sell well.
It was the product that was wrong and that was Adam and Natalie's fault. And Adam and Natalie were both there in the firing line. While it was obvious that Sophie was never going to win the series, it seemed stupid to fire her simply because she didn't much relish selling that c(r)ack to kids. In other words it was another arbitrary sacking that had very little to do with the task and a lot to do with something said in the boardroom. The sort of thing that someone might have said in an interview.
While I can't deny the huge entertainment value of The Apprentice, I still think there'd be mileage in a show where they just show intense, uncut, hour-long job interviews. And that would have a real educational/public service element. But no doubt they'd soon have one of the candidates falling for the interviewer.
Funnily enough I had Ghazal's eyelashes down as being like a giraffe's. And then a giraffe popped up. (I half expected something similar to happen with Paul’s face but maybe London Zoo doesn't have that particular variety of baboon. And to be fair his face isn’t red enough.)
Incidentally it was suggested on You're Fired that one of the E numbers listed was vitamin C, which makes your description of them as carcinogenic particularly ironic. And the hundreds-and-thousands came from Asda rather than Sainsbury’s, just to throw some allegedly exploited shop workers into an already attractive mix. And Pete Mitchell, who really is sitting in for Shaun Keaveny, actually sounds an awful lot like Gideon Coe, which is very confusing.
Christ that's a long post. Sorry.
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Beth you are right sticking the sweet in the hand of the kid was cringeworthy. But why did the dad pay up. I'd of told her I was not going to pay and she could take it off my daughter if she wanted to. Fucking cheek.
I liked Natalie saying shit in the boardroom to. She may well win because Siralan is the biggest inverted snob on the telly.
Nice Sainsbury's/Asda distinction, Dave. Although I suspect the hundreds and thousands are the same make in both, and full of the same natural ingredients. If there is Vitamin C in them, I'd argue that there are probably more useful ways of getting it, like a tomato, or a Vitamin C tablet. I'll wager that at least one of the E numbers is known to cause cancer in rats!
I disagree that Sophie didn't deserve to go. Siralan weighs up the choices based on three people presented to him. Of the three, Sophie proved the least likely ever to make his Apprentice, with her healthy disdain for the very beating heart of business: fleecing the public for profit. She had to go.
By the way, Swineshead, I know you didn't write the barely-disguised attack on my good name on your collective blog, but it is rather cheap. I'll admit to appearing on lots of clips shows (there's a whole chapter about this arcane world in my new book, That's Me In The Corner, out May 3), but to say I'm "desperate" to get my face on telly doesn't take into account all the TV appearances I turn down. I get asked to go on BBC Breakfast News to "comment" on some flimsy news item (usually a spurious poll from some website about films) regularly, as they have my mobile number on file. I always say no. This "review" of list shows falls into the trap of every pat cliche on the subject. Also, to call me a z-lister is not much of an insult, since I don't actually compete in the Celebrity Hierarchy Olympics. I am, at heart, a writer, and not a celebrity. The term "z-lister" is usually employed by journalists who also appear on clips shows, or those that secretly yearn to on a list. I'll take being called a "hack", as your colleague describes me later on, but "z-list" is a low blow. That's people who appear on Love Island, isn't it?
I heartily agree. The chap that wrote the article isn't a very nice bloke but he does write some funny stuff, here and there. I've got a policy of not censoring things that go on the blog and he was challenging that, sort of like a five year old child might.
Just to reiterate, I agree with your point of view, not his.
I would like to defend Sophie (slightly). I think Siralan confused her discomfort with ripping people off with a broader distate for profit-making. From what I could tell, she had difficulty selling something that she felt was not value for money, rather than something that is profitable per se, and I have to say that I empathise with her. I'm not a salesman but I have business experience and a couple of things I have learned: the importance of believing in what you are selling and that profit isn't a bad thing.
Having said that, she clearly was not "drop-dead shrewd", but then who of them is? I agree that Simon is the sleeper.
Oh, and Siralan's tirade against the pharmas and conflation of her background with "protons and neutrons" with that industry was just embarrassing. He should be ashamed.
Why do people from heavily based academia backgrounds get selected? (apart from the obvious entertainment value of seeing a fish out of water.) From watching the three series, It is obvious Siralan wants fundamentally a Salesperson, but they also have to save him money by negotiating costs down, using the lowest cost materials to produce something inexpensive and well-made to undercut the market. The puke lollies might have been ill-conceived, but as the confectioner from Woolworths asserted, the facilities they had would not have produced sugar-free sweets. Siralan doesn't know sweets, Mr pic n mix does.
And why's Siralan got another Art task - he couldn't sell a fancy painting to save his life?
mighty pierre
*I* wanted to see the dad refusing to pay as well - and then her wrestling the sweets back from the kid and the kid crying and a small crowd gathering and her being chased from the zoo by outraged parents...we can but dream!
also, the market research was always going to be a waste of time - who's actually going to admit "yeah, I'm more than happy to fill my chid with sugar on a day out, anything to keep them quiet".
I think my brain has finally died. I was reading the post and wondering who the exotic sounding Siralan was (pronouncing it in my head like a character from the Narnia books or summfink). I was on the verge of googling it when the penny dropped. Duh... I think I may need a holiday.
Thanks Swinehead for reminding me of the Tre/ fat people moment, a gift for the editor-comedians that. I also loved 'natural orange lolly' with natural crossed out - perhaps it will catch on as a selling strategy. I also completely agree with Beth et al about Kristina the blackmailer (extortioner?), the lowest thing I've ever seen on the Apprentice. I also sympathised with Sophie, particularly after she told Adrian Chiles she refused to approach families for what would've been for them the third or fourth time that day - who wouldn't sit on a wall instead - but listening to Nick's description of what Srln was looking for I think her apparent reluctance to graft was her undoing. Unfortunately I think Kristina might do well. Above all I hope no children were watching - chocolate factories and zoos are run by stern, puffed-up types, smiling ladies who approach you with lollies are evil, and inside lion costumes are miserable gits spying on their 'team'.
Swineshead, sorry!
No worries Simon, I'm still in shame about the whole list show nonsense.ht
May 3 for the new book, then. I was just on my way to Amazon for the same info. Really looking forward to this one as a dedicated music press junkie in the period this covers.
I'm way behind everyone, but eager to join in. Just for the record, I love Ghazal and, if nature allowed, would love Lohit too. Tre, though, has come across as the most talented and interesting of the bunch, but I can't see an emotive, Muslim man winning (this is a blind assumption, but we are dealing with mass media here, so the truth is fundamentally irrelevant).
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