Are you interesting?
The Apprentice: it's personal!
A rhetorical question of course - are you interesting? (English translation: are you interested) - The Apprentice is veeeeery interesting. We know who everybody is now. All ten. Even Lohit, who was made project manager of Eclipse/Stealth, and proved the better man when it came to selling quality English grub to the French. Over at Stealth/Eclipse, Lieutenant Chinless was put in charge. Military metaphors abounded in the narration, as Paul "led his troops into France" and Katie was made his "first lieutenant" (he fancies her). Unfortunately, for all his Ray Mears-style Brecon Beacons survival tips, his "jelly burner" from Macro did little but brown the prison sausages purchased by Katie, Ghazal and Kristina. (What was so scary about buying sausages from a women's prison, by the way? You'd think they'd arrived at a nuclear power plant. Did they think these bangers might be infected with lesbianism? Or that one in every pack would have a file or a condom of heroin in it? Lighten up, ladies of the world. It's a brilliant thing that prisoners make quality English sausages and sell them at a farm shop. It's less brilliant when you try to sell them by browning half a dozen of them with some jelly and flashing them in front of les punteurs' noses.)
Siralan was highly amusing when he set the task, telling them not to worry that only about three of them could speak French, as he has sold to "every country in the world" using English. I bet he fucking has. Shouting at them all and calling them Gunga Din, no doubt. And this from a man who can't actually speak English that well. (Simon, who, it turns out, does a mean if childish impression of Adam - when Adam's not there - claimed to be a "semi-French conoisseur", which could either mean he's a conoisseur who's semi-French of that he's some of a French conoisseur. It wasn't made clear. He certainly seemed to have had relations with French girls. My skin crawled when he said this, and I quite liked him before. And then he wore a jaunty white wollen cap on the ferry and our affair was over.)
I would love to have watched this episode with a bunch of squaddies, who must have had to deal with - and take orders from - blue-blooded, privileged, wobbly-lipped COs like Paul on so many occasions. Disillusioned, he thought he was leading from the front, ignoring Siralan's advice to buy quality products and instead spending £200 on "breeze blocks" of cash-and-carry Cheddar. (Siralan only sent them to Macro to buy cocktail sticks!) This put into the shade Adam's reckless decision to spend £140 on a laminated banner from a print shop. He probably thought he was, in macho business parlance, "firefighting" by insultingly knocking the damage down to what he said was £84, but actually seemed to be £110. I think the man in the print shop should have told him to fuck right off for wasting his time. I've worked with the print trade - these people are salt of the earth, and they have a skill which has been forced to adapt and survive post-computerisation. I've never worked with a car salesman, but I have been sold a car by one, and these people are not salt of the earth.) My antipathy towards Paul, with his can of beans and his need-to-know-hush-hush retention of information, was only eclipsed (ha) by the appalling to-camera skullduggery of Katie, who is so out to win this, she must be stopped at all costs. She had a go at everybody, saying something about Adam being in "short shorts" and calling him "that monkey", and saying the rest of them where in a "creche", which she pronounced "craysh", as if perhaps a member of the Royal Family. What an awful women she has turned out to be. And she fancies Paul. End of.
Although Nick, who actually said "bloody" in the boardroom (he's angling for his own programme), did his withering look about Lohit taking tea to a coffee-drinking nation, Lohit's English Breakfast plan was sound, and they ended up spending about 400 and making 400 profit, while Paul's cheese, chutney and raw sausage combination was a washout. Kristina, calculating to the last, got her Judas-like denial of Captain Mainwaring in very early, actually willing herself to get into the final three so she could play Machiavelli in front of Siralan. (To her credit, she was the one who borrowed a restaurant stove to cook the browned sausages.) It was all preordained. Paul's team, Eclipse/Stealth, made a loss of £225. That's a loss. In any language, that's a fuck-up. I almost wept when I saw them chucking cheese and prison sausages into a waste bin at the ferry port. Mind you, even the homeless would have turned their noses up at that cheese. We're talking the French homeless. They're a cut above. Ask Nick.
Tre said he could "bullshit in any language" but was oddly quiet in this week's edit. It was The Katie and Paul Show, who, we learned from Kristina, had been sitting on each others' laps and stroking each other in the house. Disgusting. This had to be stopped, and it was, when Siralan adjudged their performance in the marketplace a "bloody disaster" and "a total shambles." Kristina's tactic worked, and Katie, who had avoided the boardroom due to the fact that Paul fancied her, lost her new boyfriend. I rather suspect I should say that he got his "marching orders" but won't.
I thought the highlight of the show was when Paul and Katie tried to sell pork sausages to a Muslim kebab shop owner on Ramadam ("Viandes Halal"), but that was beaten by the final scene, in which a reprieved Adam arrived back at the house, theatrically saluted to a roomful of tumbleweeds and actually asked where his big cheer was. Cue: brilliantly edited death-mask shots of Katie, Tre and Adam actually looking like the Celebrity Big Brother housemates when Jade Goody's family arrived for dinner.
Unlike the sausages, it's really hotting up now. I suddenly have a feeling somebody I don't like is going to win. Mainly because I don't like any of them any more.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 5:31 PM
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Paul Wemmbley-Hogg had to go really, didn't he? On what basis did Nick and Margaret think he had potential? It can't have been anything they saw during the tasks. Surely it wasn't just because of his school tie and his army background? Sir Alan wouldn't employ people like that.
Katie is clearly just using the programme to launch her fabulous media career as a rent-a-posh-bitch. Vanessa had better look out. I was starting to wonder if she and Paul were actually angling for a Katie and Paul Show. The "craysh" thing was particularly amusing given that she was one of the French speakers. Ironic too that Simon should use "conoisseur" wrongly to describe his French credentials. (Or maybe he was right? I'm just a stupid northerner.)
One other great moment was Adam checking with Kristina as they left the boardroom that he hadn't just been fired.
It's "Makro" by the way - but it's to your credit if you didn't know that.
It wasn't just me who thought there was more than a touch of the the Wemmbley Hoggs then? The edit of Katie calling Paul 'mature & capable' followed by him being unable to find his mouth with a plastic cup was classic.
I thought the 'impression' of Adam was plain mean and they are a bunch of bullies - being in thrall to Katie is no excuse.
But then I'm a Stupid Northerner too, so what would I know?
I'd forgotten the dribbling water bit. Mind you his lower jaw is a constantly moving target. (Or is that being mean?)
The dribbling water bit was superb. I had forgotten it to. The incredible thing is Paul came over as even more of a tosser on the You're fired show which usually provides redemption for the saps.
I like Adam. How can you not like a guy that a bunch of nomarks like that bunch clearly loathe.
On Adam, I was impressed if slightly unnerved by how cool he was at the printers - that could be the root of his ability to survive. To stick up for Paul a tiny bit, on Your Fired! he seemed ready to acknowledge Katie's dark sides; I think he's naive mainly.
The binning of the food, if it was real, was a new low - a disgrace, even if I can't think of a use for the cheese.
Nick irritated me with his anti-cheese argument which didn't seem entirely logical, you could argue that the French love cheese, can't get ours and might try it (obviously the flaw was Paul choosing military cheese) and wish he'd been in shot on Your Fired! when Jean-Christoph Novelli, whose home town it was, recommended taking... stilton.
A point on kristina - she was right about Paul not listening but someone like Lohit would still have been able to get his points across - a skill she doesn't have.
The final scene was quite revealing I thought - the posh kids seem to have a gang going with the possible exception of Naomi who you had to love for complaining about smug Simon, well I did anyway.
I can actually see Tre winning it due to Srln seeing him as someone bright and sparky that he can refine.
Just as well your affair with Simon is over Andrew, daresay your 'bunch of squaddies' wouldn't like it!
I had an inkling it was Makro. I have been to one. Once. When I was at college. We had to restock the tuck shop! I don't recall buying any cheese.
Funny you should say that about the squaddies, Simon. When my brother (also called Simon) joined the army at 16, he put a photo of he and I up inside his locker, in which I had the requisite stupid 80s hair. Someone in his hut defaced the picture of me with the word "poof". And there endeth the lesson about the cultural divide. I must scan that photo in, actually, I've just found it. My brother and I got on really well for a squaddie and a poof!
The best episode yet. I have been slightly disappointed with series 3 so far, but this episode really moved it up a gear.
Adam is being bullied and it stinks...
A highly amusing episode I felt, I just wish Katie had gone...
I led with 'Are you interesting' on my review of it too - it was a quality line. In fact, all the badly translated French made me laugh my backside off.
I'm also beginning to warm to Adam,a bit thick but he does upset nearly everyone else in the house. I loved his salute!
I hope you include Bookbinders/Print Finishers in your 'salt of earth' comment Andrew. We are often forgotten, but do a vital job in the print trade. There, thats off my chest!
Ian
Having seem him sniping to Tre about drive cleaning "not fookin' happenin' mate" a few weeks ago, I thought I would never like Adam.
I was wrong. The poster was a bit of a disaster, but Paul was with him most of the time (who was to blame for them being so late with all his dicking about in Makro), I'm not sure how clear his brief was, and he made a manful effort to barter with the clearly pissed off printer.
In the rest of the show, Adam then seemed to keep his head down trying to make that ill-fated jelly burner work, and when he gave up on that, he sold a lot of chutney to people whose language he didn't speak. The fact he has been in the boardroom 3 times now is more to do with his lack of popularity with the others than it is with his own performance, and I think siralan can see that. The rocket he gave him in the boardroom was, I think, well-intentioned and designed to fire up someone who he probably sees a little of himself in.
I loved Nick's description of Tre on "You're Fired" when he said that at least you could see him coming (as opposed to Katie's stilleto in the ribs).
Lohit seems alright but the rest of them are horrible tossers aren't they? Tre is now making me laugh, I suppose....
Roll on Adam's project management, I say.
ST
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