Premium Sheds
The Apprentice: it's royal!
Siralan took great pleasure in informing Tre, who has become convinced that if he says he's great enough times the others will become convinced that he's great, that this week he had "cocked this up royal." Tre, unsurprisingly, thought differently. "I've cocked this up, but I don't think I've cocked this up royal, as such." It's the final "as such" that makes this programme great. Although, to be honest, this was a pretty flat and uneventful episode, as our teams - almost back to girls versus boys, with Katie, Naomi and Kristina up against Tre, Simon and Lohit, plus the emotional and therefore WEAK Jadine - were tasked with buying three items from one of five foreign countries and selling them back to "the trade" in this country. Some laughs were promised by the auditions, with comedy recliners and galloping horses and instant lamb shank, but both teams plumped for sensible items. From Canada: the insole, the do-it-yourself rug and the "sunshine in a box"; from Sweden (who certainly would have been my design choice): the nozzle, the air purifier and the microwaveable rabbit, which may or may not have had "packaging". None of these was a total disaster, although the purifier gave off static electricity and made "the trade" jump, and the microwave toys contained wheat that was unsuitable for the under-threes (and the wheat-intolerant), and the only snag in selling them was, in both teams' cases, failing to set up any appointments the night before. The boys' team because Lohit was left on this own while Jadine went off for a homesick sniffle (cue: grudging empathy from parent Tre, but, "You know what women are like"), and the girls' team because they were just a bit shit. However, they had Kristina, who set up her own appointments in the people-carrier. (Incidentally, I could never scour the Yellow Pages in transit - I would get car-sick.)
Neither team really fucked up, although Jadine and Lohit (who were really angling for something called "congratulations" from their project manager - wrong project manager, I'm afraid) missed the 6.30 deadline, which stopped Siralan from being a "happy bunny." I hate that phrase. Further infantilisation of adults by the consumer society. Anyway, yet again it seemed to boil down to our heroes wandering the streets of inappropriate area of London knocking on doors. Will any task amount to anything more than this unedifying sight? It's as if "business" is just that. And maybe it is. Pure desperation. Pleeeease buy my stuff, I'll give you a hand job. (Michelle Dewberry was interviewed in today's G2 and moaned that after all the shit she went through to get the gig with Siralan, her job was a dead end, and involved trying to sell a service that should have been free. She left. And still loves Syed, as a friend.) Simon didn't do any humorous ethnic impressions. Tre didn't even swear that much. (Although Jadine illustrated the sheer elasticity of our language by exclaiming, "For fuck's sake!" as she high-fived Lohit after a sale, and then grumbling, "For fuck's sake," when caught in traffic, thus preventing her from making that sale. Same phrase, different intonation, different meaning.) Even Katie was relatively unbitchy. The only decent comedy was indirectly provided by Simon, as Lohit went through the list of 50 contact numbers he'd got for them off the Internet, and discovered that half of them were for garden shops. They should have cold-called Premium Sheds to see if they'd take take the air purifier - they'd have had as much chance as the computer shop on Tottenham Court Road taking one.
The boardroom saved the day, or what was left of the day, by the time Jadine and Lohit turned up, still angling for that congratulation but not getting it. Both teams made a profit, despite the tears, traffic and bad information, but the girls made more. End of. Katie did her usual flushed gaze upwards, learned from Lady Di, and forced Siralan to call her a winner, which he did. Charlie's Angels went off to spent five hundred quid each in Selfridge's, which, for telegenic reasons, seemed to have to be clothes, so that the programme could do a changing room montage. I would have taken my five hundred quid to the basement and bought a nice mirror, or some crockery. At least he refrained from describing it as "the most famous department store in the world". The boys held up well enough, with Tre taking the heat for his team leadership failures. It was obvious he would use Jadine's gender against her, and he did, although I didn't expect the cuddly Lohit (no "killer instinct", apparently) to turn on her. He said her tears had "interfered on the task", which has to be better than interfering with the task. She was hung up to dry, which was appropriate, in the moist-cheeked circumstances. Siralan came that close to being sympathetic: "In business, you get homesick. In business, you miss your children. In business, life sucks. It should never, ever affect what you're doing. Go home and see your daughter." Then he added, "There's nothing bad one wants to say about you. Good luck!"
Business sounds rubbish. Why would anybody want to work there?
By the way, there's no way that lot could be out of bed, showered and spruced, and ready to be picked up in 30 minutes, which is how much time we are led to believe they get every week. Do me a favour.
Oh, I've been forgetting to do this, for the record:
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
Episode Four
Episode Five
Episode Six
Episode Seven
Episode Eight
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:24 AM
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9 Comments:
I can never understand why they circle aimlessly in their people carriers, burning fuel while they attempt to fix appointments. I can't read or use a mobile in a car.. it makes me slightly queasy just watching it.
What I want to know is, if they spend 2 days doing the task, what do they do the rest of the week? The talking head interviews and boardroom scene might take a day; the tasks are obviously edited to just include the funny/revealing/controversial bits but I think there must be some fudging of the timeline somewhere..
I'm starting to watch it just to see who can shoot themselves in the foot the most. Tre won yesterday with his outright sexism (which should be deemed entirely inappropriate, I reckon) and with his self-aggrandizing which he revealed to be bullshit. I've gone through disliking him to finding him amusing to hating him.
Kristina is a cert to win at this stage.
I will miss Jadine. Look at who we've got left. Anyone you'd actually get along with in the real world? Not me.
I thought I worked "in business". But where I work is nothing like this - it's actually fun sometimes. Therefore I can't work in business. I wonder where I work then?
I was flicking grimly between this and the football - the moment the irate woman told Jadine to get off the line (what had Jadine said?) was the moment Milan scored their winner (and the moment I began to wonder if Liverpool's fortunes were directly connected to hers). Wondered when the internet would feature in this series, interesting that Simon was the first (as far as I know) to mention it - after hearing Srln say that he wanted a young person with new ideas I've belatedly decided that the 'internet entrepreneur', er, might win (don't see Srln himself as a budding 'interpreneur' somehow).
How much of a loss to Absolutely Fabulous was that air purifier?
Previous weeks probably shouldn't be mentioned again but I watched the end of last week's repeat to check how Naomi said 'foolhardy'...
N: 'Maybe I didn't come up with a foolhardy solution for it but I certainly opened the arena for more discussion knowing that what we had at the time was not suitable to carry us through.'
G: 'You did not open the arena for anything.'
N: 'Ghazal, you closed the arena.'
I don't feel smug noticing that - a week later - particularly as I've also noticed that I've been calling Kristina 'Katrina' - wasn't deliberate.
Katy is growing on me. Not literally. But there is something about her flirtatious manner with siralan that makes me laugh.
I have to say none of this bunch would have stood a chance against The Badger.
A single mum sacked for getting a bit weepy about her daughter. A clearly competent guy attacked for being "articulate" and "nice" (why not for being "really neat" and "always nicely dressed"?) The clueless misogynist braggart survives, while another front-runner practically gives Siralan a blow job under the desk. If this is British business, I'm investing in Malaysia.
The irony of the use of the Cutty Sark as a symbol of British trade was fantastic. How did they resist the temptation to insert some more recent footage at the end of the programme?
Anyway, to business. The "girls" made no appointments before they set out; the "boys" made one. Clearly making early appointments was not a factor, whereas finding suitable shops and pitching well to them was. Lohit and Jadine alone made (as far as I could tell) about half as much as the other team. Therefore the boys' loss was down to Tre and Simon. (There's a thin line between thinking spirally and going around in ever decreasing circles.) So simple logic decrees that Jadine had to go and Lohit had to have his card marked. Thank goodness it's all about hard business facts rather than not getting rid of someone who makes for better television.
Like Kristina, I'm thinking about getting one of those rug-in-a-box kits, because - you know - I'm useless with rugs.
Andrew, have a look at this handy gadget:
http://uk.gizmodo.com/2006/05/14/animatronic_sir_alan_fires_you.html
Isn't it wonderful?
Love, Sue
So basically, "In business, you kiss your life goodbye."
You're right. It makes me grateful for my job, even if it doesn't get me anywhere close to £100,000 a year.
I'm not sure whether to respect or wonder what's wrong with the several contestants this year who left their young kids at home for potentially three months in order to do this. This isn't some sort of criticism of parents who work long hours or anything like that, I just can't imagine wanting something that much that it's worth sacrificing everything for. I certainly wouldn't do it.
Oh, and I'm glad someone else pointed out the reading in the car - I couldn't do that either (maybe they're all on Stugeron? Which would explain why they get a chauffer - it makes you drowsy and unable to operate heavy machinery.) Actually, I'd be pretty rubbish on The Apprentice, it's just that, unlike the contestants, I have enough self-awareness to know that.
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