I’ve poured a jug of cold water on my head and my therapist said I should meditate so I’m off to focus on positivity and calm water and a lovely garden and....*the sound of crashing bin lids and a distant ambulance siren*
See you next week!
Is this even slightly a fair fight anymore? We don’t know their business plans at the start and Sugar seems to change the rules whenever the mood takes him. I call bull. Can you tell I’m properly fuming.
*punches the sofa*
Yes yes! It’s not too late oh it’s too late.
Tonight, did you get the feeling that Sugar was too big for his boots? He’s lost it. Just changing the end result because he felt like is not on. I may not have calmed down by next week.
Judge Sugar has fired Felipe with the clumsiest and most retched legal pun catastrophe of all time.
He’s keeping Daniel because he thinks he’s helped shape him into a better cretin I mean person.
Which boy? WHICH BOY?
Alan is closing his eyes and trying to remember his lines. He lets Katie off the hook.
Katie - common sense but is it enough?
Felipe - you are not a tactical genius.
Daniel - apples and pears cockney barrel of monkeys cliche platitude.
They are squabbling about old rope and (snake) oil. That about sums this show up, eh ladies and gentlemen?
Now begins Sugar’s dainty dance with his firing finger visibly twitching under the table. He slates them all in turn but reserves his initial barrage for Daniel. “Why should you remain in this process?” he snarls at Dan. Dan holds onto his leg and won’t let go. He continues regardless.
“I think I’ve ‘ad it, folks,” bores Alan. He’s going to sum up.
I feel totally the same. GOT ‘EM.
"In the cafe last night"?!
Whaaaaaaaat? Everything I think I know is wrong. So that's why the other team are always back from their treat and drinking wine in their jammies when the non-fired people get home.
And so it’s down to Katie (furious), Felipe (the only nice one left) and Daniel (will say anything at this point). Who is going? TELL ME.
Daniel is reminded that he’s been in the boardroom four times with some awful season ticket set-up. Alan will probably sack him just for supporting Leyton Orient. What a git.
Daniel is bringing back Felipe and Katie. Katie lets slip that the cafe scene is filmed the night before the boardroom show-down. I love it when that happens. I have seen behind the curtain!
I can’t watch this. Piggy Felipe’s glasses lie smashed on the sand as he goes down for the last time. The humanity.
Alan is laying into Daniel who only minutes ago looked like the king of the world. He says it was all Felipe’s fault and that he was conned. On the subject of the rope, Felipe hisses, “I would have cut it with my teeth!” He knows he’s going down the dunny. It’s ugly.
“I asked you to get me a skeleton,” barks Sugar sounding for all the world like Burke or Hare, it doesn’t matter which. “I am the judge, jury and executioner here,” he continues. Does he want a job at the London Dungeon or something? Alan’s gone well goth this week. I bet he went home and painted his bedroom black after this. Lit a few patchouli joss sticks. Chill out, Alan.
Well someone’s the voice of totally even-handed reason. Good commenting work.
Not a fan of Shuggs making the rules up here. Fine system in place, his problem is lack of specification in what he wanted. That being said I would have tried to get a proper one.
The losers sit in the Bridge Cafe utterly dejected. Mark goes into instant blame mode. It’s so obvious Sugar didn’t like Felipe’s business plan, whatever it was, and wants him gone. I am THIS close to resigning. I won’t though.
That was the lowest trick. I’ve lost all respect for Darth Sugar now but I won’t tell him in case he decides to terminate me with his remote strangling hand.
The winners go to a race track to pretend to be Jeremy Clarkson. Sanjay wins the race. A new experience for him.
So to the money...
Summit - £644.97
Tenalady - £399.59
It’s a smackdown for.... no wait. Just because of the skeleton, Alan has snatched victory from the winners and given it to the losers. He wants Felipe out. This is a total injustice. I’m going to Parliament Square to set up my tent. I am outraged.
Sanjay actually didn’t manage to get a kosher chicken. His team incurred two fines and his team all think he was rubbish.
And so to the diamonds. Alan declares any deviation from Hatton Garden when it came to sparklers was a massive waste of time. “Diamonds. Hatton Garden,” says Sugar starting to sound like Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast.
“That is not a bleedin’ skeleton,” rants Sugar. I love it when he goes all Michael Caine and forgets the dignity of his office as a Lord of the realm.
Sanjay is already listing his skills like an audio CV. He is so dead.
Sugar is spouting fury about the rope being too long. It should have been a metre. That’s called grasping at straws, Alan. Stop it.
Oh no, here beginneth skeleton-gate. Felipe got the wrong skeleton. Daniel won’t be arriving at your bedroom door tonight in a nightie with a bottle of cherry brandy tonight after all.
Daniel’s team gush like love hydrants. Like adoration fountains. “He became a man today,” said Felipe like his son just killed a lion and smeared the blood on his own face.
Oh god can someone else make a joke about old rope? I haven’t got time now.
Errr like YES.
How can they NOT KNOW what a kosher chicken is after the fiasco a couple of years ago!!!!!
Daniel’s team are elated. Mark is being nice to Daniel. Felipe is practically making love to him. Is this the week Daniel moves into pole position? Crumbs!
Meanwhile, Sanjay’s losers look sad on the north circular. They’ve screwed it. Sanjay is spouting some desperate bollocks about Lord Sugar being pleased with him. Not even in a parallel universe is there a Sanjay who isn’t being shoved into that taxi by an angry badger by episode’s end.
I really want scallops now.
The kosher chicken is once again causing problems with our culturally naive contestants. “Is any chicken kosher chicken?” asks Sanjay? Well if it’s not dead yet, technically yes!
Felipe gets a load of scallops for under twenty quid giving him another excuse to cuddle Daniel. They’ll be in bed by the end of this episode. I knew all that bitching was just pig-tail pulling.
The oud guy in Stratford won’t budge on price and flogs his perfume for £100. Double the price the other team got. It’s looking like a white-wash from my sofa. What do you think?
Mark and Katie have found a private “supplier” who can sell them oud oil on the quiet. He is a bearded man lurking outside a block of flats. They are going to be killed. Nick is feeling his pocket for his piece.
OK, he’s not but I’m trying to inject drama here. This isn’t nearly as exciting as other scavenger hunts. Yawn. They just got two pounds off some perfume. Big whoop.
Sanjay and Roisin are doing so unbelievably badly and their next port of call is on the other side of town. They’re heading for oud oil in Stratford. So that’s a diamond and the possibility of some smelly oil which MIGHT be a stringed instrument. Or not.
Bianca and Solomon try to buy Steve the skeleton for a knock-down price. Solomon keeps looking Steve up and down like he wants to date him or marry him off to his daughter. Bianca moves things on a bit and gets a couple of quid off. They have bought everything. Where is the OUD?
“I like blond women,” says Roisin’s dealer as he bends over and takes her pitifully low offer. “You basically just stole that diamond off him,” says Sanjay as they run away laughing. Have I just watched an episode of Hustle by mistake?
Roisin has lowered her voice to a whisper and taken her hair down. She is leaning forward and smiling and being all breathy. He’s cracking.
Daniel’s hardball routine isn’t really working but he gets the gem for £175 without totally going full oy on someone for the second time today.
Sanjay is calling fish and chip shops in the hope they’ll sell scallops. Hmmm. Has he had fish and chips before?
Meanwhile, Dan is briefing Felipe in a Mission Impossible way as they lower themselves into the diamond dealer’s office on thin wires. “I’m looking to, believe it or not, get married,” Dan opens. We don’t believe it, Daniel.
Roisin is down the road ooh-ing and aah-ing over another sparkler. Dan has already offended his diamond dealer with an insultingly low offer.
Felipe is, perhaps emboldened by his new romance, now citing his paper skeleton triumph as the thing that will make the difference between winning and losing. I have a feeling that a paper skeleton might not cut it. Apart from giving them actual paper cuts but that won’t count in the boardroom. Ulp.
Did Daniel and Felipe just hold hands while crossing the road? We ARE watching a romcom!
Yes, can we stop this? It’s not a romcom.
It’s lunchtime and the teams are picking up seeds and bits of free string like there’s no tomorrow. Can we really call that bit of string “a rope”?
Solomon thinks the skeleton they still need should be “antomological”. I love his new word. Let’s all start using it.
Sanjay has spotted a skeleton in the window of a physio practice and tries to buy it from the receptionist. She suggests they cough up £5000. I like her style. They give up pretty quickly and they’ll get a fine if they don’t get their hands on human bones afore sundown. Perhaps they could draw straws and kill one of their team mates? Then it’s just a matter of dropping by the butcher’s to get the flesh off the bones. Who is thinnest?
Bianca’s turn with Declan and she gets a better deal! He rolls over immediately and off-loads a totally knackered sink on her. It’s a mess but it’s cheaper. Will Darth Sugar care? Will he squeeze their necks remotely until they fall lifeless to the floor or does he not actually have those powers? Has anyone ever checked?
Mark gets the sink (one) for £75 and tells Declan to sell the other team a sink for a hugely inflated price.
It’s already nearly lunchtime and Roisin has yet to speak. She’s holding her pen in a way that says she’s “on” but that’s it. My early tip for dismissal - Roisin.
Bianca is chatting up a guy called Declan on the phone who might have a Belfast sink for her. I think the other team are onto Declan already. Buy all the sinks, quick! Clear them out of Belfast sinks. Screw those other guys. You see what watching this show every week does to a person?
Daniel is oy-ing it up massively in a Golder’s Green butcher in order to get a cheap chicken. He nearly went in for a kiss there and the butcher ducked just in time. It was a kosher duck. Daniel has never hit such levels of obnoxiousness THIS early.
Sanjay emphatically insists he needs to lead the task. Roisin hasn’t said a word. Now would have been a good time to pipe up there, Roisin.
And so the task. They have 10 items to buy and one thousand pounds to spend. Sanjay says his team should stay put and research locations before heading off. The other team, Daniel’s diamond geezers, have a quick pep talk and then head off in their people carriers. It’s 10.30am and they have one day only.
Nigella seeds are, obviously some kind of Weird Science thing where you put them in a pot and 3 months later you’ve got yourself a beautiful TV chef.
So the discussion begins about who should lead Summit and who should captain Tenalady. Daniel practically begs Mark to back him as PM. He ackowledges that he has to “build bridges” with Felipe. Hmmmm.
I’m sorry but they ALL look like they’ve found time to apply mascara and a bit of foundation - boys AND girls. The juxtaposition of naked hairy legs and Sugar’s face in that shot just then was inexplicably creepy. I’m now imagining him in a sauna. I don’t want to imagine that. TAKE IT AWAY.
As usual, they all look surprised even though I’m pretty sure he does this every series. Everyone is in their nighties/jersey separates looking dazed. Mark thinks they should offer him a cup of tea. He stands like someone’s dad in a uni house where there are still spliffs and beer cans strewn over the floor from the night before. He doesn’t sit down.
Ooh, now I didn’t know Roisin was flagged for doom. That’s interesting because she hasn’t been THAT bad up until now. Is that just because she kept a low profile.
OK chums, it’s week 9. NINE. If you’ve made it this far, you’re in for a treat as the angry badger himself is paying the chumps a visit in their pyjamas. What he’s doing in their pyjamas is anyone’s guess. Ah ha ha ha ha. Sorry.
I really want a full run-down of each of their business plans so I can guess which one Darth Sugar has already probably decided he’s interested in. If wishes were horses, I’d be able to hold my own Grand National by now.
Talking of horses, the recap of last week is like watching, with hindsight, a line of dumb animals processing towards the glue factory, with James at the front of the queue, obv.
Right, here we go. Eight contestants (remember this is the Generation Game) with one simple task, to buy a shopping list of tat for a grand. One thousand pounds. And I bet you anything they still can’t manage it.
Could I BE more excited about Professor Branestawm? No, I could not. It looks lovely.
End of Waterloo Road just caught, as ever. There were scissors and a baseball bat. Still happy with my decision not to start watching it this far down the line. Yup, sticking with it.
Good news, chaps! After a bit of experimentation, I think I have fathomed how to paste your comments into the blog using the new tools! It only took me most of the series. Well done, me. So I shall endeavour to scour your dark mutterings as we go and plonk a couple of zingers up here. *waves from up here*
Hello again! I’ve studied Tom Meltzer’s meticulous blog from last week and am now fully up to speed with the flat-cap handbags, hot tubs and the big, fat whopper that finally pushed James off the edge of the cliff.
I almost admire him for his keep-digging approach in the boardroom, like a man covered in bacon being lowered into a crocodile pit, his decision in the face of slavering tongues and snapping mandibles was to keep going down, but do it with confidence. So with James gone, the final eight must plough on.
Joy of joys, tonight it’s the scavenger hunt! Both teams get a grand and shopping list of entirely useless items and the twist this year is that the list will feature a load of items from scavenger hunts past. So expect me to type the words OUD and KOSHER CHICKEN a lot tonight. I’ve been doing special exercises so as not to succumb to RSI before the end of the show. See you here just before 9pm.
Updated
Legal loophole ... If they'd got back to the Boardroom early and assembled the skeleton, would it count then?