If you’ve been affected by anything you’ve seen in tonight’s episode of The Apprentice, you can tweet me @jnraeside but don’t expect sympathy or anything. I have to do this every week. You could just walk away. Until next week!
As my hands go into spasm, I’d like to thank those of you who did this TWO nights in a row. We all deserve a stiff drink for such dedication. Please, if you feel able to after a week of rest and contemplation, do come back and join me for episode three on Wednesday, that’s WEDNESDAY, next week. It’s going to be great. I will light scented candles to get me in the mood. I suggest you do the same.
Solomon gets a big cheer on his return to the house. Everyone also pretends to be happy to see Daniel too.
And so there are 17 left. Next week they are making smelly candles, and by god the world needs more of those.
Solomon and Daniel slope back to the high-tech mansion in disgrace while Scott takes the bullet full in the face. He sits in the taxi of regret in his secret agent’s mac, smiling like he knows something. But he really doesn’t.
... Scott Daniel Scott Daniel Scott SCOTT!
Sugar has heard enough. Eeny meeny miny mo, where will the finger go. Catch a wally by his toe. Out you must go....
Daniel says he sells his services to corporate companies. I am utterly convinced by the sheer density of his jargon. Scott is accused of merely producing “a grey sweatshirt”. Scott says it’s Solomon’s fault. Solomon says again that he specialises in online technology. If Sugar doesn’t want a piece of that, I’ll eat this bean-bag tray my laptop is resting on. Smashing invention, the bean-bag tray. But my legs are actually quite hot.
None of that really made sense but you get what I mean, right? Solomon looks to me like he’s actually clever. Like Pellerau the bendy nail-file boy. He has that air about him.
There is a third option obviously. Sugar will launch Solomon because he’s been quite quiet. But he also sounds like he’s a techy spod and I bet he’s secretly got a brilliant product idea and Sugar would never get rid of someone who can make him lots of money.
Two dead men walking, I reckon. Scott and Daniel. Who will it be? Karren just said “arse” because she’s really quite angry now or at least she wants us to think she is.
Daniel is similarly looking like a man helpless to save his own clackers from a mincing machine. “I slipped, I slipped,” he protests and the others descend on his twitching carcass like those zombies in The Walking Dead.
Solomon looks like a bottler. And he can’t say leggings. LEGGINGS. Not leggins, you pouting pillock. I’ve only just noticed how much he pouts and I am instantly annoyed by it.
Scott looks like a man regarding the gallows from the back of an open wagon, rumbling towards it. Is it his time? It feels like it might be. Sad for all the haggis/referendum/whisky gags we now might miss.
The girls celebrate their win with an hilarious session on some jetpacks. But the boys, underscored by sad piano played by a tearful Richard Clayderman just out of shot, snipe and bitch like the back-biting nest of vipers we already know and love. Actually I still can’t tell them apart but no matter. Another firing is about happen. Shhhhh.
I suppose that was the purpose of having 20 fools at the start. Plenty of cannon fodder for the trigger-happy firing finger. Bye, Robert, you beautiful baa-baa. Back to Knightsbridge with you. I hear they need a lilly-livered fop over at Made in Chelsea.
In a very unusual move that no one saw coming, Robert the Chicken gets the elbow. He’s gone. He’s out. That’s it.
The online retailer unbelievably placed an order for the stupid jacket. More money than sense clearly. Maybe it was an ironic order. They’re probably based in Shoreditch which is very trendy I hear.
The girls are being launched into the sky on jet packs. And that’s for winning! God knows what he’s going to do to the boys. Kill them, I shouldn’t wonder.
And now it’s time for the orders. The girls achieved 0 orders for their awful jacket. The boys received 0 orders for their shit-shirt.
“There’s been a lot of ducking going on here,” he says. OK a duck impression would have been fine too. No avian impressions are forthcoming. That’s another black mark in my book, Alan.
Robert has to explain why he wriggled out of being the PM. He reiterates his high-class credentials to no avail. Sugar thinks he bottled it and for once, he’s right. He should have gone further and done a gleeful chicken impression.
The girls all look fully ashamed as two of them demonstrate the light-up lapels. Several planes divert from City Airport and set a course for the boardroom table.
And so to the boardroom. Alan passes no comment on the girls’ new team name. Diplomatic of him.
Nurun explains that she didn’t want to be PM but the others made her. Bianca tries to actually talk Nurun’s retail expertise up which is unusual for an Apprentice candidate. “You stitched her up,” says Alan before clumsily adding some awful pun about stitching. We all wish he hadn’t bothered.
Scott’s version of closing the pitch is basically saying thank you for having me and giving them a lot of eye contact. Bless his heart, that only works when you’ve been to your friend’s house for tea after school and their mum made you Birdseye Savoury Pancakes which you aren’t allowed at home because the additives do weird things to you. I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN, MUM.
Never ever let Nurun pitch anything ever again. Ever. Do you hear me. I can’t go through that again.
Back to the boys, Scott has basically told the rest of the boys to stand back and let him close this sucker. Has he SEEN this show? That means he is now guaranteed to crash and burn like a firework.
The girls send in Nurun who gets more tongue-tied than someone who has literally tried to tie a sheep-shank in their own mouth flap.
And now for the John Lewis pitch, boys first. Scott tells them he’s keen to hear how Daniel’s pitch went. Daniel lies through his teeth quite brilliantly.
Daniel’s faction of boys gear up for their next pitch. He’s a “selling machine” so this is all going to be fine and they’ll be fine.
He tells the buyers that no, of course you wouldn’t wear the camera sweatshirt in public. “You wouldn’t go in a public place in it,” he assures them, totally negating the point of the product. It really is for stealth perverts.
Sarah, who is keeping suspiciously quiet this week, twirls around and lets the buyers touch her heat pads. They look uncomfortable and unconvinced.
Karren is actually saying nice things about the stupid jacket. Is she serious?
The boys stride into JD Sports, and for some of them I’d guess this isn’t their first time. They show the buyers the laptop screen in portrait mode because the camera is implanted in the jumper on its side. That was some classy quick-thinking from Steven.
The solar shoulder pads could almost pass for a design detail. But not actually. Just almost. It looks a bit like a donkey jacket.
The camera is pointing at the boys but no one has said anything for over three minutes now. It’s just noise. Daniel says Scott should get a grip, but not to his face.
Finally the girls’ jacket arrives. I was really hoping for full-size solar panels (like you’d get on a house) attached to giant shoulder pads. That just looks like a shit jacket.
There was a confident “Moving forward” there from Scott. Please tick this off your bingo cards and drink a shot of printer ink.
The huge On Air logo might be a bit of a give-away. But at least the boys have a prototype.
The girls answer the door to a note saying their prototype is taking ages and isn’t ready. Disaster darling.
James says, “The project manager’s been absent,” when he could have just said, “Scott is not here”. It’s this kind of estate agent-ese that is essential to the Apprentice candidate. They don’t get past the audition without it.
Here come the finished prototypes. The boys have a sweatshirt with a video camera in it for your busy neighbourhood sex pest. Secretly film people without them knowing!
Nick poo-poos Scott and is clearly enjoying the total failure of the boys to agree on a thing. Anything now, fellas. A posing pouch with an MP3 player in it. Anything!
Can the sun actually be absorbed by a solar panel if it’s under a piece of material, ask the girls very sensibly. This won’t do. They’re over-thinking things. I prefer it when they’re being insanely optimistic.
Back at Tenaci-jacket central, they really ARE going to add in solar panels. How thrilling! All you have to do is go somewhere sunny and point your shoulders towards a strong light source. Stay there for two, maybe three hours and Bob’s your uncle! You can give your phone 5-6% charge!
Over at Scott’s design meeting, the designer pours cold water on their jumper idea. They all put their heads in their hands, ensuring their place in the next sad montage.
The designer of the Tenaci-jacket is politely trying to tell them it’s too complicated. Nonsense! Add small microwave in the left sleeve. You’re not thinking BIG enough.
Mark is acting as a Greek chorus tonight in case we’re not keeping up with the complex group dynamic. To summarise, Robert was chicken shit and Scott keeps passing the blame. Got it.
Scott is in the shop where I bought the fabric for my wedding dress. Fact. I am going to cut up my wedding dress and insert temperature controls, a solar panel and light-up breastplate. Cool!
The Tenacity jacket looks like being a disco light-up temperature control jacket with charging socket. That should be a peace of piss. Why don’t you hurl in a teasmade as well?
People carriers swoop in and take the teams to meet their public at a series of always awkward focus groups. A member of the public has just done a really convincing “Oh my god I would love that,” as Bianca offers her a jacket with colour-change lapels. So useful!
Guys guys guys. The guys simply cannot agree on what the thing should be, let alone what colour the thing should be. The girls have fashion insight. “All women are wearing jackets,” says Lindsay. By god, she’s right!
The girls all take turns in worming out of the PM job because they know this one is a poisoned chalice. Nurun is the least best at worming and gets landed with the job. Bad luck, Nurun.
And the girls change their team name to Tenacity. TENACITY. It’s a word that you only really ever hear on The Apprentice. What you get with me, Lord Sugar, is a person made of pure steel and high-tensile tenacity.
Ah Scott! The Scot has taken charge and suggest a diet doo-hicky that somehow tells you what you’re eating while you wear it. Surely you’d know?
While the girls gawp at a skirt made of disco lights, Robert worms his way out of being PM by inferring the whole thing sounds a bit downmarket. Robert, you are a contestant on The Apprentice. Which bit of that leads you to think you are required to be UP-market?
Al suggests Robert (beautiful sheep) might like to lead the boys on this one as he works in fashion. I think I heard a small fart of fear escape his fashionable britches.
People often need to dash about on this show. Surely you’d wear trainers to be in a state of ever-readiness.
Sugar explains “wearable technology”. Quite disappointed he’s not wearing one of those Hat FM baseball caps with the radio and earphones built in.
I’m on a mission tonight to find one girl, just one, who doesn’t totter around on shoes that make them walk like a poorly duck.
Hang on - Scott was singled out? Is it bad that I don’t remember him? And Scottish too. I bet he can’t wait for all the referendum gags Alan has lined up for him.
So there are 19 suits left. Which one will “leave the t-shirts at the printers” tonight?
Sugar’s PA calls at 5.20am. I’m all for the early-doors tormenting of these blighters.
Remember, when he says “You’re fired” every candidate is well within their rights to reply, “No, I’m not” because it’s just factually incorrect.
Sarah reminding us in the recap that she’s fairly awful and that’s in a sea of so many other pretty bloody awful errrr waves.
“This is not about chancing yer arm,” barks Sugar as he surveys a bunch of right blousy chancers. He’s swearing a lot in this preamble isn’t he? Last resort of the inarticulate, they say.
OK, settle in chaps. Not long now. You do know they are inventing wearable technology tonight, right? The mind boggles. I wonder who will officially be crowned the girls’ PM tonight so that Sarah can completely ignore their instructions?
I have never seen a single episode of Waterloo Road, one of the most popular BBC dramas of all time. I apologise to all involved and promise to try and catch it. Next week, yep definitely.
Butterfield nails it as per. Exactly how I feel.
The Apprentice is on again? Is it next week already? #TheApprentice
— Brian Butterfield (@MrBButterfield) October 15, 2014
Welcome back if you were here last night and hello, where have you been if you’re just joining us thinking this is the first episode in a new series of The Apprentice.
I’ve barely had time to wipe the drool from my chin or change my clothes since last night’s corporate stampede. Twenty new candidates swept majestically across the forecourt of that building where they film the boardroom scenes and herded into Alan’s vestibule as they awaited his call to “send them in”.
And we’re already one man down as the Giles/Charles hybrid - Chiles - was told to go home before he’d even really introduced himself or had a chance to pick up those t-shirts from the printers.
Tonight I’m hoping for a more in-depth look at each candidate but I’m not going to get it because there’ll be far too much shouting, blame-talk and crushing for the bathroom mirror.
Join me here at 9pm when the remaining 19 turn their attentions and not at all considerably expertise into designing a piece of wearable technology. Like a one of those hats that’s also a drinks holder.
If anyone is still unclear about how The Apprentice works, please take a moment to watch this quick refresher course courtesy of comedy writer @jondrytay who co-wrote it with David Mitchell.
Updated
