Thank you for your company this evening. I’m coming downstairs to the comments now to hand out cake which may contain nuts.
See you here again next week, same time, for another lovely hour of cringe and OH NO. And I’m assured you’ll be able to find the blog on the TV front page from 8.45pm. Hooray! See you then/there.
“It was really, really close,” says Gary to his amazed compadres as everyone thinks about what they’re going to spend the money on when they definitely win.
Next week it’s something to do with windows. Will they find their true calling as double glazing sales people? Also, several people cover their mouths with their hands to denote drama.
Gary’s pleas are silenced with a hand and Alan eventually tells the rest of them to go back to the house.
David lets rip in the back of the cab and says they all turned on him to save themselves. Yup, didn’t see that coming. Apprentice candidates are usually such stand-up, trustworthy dudes.
But will it just be David? “I’m a little bit concerned,” says Alan, desperate to maintain the tension just a little bit longer.
The dance of death
Alan finally tells Charleine to shut it. The moving finger begins its inexorable journey towards the forehead of one (or possibly more) of the numpties.
Will it be David? It should be David. It is David.
Charleine becomes so shrill that Alan tells her to chill out. She doesn’t chill out.
Joseph is unequivocal when asked who should go. “David,” he barks straight back. David is going pinker and wobblier by the second. In mere minutes he’ll be human blancmange.
That was super. They all left the boardroom. A couple of seconds passed and then they all came back again. Lovely stuff.
Charleine furiously defends herself but Alan isn’t listening. He wants her to confess. Confess! But to what it isn’t clear. Alan says Gary is indecisive and he also points out that at Gary’s workplace “people walk around with a dustbin lid on their arse”. If anyone has a clue what he’s talking about, please inform me immediately. I am confused.
Gary chooses who to bring back into the boardroom and picks David because he cocked up the t-shirts. Charleine tells Gary he’s on his own but it definitely shouldn’t be her.
Make a decision, Gary. Joseph gets the other bullet and Charleine gets up very quickly to leave. Alan asks her where the chuff she’s going. As a knee-jerk decision, I think just to wipe the smile off Charleine’s face, he says all four should come back. She looks suitably furious.
Joseph and David argue the toss over what should or shouldn’t have gone in the party bags. Alan dubs it all a “load of toot” as his is wont.
“First rule of a party plan, don’t poison the client,” says Alan, not quite getting his zinger in order before delivering it.
Karrrren puts Gary in the crosshairs but it was totally her planting the seed of doubt about the chocolate spread containing nuts. This is her fault. Fire Karrrren.
I suddenly see things very clearly. David is going. He’s got a look of the last gazelle in the herd and he’s just twisted his ankle.
“For that reason alone, you’re going to be coming in with me,” says Gary to David, doing a straight rip of Alan’s schtick. I now despise Gary.
How the blithering heck did Selina win this? While her team “enjoys” snowboarding, Richard bangs on and on about how flipping great he’s been and Vana expresses what we all now feel about Richard. Who knew he was this much of a prong?
The result
Versatile profits - £396.20
Connexus profits - £614.21
So Selina, SOMEHOW, has won the task and her team get a snowboarding lesson. Charleine looks like she’s stepped in something.
Gary grins as the nut allergy situation is discussed. You had one job, Gary. I still reckon they’ve beaten Selina though. At least I hope they have.
David hurls himself in front of the train in admitting he burned the t-shirt transfers but nothing is said.
Gary has an events business, don’t forget. Apart from nearly killing Jamal’s mum, his team at least listened to the client and offered them something they wanted rather than bulldozing them like Selina.
“It was a complete oversight,” says Selina about the whole not getting mum’s number cock-up. But she crucially doesn’t admit whose oversight it was. Because it was her oversight, wasn’t it Selina?
Richard doesn’t accept that he treated Vana like a slave. Vana admits the she stepped back once he screamed at her. Alan suggests she folded too easily. Literally no one wins here.
Brett and Scott are called “the best double act since Jedward”. Another one of Alan’s brilliant, unscripted zingers there.
The boardroom
Alan’s palm squashed against the frosted glass heralds the start of the boardroom bitch-fest. Always wish there was a sound effect of a flushing toilet as he entered.
Richard is massively feeling the cake pressure and sends Vana away with a flea in her ear when she tries to canvass opinion on the best way to cool and ice it. Don’t expect to see him on Bake-Off any time soon.
And it’s NOT a good bake, no matter how many mini marshmallows you cover it with, Richard.
The party’s over, but for who? Oh god, I’m starting to sound like HIM.
Nicole’s mum takes one look at Selina’s party bags and ever so politely says, “No.” Selina will one hundred percent say this is due to a lack of diamante stickers on the outside.
Gary’s team cock up on the t-shirts and all the money they spent on them goes down the drain. He also makes a loss on the pissy party bags which are clear sandwich bags with sweets in them.
Former navy girl Charleine suddenly becomes terrifying PT instructor to Jamal and his friends. Everyone looks scared.
David breaks my heart while ironing commemorative photos on the party t-shirts with his pathetic, “I only learned to iron the other day.” Bless his inept socks. His ironing wrecks the t-shirt transfers and he glosses over the fact they look half melted.
Karrrren says the whole nut issue has “put a real dampener on the day” for Jamal’s parents. I’m sorry, but Jamal’s parents need to check their privilege and stop with the two thousand pound kids’ parties. What is wrong with parents these days?
“Everything from our side is fine,” pass-ags Selina as she checks in with Richard. She makes sure she’s said loudly that he hasn’t done the crucial thing she asked of him.
Bret is atop the party bus, singing Britney with a bunch of teenage girls. I’m dying for him.
Gary is trying to impress Jamal’s friends with glow bands but it isn’t dark. He’s forgotten music and David is trying to provide his own. I’m dying for him.
Karrrren massively stirs the shit when Gary admits to his client that the cake may contain nuts. She orders him to find out exactly what’s in the chocolate spread and, egged on by Baroness Wooden Spoon, they insist on seeing the jar to check the ingredients.
Poor Richard is in a pub kitchen getting the cake ready while Vana scowls and pumps up balloons. He gleefully tells her that they simply don’t have the time to get sodding glitter for the bloody party bag and she doesn’t disagree.
At Jamal’s party, the kids are all in crash helmets which is probably a good thing. David and Gary are going health and safety crazy as the children try to find the fun in their safety briefings.
Selina tries to enthuse a bunch of teenage girls with a cheery “How many of you are sporty?” They all grimace. Brett tries to make a joke about his lack of hair and they all cringe again.
It’s almost party time and Joseph insists that Gary warns Jamal’s mum that the cake MAY contain nut traces. At least someone has their eye on this particular ball.
Selina bullies Richard and the sub team into going to some shop or other and buying adhesive jewels to decorate Nicole’s party bag. Yes, three people should go and do that. Good call, Selina.
Charleine and Joseph try to find a chocolate cake that doesn’t contain nuts and the one they buy offers no such assurances. She really could die!
Selina realises that she hasn’t got Nicole’s mum’s number. She tries to shove this issue onto everyone else but particularly Richard. It’s totally Selina’s fault, no one else’s. Could this really be the week that Selina gets the boot? Surely her sour chops are needed by producers too desperately? I mean can you remember anyone else without prompting?
Vana and Richard go to a top eatery to suss out afternoon tea and discover it will be multo expensivo. Richard forces Selina’s hand and insists on a barbecue which Selina insists will be “high end”.
Gary is organising party bags for his children. Have you ever tried to furnish a kids’ party with party bags? I have. Once. NEVER AGAIN. One millions pounds will get you ten wretched sacks containing a handful of landfill and some cake. Can you tell that my child’s partying days are already over?
Charleine is doing her best Iago impression with Joseph and tells him his card is marked because “yourself” has got to prove he has what it takes. If your bingo card had “unnecessary use of yourself when YOU would do” down a shot of neat alcohol.
Selina thinks that sport is thew way to go for Nicole and her friends. They find a place which can “do sports” and book it immediately for a slight discount.
Gary’s lot find an outdoorsy place for Jamal and his chums and agree to host the party themselves rather than using the staff at the outdoorsy place. David is stepping up. Pray for David, everyone. If he falls it’s a looooong way down.
Selina is, as per, appearing to listen to ideas and then shutting them down instantly with her own. Her team cast doubt on her fire-breathing skills but I think it’s clear to all concerned that she need only ignite the constant hot air she spouts with a clipper.
David says he has a background in working at children’s camps. What horrors has he seen? Looks like he’s in the frame for being the chump in the noisy clothes, trying to keep the energy up while a bunch of sulking pre-teens scowl at him.
Claude points out that Selina’s emphatic approach means she missed the chance to get the mum’s phone number. Upselling is quite hard when you can’t talk to the upsellee.
The first little prince, Jamal, sits with Gary who won’t stop smiling and his family as they run through what they’d like. Mum has a nut allergy which I feel is important. Could be the first client death?
Selina bombards her teenage client with choices. Young Nicole (who is American and cool) just blinks at Selina while she fires off ideas. Everyone has a headache already.
Selina is also, for some reason, allowed to poach Richard from the enemy. Is he the last man standing who doesn’t find her appalling?
She delivers the killer line about hating children and wanting to lure them to a gingerbread cottage with a very hot oven inside. But that doesn’t mean she can’t put on awesome parties for them. *saccharine smile*
Karrrren, Alan and Claude loom above a collection of dolls’ houses, making them look like the business giants they truly are.
Their prospective clients, holding parties for their little darlings, have a budget of £2k a pop. Two thousand pounds for a child’s party.
Much to everyone’s chagrin, Selina is given the PM reins. And Gary will helm the opposition.
The contestants get their usual early morning call to meet Alan, this time at the Museum of Childhood. The boys are becoming all too aware of Selina’s negativity. She’s the team Cassandra, constantly predicting doom - a one-woman self-fulfilling prophecy.
The recap reminds us of the discount debacle in Manchester. Last week was, as discussed, the turning point in most of the contestants’ composure. They no longer have any.
As Sam and his man pashmina boarded the taxi, the rest of them barely contained their mutual loathing.
I never noticed before, but in that last title board with Alan in profile, you can really enjoy his nasal hair. Like Axminster, it is.
“It’s an acorn” says Alan about the £250k he’s planning on investing in one of the dollops on offer. An acorn??! Made of platinum and presumably containing the secret to life, the universe and everything at its centre.
Oh, it’s not just children’s parties according to the continuity, it’s teenagers. This puts a whole new and delicious spin on things. Cue the candidates trying to sound current and street. *licks lips*
I’m watching the end of Cuffs, as per. Excellent acting all round but my goodness, I don’t need this much bleak on a Wednesday evening. We’ve got The Apprentice to get through yet.
Are we gathered in? Have you managed to find your way here?
Too many cooks (party planners)
This week, the remaining pea-brains must prove to Lord Sugar that they can plan parties for children with rich parents. Because it’s very important that a honed money-printing machine with dead eyes and no soul be good with children.
It made more sense when this was the corporate away-day planning task because at least the numpties would have some idea about catering to their fellow numpties with regal and majestic jousting tournaments and so on. Remember Doctor Leah?
Tune in (here and on BBC1) from just before 9pm for pass the parcel (blame), pin the tail (blame) on the donkey (other guy) and Alan using at least one of the candidates as a human pinata. I’ll bring the jelly.
