Next week...
All authors will be delighted to hear that, next week, the candidates will be tasked with creating a children’s book. That’s a book, in two days. Lovely. Can’t see those being shite.
Join me here, clinging to a small drawing done by my child, trying to remember the good in the world, same time next week.
She says thank you and she should thank him because he’s saved her from being known forever more as the woman on The Apprentice who wore those suits.
Selina is given an eleventh hour reprieve and Scott knows he was never really going anyway. I enjoyed how Gary switched so quickly from slagging off Selina to punching the air when he sees her coming through the door. Apprentice candidates should never wear shorts during this process. It diminishes their power base.
You're fired
There’s no way Scott is going. I think it’s Selina. I hope it is. I really want Ruth to stay.
As the plinky piano of doom builds towards the first of several false crescendoes, the firing finger of GO AWAY is tragically aimed and launched at... Ruth.
“You couldn’t sell a bone to Battersea dogs’ home,” sneers Alan as Ruth tries and fails to get him to listen to her. I want him to stop talking.
Scott butts in and Alan lets him talk for longer than he’s ever let a girl. I know but come on.
Selina’s defence of her business track record is vehement. Alan and Scott both shut her down with their patronising head-pats. I might chuck myself in front of a show-jumping rabbit in a minute to make my point.
“I find you very unconcise,” says Selina to Ruth. I’ll just let that sit there.
Scott massively dithered, Selina got slammed by Claude and Karren and Ruth is enthusiastic but apparently ineffective as a capitalist drone. Who will be shoved into the pit of fire this week? Place your bets.
I’d push Selina but I bet it’s Ruth. She’s too reasonable.
Scott, the rotten splitter, is bringing back Ruth and Selina. The girls are taking the blame again. I am starting to become uneasy about this because they are all clearly as useless as each other. Equality in all things.
Elle blames their failure to secure the balloons. “They were a phenomenal product,” says Brett in a way that makes my heart bleed for him. His eyes dim as he says this. I’m sure they used to be blue.
Gary with his hair (solid mass) was a floating sales Exocet who hit a sum total of no targets. Ruth reacts in a very restrained way when Alan seems to tell her to sod off. Why is she here? She shouldn’t be here.
The boardroom
“You don’t get nine lives in this process,” smarms Alan. No one moves.
After a respectful pause, Scott starts defending and the first bluster of faux fury is aimed at Ruth’s jaunty lapels. He huffs and puffs about her “scenic route” approach to conversations. Ugh, almost like she has real human traits. What was she thinking?
Selina immediately jumps in when her assistance from Scott over that sale is called into question. Claude shuts her down as she fights for her life. Claude hammers in another nail, telling her she just didn’t seem that interested. Everyone else remains silent.
Back in the sad cafe (Holly Hunter hammering away at the keys just out of shot) Selina and Scott begin the post mortem. But we hear very little of it. Before we know it, we’re back in the boardroom and everyone looks irked.
Scott and team retreat to the pleather sofas without as the smug dickheads of Versatile kiss Mo Farrah’s behind in a frightful manner and pull stupid poses in their sports day outfits. I hurt for them all.
The money
Claude and Karrren run through the figures for both teams. It turns out the dog sofas were not, as predicted, a total bust. Team Versatile walk off with it and get an exclusive training session with Mo Farrah.
Some of them look honoured and delighted but most of them are sad there’s no rooftop champagne and canapes.
Charleine, with a steely gaze fixed on Alan every time his eyes dart past her, makes it known clearly and loudly that she vetoed the dog beds but was over-ruled. Did everyone hear that? She didn’t want the dog beds.
Scott splutters about his reasons for choosing the cat sky scrapers. He sold three, to be fair. He gives Ruth her dues but in a back-handed way. Brett maintains the rod up his spine and talks like a police officer describing the scene of a crime in court. Is he an ex-cop?
“One of you will go walkies,” says Alan. Delivering this week’s zinger with so little enthusiasm I’m wondering how many takes that took. I’m going for 15.
The teams confess the sins of which products they picked. David defends the balloons and Karrren remarks on the chaos of their balloon customer influx. Since when did these people complain about an influx of customers?
Face to face with the top dog
Booh to the narrator for stealing a pet pun from the slavering chops of Sugar himself. It’ll be a different narrator next week. Mark my words.
Gary is brought over to the dog bed wasteland with 45 minutes to go. Sam lobs faux fur around while Vana stands on a box and hosts an impromptu fashion show for the frightening t-shirts.
Joseph somehow makes a small boy cry and kick him while selling the mum a balloon. Ruth is frustrated. Richard is defensive and confident simultaneously.
Ruth tries to sell via the studied method of spraying her target with a verbal torrent so constant that they retreat, drenched in her words and confused about how to leave the building.
Everyone including Claude cautions against her chatty approach. She’s not closing sales because she’s too busy yapping about her 21 year marriage. Ruth is my “too good for this” candidate. She’s happily married and talks to people as though they were actually human. She needs to run and run now, as fast as she can.
If the guest rapper on a 90s dance record with an inexplicably massive house in Miami happens to be in the exhibition hall, he’ll be in luck. Otherwise, he’s screwed.
I prefer Vana infinitely with a cute little nose and whiskers. Disappointed that Karrren hasn’t muched in and gone for full-face badger make-up in tribute to Alan.
Richard tries desperately to flog the ugly, over-priced pimp beds for canines. Massive, ugly things fit only for the corner of a utility room on Cribs.
The rabbit agility course is a terrific metaphor for The Apprentice. Dumb, well-groomed creatures jump through hoops for an eternity while someone judges their jumpability and whiskertitude for no reason. Achieving nothing.
Selina and Scott tussle extremely politely over a sale. She asks for his help and then, when the cash register rings, she says through gritted teeth, “It was my sale.” Can’t wait for that little row in the boardroom.
The creepy animal balloons with legs are selling like hot bags of air. At a fiver a pop they’re keeping the team ticking over but will that add up to a day trip to a luxury pet food factory with after-tour drinks in the staff canteen? The prizes have been pretty dreck so far, let’s face it.
The LED cat toy looks like fun but Brett’s patter about “sensory load” sounds like utter balls. One pet owner buys something for her cat’s birthday. I really do despair of all humans at times like this.
Selina and Ruth try to sell, was that the dog beds???, for £1,400. Did I hear that right? Hard to keep up. When will they learn? No one is that mad? I’ll resign from the human race if anyone is that mad.
The dog beds are the nought percent finance and nothing to pay ‘til 2019 pimped beds of any dog’s dreams. Big pleather things with faux fur throws. At least I hope it’s faux. Can’t imagine any dog wanting to lie on the skinned coat of their friend.
Scott massively patronises Ruth and praises her enthusiasm, giving her a key sales role. Is it me or are the women mostly being patted on the head this week?
“I don’t want to hear any more talk about balloons,” mutters Scott, hoping no one can hear him in case it’s a good call in which case he wants to make sure he’s said it, however quietly, on camera. So he does want them? Or doesn’t he? He’s even managed to confuse me about whether he’s behind the balloons or not.
It’s the next day and they’re off to the exhibition to sell their things to people. They have an hour to set up their pitch.
Natalie does a quick vox pop, registering her disapproval for Brett’s strategising. Scott and Brett want to go for the frightening t-shirts and some other tawdry accessory. When he’s asked whether to nix the balloons or not, he won’t or can’t commit. He can feel the finger hovering by his shoulder, like in that horror movie where the man gets a hand transplant from the dead pianist and they have a mind of their own.
Oh, you know what I mean.
I find animals quite boring. Is it just me?
Scott’s team are still receiving presentations from randoms. Cat paw-warmers, LED cat toys and walking animal ballons (is it time for medicine yet?) are all wheeled out and they whoop and awwww with real conviction.
David overrules Charleine’s cat tower preference and they bet the farm on some dog beds. On the other team, Ruth is all about the rabbit hutches and so it Selina. Their PM Scott ignores the women completely and defers to Gary. Fuming.
Richard talks up his selling abilities and Gary gawps gormlessly as a man tries to persuade him of the importance of a really tall rabbit hutch.
Over in the “cat sector” (which must also be a thing) Gary talks turkey with a woman selling cat towers. “They really stand out,” says Charleine, looking at the baskety things on wooden sticks and trying to muster some inner wow. It’s not working.
The eco-friendly poo-bag men smiles winningly in their matching sweaters at Bret as he tries to knock down their price. Imagine you woke up every day knowing you purpose in life was to sell biodegradable shit sacks. Only marginally more useful a purpose than typing live thoughts about a television programme.
High-vis chicken jacket!
The kalxon has sounded. This man with the beard has seriously just pitched the candidates flourescent outer-garments for poultry. Will the last person to leap into the sea please turn the sun off? Good heavens above.
David nods avidly at the man selling him revolting animal-face t-shirts. They are £25 each and frightening. I’ve never knowingly been frightened by a t-shirt.
Bret talks about the “rabbit sector” like that has ever been a thing. It may have been a band in the early 90s, but that’s it.
Some other candidates admit to owning a dog but they all know this places them in line for the guillotine if their team loses. Wouldn’t put it past any of them to quietly sneak off and kill their dogs to remove the incriminating evidence.
Scott says he has a little dog so he should be PM. Ruth is trampled in the rush to congratulate Scott on having a dog. She looks well peeved.
David is really passionate and blah business cappucino so pumped right now, so he gets the PM job for the team he is in which escapes me.
RIGHT, the statue of the cat leads him to the massively lucrative pet market. The candidates must choose the right products and take them to The London Pet Show for the selling of. There.
Char, April and Vana swap with three boys on the other team so that the competition is more mixed again. Sugar always treats this team-choosing as an incredible skill only he has. Check out my PE team-picking skillz.
My friend got married in Dr Samuel Johnson’s house. It USED to be lovely but I’ll never set foot in it again. Every series, this show ruins another beautiful landmark for me.
How on earth is he going to link Johnson to pets?
The final 15 awake at 5.30am to the tinkle of their reproduction vintage telephone. Natalie (flattened Roxette) tells the house they must muster and meet Sugar at the house of Samuel L Jackson in 40 seconds or they’ll all be gassed.
The candidate I can’t forget is Vana. She has an expression that permanently disapproves of everything from her nostrils down.
A quick recap reminds us of the Debacle Francais from last week. I think they should have to shovel shit every week, just as a leveller. That’s it, Jenny! Jenny was erroneously fired for not really being that bad at all and Vana dodged the bullet with VANA in big letters scribbled on the side.
If you died tomorrow, would your last thought be “Oh bum” I wasted last night watching The Apprentice, episode four, pet week? NO! Because it’s brilliant.
Looking at my chart of dullards, I actually can’t remember who was fired last week? Was it Chet? Glendular? Froog?
Here come the Apprentice candidates (in a minute), hair in heated rollers, testicles in hand (both genders), ready to grind their fellow man into the Axminster if it means a bearded grump with a bank account telling them they’re OK.
Pet week!
It’s the week we’ve all been waiting for: pet week! Because every episode must have a theme from which Alan can riff his tardy zingers. Expect dogs, bones, something fishy and a whole host of fur punnery as our candidates try to flog product at the London Pet Show.
Three words: high-vis chicken vests. I hope that’s not too spoilery but more something to look forward to. What a time we’re in for as the remaining *counts on fingers* 48 candidates squabble over squeaky toys and generally harangue London’s pet owners in a threatening manner.
Join me here just before 9pm and we’ll take this thing for a walk.
Updated
