Roll up, roll up, it's another week in the crazy world of marketing and sales executives! Or rather wannabe sales executives, desperate to work for Amstrad, leading retailer in um, the Amstrad Em@iler, and the no! Wait! Come back, it'll be fun, honest! Seriously. Well, we live in hope.
As usual, I'll be updating constantly from 9pm and carrying on until the end of 'You're Fired' on BBC2. Refresh the page for new updates and to read new comments, and if you've anything thrilling, spilling or - god willing - funny or interesting that you've noticed about this week's public display by Sir Alan and his merry Surallun band (the candidates), do let me (and everyone else) know in the comment box below...
9.02: *Drums fingers*... Tum te tum...
This beginning section, the introduction and rehash that is the 'previously on The Apprentice' section, takes longer and longer every week. Logically, I suppose. One imagines that by the time we reach week ten (how many episodes are there, again?) there'll be 45 minutes of 'Previously On' two minutes of footage in which someone says something mind-numbingly markettingy and someone else has a bit of a shout, then Surallun will point, say 'Yeh Fiyud!', there will be a five minute section on 'Next week on the Apprentice' and then we'll all go home for tea. Ooh, it's actually starting.
9.04: The phone rang, and the mysterious lady on the end of the line, claiming to be form the office of Surallun, ordered them all to go to St James' first thing in the morning. They all seem terribly surprised and nervous by the order. Why not just ask the production crew for a schedule? I think that would help. I am going to write to them ("House of Idiots, Kensington") and suggest this.
9.06 "They say the business of art is the art of business", he says, clearly not understand what that means exactly. Which is fine, as the way he says it, it means exactly nothing. He keeps talking.
Increasingly, his voice sounds to me like a hairy boiled sweet stuck in a garbage disposal unit. I take none of it in, sadly. I think they might be selling art.
9.07: "Some of the art " in Christies, declares Tre, made him sick. No half measures with you, are there, lad?
"There was a white plain canvas with a cello on one side and a lamp on the other side for 3 grand, when you could buy them all seperately for 60 quid."
I don't want to sound like a ponce, but where does he buy his cellos? Was it really a cello? Was it actually some jelly? You could buy some jelly and a lamp and a canvas for £60, I think. Although not from a *good* shop, obv. But that much jelly would make you sick, for sure.
Is this Tre's Moment of the Week?
9.09: Christina leads Stealth. Natalie Eclipse. Christina looks smug, but not quite setlled. Natalie looks like she's pooing ice marbles.
Again we have no idea how the team leaders were chosen. There's no footage of them dicussing the matter, as there was in earlier episodes, so we have to assume the matter has been taken out of their hands and people have been alloted on the basis of - whether the tasks play to their skills or not - being good television.
Jolly, jolly good.
9.12: We've had a pop-artty fashion photographer first, with shots of lady-lips sucking on dice, and honey, and balls. Snooker, I think. Katie wanted to 'enter her world'. Which is a bad sign, as perhaps it would be better to want to 'sell her photographs'.
Stealth are taken to a photographers studio, and shown portraits of his family dressing in animal masks lying on various roads. They are his Roadkill Family Album. Good pictures, striking, nice use of colour, and, um, composition, and all those things, basically very modern and a cross between Martin Parr, and Jeff Koons, and Sylvanian Families. Not everybody's cup of tea, but you know...
Tre is quite literally sneering while looking at the photographer's work. He looks like someone's just held a plate of freshly boiled cat vomit under his not unremarkable nose. How very polite.
9.13: A horse photographer! Where's Katie when you need her?! She'll be lapping it up. If one does lap from a nosebag, I'm not sure. It's not terribly royal, anyway. See, here I am, trying to decide if Katie is Princess Anne or her mount, and the programme is rolling on without us.
Christina loves Tim, and his horsies, and his client list of 100 people. She begs him to be theirs. He will not commit, but you can see he likes her. Surallun's sidekick Nick is terribly impressed with the 'bold move'.
09.15: Beautiful. Everyone else is worrying about the thing they're going to sell, and Natalie appears to be spending hours on finger food. That's right, Nat - the way to an art collectors wallet is straight through his fruit kebab. Especially if he's looking at high definition road kill.
Simon seems to be being completely ignored: "But shouldn't we choose the art? What about the art? The ar.." "I'm thinking crisps rather than prezels? Whatchoothink?" Says Natalie.
Lovely editing going on here. Sorry, that was a terribly Meeja thing to say, wasn't it? Well, when in Rome...
9.17: Katie is scooping all high-pretention awards, while seemingly having No Comprehension of Art WHATSOEVER.
"There work is story of the ocean and the life within" says the photographer, as we look at a photograph of a woman having her nips clamped by a lacivious lobster. "Ooooh!!!" Says Katie, unconvincingly.
9.20: After visiting five photographers, each team has to choose the two that they want to work with. Both teams choose, what a big shock, the lippy lady and the horsie man. The horsey man chooses Eclipse, which is fair, as Stealth - led by Natalie - ran in, compared one of his powerful stallions to Nat's highlights - and buggered off again. Stealth net the lippy lady with the overpriced shiny soft porn.
And they each have someone else as well. Um...
Ah - Stealth have the fish/nipple artiste, and Eclipse have taken someone else who I'm not sure we've met yet.
9.22: Adam and Natalie clearly haven't decided to put their differences aside after last week. They very obviously, overtly despise each other.
I admit, I'm not that keen on him myself. I'd quite like to find out where Adam works, selling cars, HARD. I'm not really in the market for a car right now, but if that man ever tried to sell me anything I'd stick whatever it was up his nose. And that would be dangerous for both of us.
Anyway. Luckily for Natalie, Katie seems to hate him as well. The quote:
"If Adam could just go back to the car sales lot and get run over, my day would be absolutely made"
Team, anyone? TEAM! Give me a T! Give me a... oh alright.
9.24: Interesting. The lippy lady, in a vote of no confidence whatsoever, has refused to give her client list to Natalie and Team Loser. In light of this, they have gone out into the streets of London with fliers, approaching wealthy businessmen and asking them if they'd like to see some art. That's a silly idea.
Back at the gallery, Lohit and Natalie are putting up the prints while Adam phones around art socities in the yellow pages. Well, he mainly does that, inbetween getting bored, trying to help the others, and being put back in his box.
In a talking head, Natalie reveals that she doesn't like him. Oh Really?
9.25: Tre, who, we have recently learnt, is not a fan of Darwinism, is stomping around in the basement of their gallery, shouting about 'Nipples and Fish!' This is interesting.
9.28: After yet another set-to with a team mate, Tre gives his considered analysis of the argument. "Limited intelligence has a habit of flapping its mouth, unfortunately" says the man who never stops yapping.
I'm conflicted over this. The man is clearly very upset and very uncomfortable dealing with the subject matter he's been given, but instead of handling this in a mature, professional way, approaching a team leader and saying 'Listen, I have objections to this type of material, I swap roles with someone else', he's huffing and puffing and screaming 'Titties! Titties EVERYWHERE!'. Which comes across as merely petulant and lightly insane.
So while I can forgive him for having reasonable objections, I can't forgive him for refusing to rationally raise them, and for frankly being an enormous pointy-headed-penis over it all.
9.29: Is This Lip-Photo lady a joke? She's either been asked to behave like an appalling diva, or my god, she's actually like that. Wah.
9.31: Tre's making up his own interpretation of his given photographer's work, having decided he doesn't like the interpretation of the photographer who took them. Now, I'm not saying he's not quite convincing - but I AM saying he's talking whole bucketloads of fishgiblets.
9.33: An appearance by Fi Glover of Radio 4, and the comment box goes wild! As Wiid says, you have to wonder who on the production team was fluffing out the guest list.
Meanwhile, the hard selling candidates are selling with calculators, and still not knowing anything, Anything about what they're doing.
9.37: They keep saying they're in Hoxton. They're not, are they? I thought it was officially renamed Trendy Hoxton about four years ago. By, like, the government. Or The Guide, or something.
9.38: Tre's quote of the week: "It was a task that challenged me, but I found out that I'm good at just another thing, really. Another thing to add to the list of 'things I do particularly well'." Brilliant. I hate him very big much. But he Must Stay.
9.39: The selling is over, and loudly, from the sofa, a voice is complaining that we haven't seen Jadine at all this week. Not a word. Not a peep. Or 'That little scottish one' (I think he means Ghazal). Which is a good point. Jadine, Jadine, the Branding Queen (see episodes 1&2) must have a doozy of an episode coming up next time...
9.43: After a very short all-group deconstruction, it is revealed that Stealth, having sold 14 pictures and made £4,597.00 have utterly trouned Eclipse, who sold three small prints and a bag of peanuts and made £2.46. Or something.
Go Katie, with your 'softly softly, talk about the art, connect with the feelings of the viewer, explain the concept' approach. That's not art dealing, that's a hand-held gallery guide voiced by, oh I don't know, Fi Glover or something.
9.48: Oooh, who's going to go? Adam? He was very negative, and grumpy, and all of those things, but he did, at least sell something, and broadly do what he was told.
Surallun is very harsh about their choice of artist. Harsh but fair, I think he - and the Oxford Dictionary of Cliches - would say. The woman who had never sold a piece of art before, who wouldn't give them her contact list, and who wanted to charge more for her pieces than anyone else. Idiots. I said they were idiots. I said.
9.50: NO! Natalie's bringing Adam and Lohit into the boardroom. Adam, fine, everyone was expecting that, but Lohit? What's he done? He's been quietly supportive. Is That A Crime?
9.52: Surallun asks Natalie why she brought Lohit. Yeah, lady? Why Lohit? Answer him! Apparently it was hard to bring fill that third seat, and Lohit was the weakest. No, Lohit wasn't one of your best mates.
Then she and Adam have another argument.
Meh. I want Natalie to go.
Don't get me wrong, I'd still stick a car up his nose given the first opportunity, but in the Kingdom of the Annoying, the least annoying is, if not king, at least not as annoying as the other annoying people, who are more annoying.
Sorry, that metaphor was going to be a lot wittier when it started out. Bugger.
9.55: Adam, says Surallun, you seem to be in dispute the whole time. I think he means 'in disputes', but whatev. "Adam, you seem to be in dispute all the time" "No I'm not" "Yes you are, you're in dispute..." "No I'm not!" Well done, Adam. Cracking work, duck.
But who? Who?!
9.57: YES! It's Natalie!
You know what, I don't think I've been so worked up about this since it started.
But Katie should have been in there, and she overpowered Natalie, and Natalie didn't take her in. And Natalie didn't like Adam, and that turned from a professional anger to attitude, and bullying, and it was just silly.
And Yay. I was right. Hurrah.
10.00 And, over to BBC2 for the dull-as-dishwater 'You're Fired'
"And we'll find out why the business of art broke Natalie's heart" Says Adrian Chiles.
Someone find his scriptwriters! Someone shoot those blighters!
10.10: A high-minded discussion on art is being held, which is fine as at least this week they have the panel for that. Basically not Vanessa Feltz.
Who is the panel?
It is outspoken art critic David Lee - and that's not just my opinion, or in fact Adrian's, I've just looked him up and it's the first three words of his wikipedia entry: 'Outspoken art critic David Lee'. And then Fi Glover, obviously, she was at the gallery and is a big favourite around here. And Alvin Hall, TV presenter and art collector. Apparently.
And they say no to the lips paintings. Well, that's that then.
10.20: We get - as WilliamT points out in the comments - a full 30 seconds of unseen footage. Woo! Lucky us!
Seriously, in a half hour programme, and as much footage as they must have, that's just silly. And it's not to allow a whole lot more discussion, because there's a hell of a lot of clips. They're just old clips.
No, to be fair, the clip of Natalie's mum and dad saying how much they love her we haven't seen before, and that's very nice, but not quite what I'm looking for.
Still, Nat likes it, and she's having a little cry. She's trying to look like she's not, but she is.
Oh, it's the Tre Hour. Hang on.
22.26: The producers of 'You're Fired' love Tre, with a passion. An enormous passion. A warm fuzzy, shall we say (that's what Paul would say) Minutes and minutes of a person who neither won, lost, nor came close to losing. You have to imagine how they're going to engineer to keep him out of the boardroom for as long as possible.
Who do the panel pick for winner? Well, Alvin though Simon was slow burner. Fi has 'warmed' to Paul. And Outspoken Art Critic David Lee wants Katie to win.
The audience hisses, but OACDL may have it on the nose. I'm still going for Lohit, myself.
10.30: And that's it.
The audience, as if anyone cares, voted that Alan made the right decision to fire Natalie. Which, as always, makes no difference whatsoever.
The end credits is as always lightly stuffed with crosspromotion. Natalie will be on Breakfast on something something.
No mention of the Radio Five Live podcast, though? Maybe it's going really badly. Sorry if that's the case. If they're ever stuck for avid-pro-Apprentice guests, you know where I am.
I've only called them all idiots... (hang on) ...eleven times. That's hardly ANYTHING, is it?
And it's all over. For this week See you next week
Thank you, everyone, and goodnight.
