‘This is outrageous!’ screams Alan as the opening montage strikes up. You half expect ‘this is contagious!’ to follow as it sounds so similar to Jeremy from Peep Show’s electro smash. We’re reminded it’s week 5 and suddenly you realise just how much of your life has whizzed past since Nicholas ‘De Lacy’ Brown was booted out. Over a month. Frightening.
We’re at that stage where it becomes harder to hate the contestants. The ones who made ridiculous claims about how competent they are have already blown apart the illusion by acting like nitwits and we’re left with a bunch of misguided, sympathetic goons and a couple of people you vaguely like but would never want to meet. Apart from Jennifer, who had barely said a word up to this point.
Claire is first to rise in the Apprentice house, making a cup of tea whilst dressed as a furry tent, chatting with Jenny about how best to stab the others – in their sleep, while their back is turned or in the shower?
Oh shit! It’s the doorbell!
And there he is, all wrinkles, pinstripe and sneers – Alan Sugar arrives for the spaz doorstep challenge. He asks them all to get changed and some kind of bongo mania kicks in as they run around getting changed. Some arrive fully dressed, some arrive in their jim-jams and Raef arrives dressed as a 1920’s cad, with smoking jacket and vigorously parted hair. Lucinda appears to be wearing a sporran.
Though only half awake they’re told they’re going to be making ice cream, then selling it to buyers. As promised last week, Claire is designated Team Leader and she manages Kevin the gerbil, Alex the weasel, Sara the shrew, Michael the hamster and Jenny the gutter-rat.
On the other team, Lucinda is asked to lead mortal enemy Helene, Raef the enigmatic twerp, Lee the sweetest Nazi in Essex, lovely Lindi and the best Salesperson in Europe – Jennifer. And in this episode, we actually got to discover where that claim came from. Hold tight, let’s dive in.
Claire starts her first meeting with a softly, softly approach. She can overpower people, she says. She realises that, so please pull her up on it. The thought of being overpowered by Claire is too scary to contemplate. Imagine, if you will, Claire dressed only in her fluffy white dressing gown, pinning you down on a stained lino floor as the kettle whistles in the background…
*shudder*
Some ideas for flavourings are brain-stormed, which (in layman’s terms) means ‘kicked about’. Vodka and coke ice cream is Claire’s first idea, to give you an idea of how brilliantly things start. Eventually they settle for Berrymania, Chocolate orange and Cider and elderflower, which all sound alright. As Alex, Kevin and Sara get busy making the stuff, Claire, Jenny and George Michael Costanza Sophocles set about finding 50 oranges as the ingredients demand. Oh – and they manage a couple of sales calls as well – which is handy as that’s their bloody job, the idiots.
Over on Lucinda’s team, everything ticks over like well-oiled clockwork. They talk about the ice creams they might make and it’s even worse than before. Ginseng. Carrot. Gooseberry fool. How about, chips in Lee McLee McQueen, a cuppa tea flavour?! I can think of nothing more revolting. Silly boy. They settle on – and this left my jaw on the floor – toffee apple (fair enough), cosmopolitan (eh?) and avocado with chilli (retch, wince, vomit).
Lucinda, Lee and Kevin make the product. Lee seems particularly in his element, whooping with delight as he makes the product. He’s found his niche. It’ll be hard to drag him from the factory floor. He was MADE to work in a hairnet and white-coat. Go Lee!
In the meantime, Raef, Jennifer and the number two for the task, young, naive Lindi go crazy on the phones, selling like crazy and growing more and more confident. I completely missed their ultimate error, which was to offer exclusivity to every single buyer without actually considering that might mean something and was logically impossible. It was ‘best salesperson in Europe’ Jennifer who set the ball rolling on this, clearly forgetting every trick she’d ever learned in a mad moment which weirdly sustained itself throughout the day. Lindi did notice, but did nothing about it and so, sadly she received the boardroom blitz when Lucinda lost the task – which was a shock, to say the least.
Happily though, Jennifer got a good hiding too – which may hopefully have brought her down a peg or two. She is the lady cyborg to Alex’s T2000. They’d need a jump start if they ever fell into bed, those two. Spark plugs and sockets… it doesn’t bear pondering.
So somehow Claire (one of the most questionable of the lot) won the task. Cleverly edited so that twist followed twist upon twisted twist, I didn’t expect the outcome (again). When they learned they’d done it, Alex showed his ’smile-face’ – a collection of facial movements involving combined grimaces, morbid grinning and rictus smirking which was completely inhuman.
They won despite trying to test their product on a confused yoga class, a couple of pissed men, in a pub and finally a collection of pensioners. Alex got a massive deal which was then hijacked by the other team but ultimately a deal with the Hoxton Bar & Grill got them the cash they needed.
Without any other choice, after exposing Helene as a two-faced twat in front of Alan and the others, Lucinda dragged Lindi and Jennifer back with her and Lindi, as the one responsible for sales, got sacked – which is a shame as she’s better for TV than monotone monster Jennifer.
Some lovely destruction of the language this week. My favourite was Claire saying that, pre-boardroom she could feel the ‘guillotine literally inches away from her neck’ which was interesting as there was no guillotine in the shot. Perhaps she is a hallucinating mad-woman.
If only they’d punish them every time for making these rudimentary grammar errors. Maybe if Jenny had really been made to breastfeed two other contestants and Claire had actually been forced to have her block knocked off by a hanging French blade, the others might stop abusing our finest idioms.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
106 Comments
Swines: Nice one, but I have to disagree on one point.
A month or so in and I do still hate some of them – Jenny the Chin, Claire the Cow, Michael the arrogant arse, Alex with his Lynx model looks and general weasleness, Kevin for being Kevin.
But above all I’ve developed an irrational hatred for Lee McQueen – a road-rage incident waiting to happen if ever there was one. He thinks he’s Steve McQueen, but is more like Gordon McQueen.
Oh, and apart from the kooky blonde, who needed to show more steeliness against Jennifer and Lindi, they’ve all taken business lessons off Fry and Laurie (John and Peter in Uttoxeter, mainly).
Damn them all to hell and back!
Ok, maybe I was being a bit charitable. But the fun of judging a book by its cover has evaporated, now it’s a cringe-fest as they all fall apart or fluke it on a weekly basis.
Alex is just hilariously awful. Bet he’s got no mates.
Lee McQueen is just a very kind Nazi.
Grovesy, do you read Andrew Collins’ Apprentice review, by the way?
You will like it…
http://wherediditallgoright.com/BLOG/
Swines: I do read Andrew Collins. It is part of my morning ritual. I keep trying to leave comments but failing miserably though.
It’s easy sunshine. Just click on ‘Name/URL’ and put your name in the first one and the web address of your blog in the other one. Piece of piss. Well done on the Guardian blog, btw, I hope they’re paying you for that.
I know its a piece of piss but I’m an idiot.
I’ve tried again, fingers crossed.
(No payment for The Guardian, but a bit of exposure never hurt no-one – hopefully).
You are in your local pub and the apprentices and a film crew enter asking you to try some ice cream. You are polite and affable and explain that you have had a couple of bottles of wine and maybe your palate is not at it’s optimum to give fair appraisal. You however after some encouragement from the apprentices, try the ice cream and give some feedback. One bloke says in an antipodean accent that his sister in law might like it, the other says he can taste it through his nose (!) and that his ex might like it.
These guys an Antipodean (sounded like one anyway) and an Englishman (sounded like one) who were enjoying a quiet glass of wine down the pub then find AS completely disparaging their efforts referring to them as “2 drunks”, and suggesting they were “2 blokes who had bowled out of a pub”.
Disgraceful! What is it coming too if you cannot go to your local pub have a chat with a mate and then find yourself characterised as being on the slippery slope and your opinion as not competent?
Mikey: I couldn’t agree more. I think it is the presence of a TV camera, people tend to forget themselves and go with the flow rather than say what they actually feel.
If they’d come up to me I’d have sent them packing – but I don’t get out much, so they probably wouldn’t.
After a few down the pub, I find that my opinions are incisive, my wit and charm prevalent and it that it would be a great idea to marry the barmaid, because she is sooo beautiful.
Why did they go up to two slightly pissed men when they could have asked the barman if they could test the whole pub?
Sophocles is such a berk.
Swines — Good point.
Also after they tested the whole pub, they could try and sell the ice cream to the pub as a desert for their menu.
Mind you the pub did not look too crowded.
Ahhh! Schoolboy error…i meant dessert. The pub may have been deserted.
If that guillotine was inches away from her neck (presumably with a furious French revolutionary straining at the rope), would it actually cut her head off? I thought the principle of these machines was to create sufficient downforce on the blade by means of its decent. By being inches away, I doubt it’d sever her spine, let alone take her head off.
That would be a shitter, in Claire’s case.
Descent.
Maybe she was speaking in a frozen moment, the blade actually in descent and about to slice her noggin from its chubby stump?
Or maybe she’s just as thick as pigshit – I’d opt for the latter.
Who’s your favourite to win, NC?
Yes, descent.
My favourite to win? I dunno. They’re hardly jumping out at you, are they? I’m hoping it’ll be McQueen.
Good review this. Your best yet.
Much appreciated.
Lee McQueen is an interesting individual (according to the unreliable edits).
He’s your salt of the earth squaddie type, but with sadistic, precision violence behind those glassy eyes.
Mind you in football parlance it is a game of two halves. Lucinda is playing better and has redeemed herself to some extent. The Irish girl is not looking so good. The rest seemed to have quiet performances. LEE is the hardman on the pitch, but as yet the red mist has not descended.
I’ve had fights with Lee McQueen-type characters before. I’ve always come off worse. Lee McQueens do not feel pain. Lee McQueens will crush you. Fear the Lee McQueens.
I, too, have been twatted by a Lee McQueen.
It seems that stopping Lee McQueens from twatting others is a twattable offense.
I’ve had a few slaps from Lee McQueens n’all.
There’ll be an episode where Lee McQueen will get drunk in a Yates bar and kick the crap out of someone for spilling his bird.
I remember one Lee McQueen attacked me in a kebab shop in Aldershot (the spiritual home of ALL Lee McQueens) for ‘lookin’ at ‘im fanny’. Damn near broke my back. Mind you, I deserved it, as I had indeed ‘looked at ‘im fanny’ for all of .006 of a second.
Lee McQueens are like Rottweillers – don’t look ‘em in the eyes.
The Lee McQueen that twatted me was accompanied by two other Lee McQueens, all of them Marines, and as the main one twatted me the others stood by watching and drinking with a glazed expression.
Can I just point out – they aren’t different Lee McQueens – they’re all the same one.
True, I was being beaten up at the time, must be why I confused them for other ones really.
I thought there were loads of Lee McQueens. I suppose it makes sense that it is just Lee McQueen dishing out the pain.
Can you imagine the rage that floods his mind when he thinks about the immigrants taking HIS – Lee McQueen’s – job?
I can imagine it. It’d be like last night when he went mental:
Excuse me, but that’s BULLSHIT
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/Sunk/leemcqueen.jpg
“Lee McQueen is just a very kind Nazi”
Where do all these Nazi comments come from? Has Lee said something racist during any of the 5 shows so far?
Actually I am now getting a soft spot for Lee, as my previous TV crush (Simon Smith) got the boot last week.
I find Lee preferable to moany, morose, malevolent Alex, who comes across as evil personified, talking behid all the contestant’s backs, ready to backstab anyone.
That image reminds me of that Chuck Norris thing:
Lee McQueen doesn’t sleep. He waits.
There is only one Lee McQueen – and thank Ffff…Frances The Fake PA for that.
Lee McQueen should not be confused with Alexander MacQueen, the rather efette Merthyr Tydfil-born fashion designer.
If you do, Lee will probably punch you to the floor, kick you and then drive his BMW X5 over you several times until it starts to really hurt. Then he’ll tell you: “Its for your own good, regard this as one of life’s valuable lessons.”
I really don’t like Lee.
If Lucinda was project manager every week, stood her ground more, then she could win.
But she won’t be, she can’t and she probably wouldn’t.
Where do all these Nazi comments come from? Has Lee said something racist during any of the 5 shows so far?
To give the Nazis their due, they went way over and above racism, Sharon. Racism was just one of the many many ways in which Nazis expressed their individuality. Another was crushing the human spirit under the jackboot of conformity – that’s what Lee McQueen wants to do. After he’s finished watching the Chelsea match with the lads, o’ course.
Sharon – so you’ve forgotten Simon already?
Oh the loyalty!
No – he’s not racist – but to me he looks like a Nazi Stormtrooper. Those Aryan blue eyes, the square jaw, the look of brutish malevolence.
The fact that he’d break your leg during a friendly kickabout.
That sort of thing.
Obviously if he supports Arsenal I take it all back.
I could imagine Lee McQueen would follow the Chopper Harris method when playing Saturday afternoon football. No quarter would be given to either the opposition or his team mates.
Try and control your loins when you read this, I almost knocked over my desk from the underside, if you get my drift.
http://www.myparkmag.co.uk/articles/television/the-apprentice/the-apprentice-jennifer-celerier-cheated-on-her-husband-with-lodger.html
Bugger. The missus is in the room, so I can’t give this article the due attention it deserves. Damn you, Swineshead.
Doesn’t that go more to show that they shouldn’t have shopped at IKEA?
NC – Wankbank it.
JQW – This blog is a no-advertising zone (unlike Napoleon’s) (unless we’re ripping the piss out of a crap ad) so please desist from promoting the affordable, quality furnishings of that fantastic Swedish manafacturer and retail outlet – if you would.
I’m really sorry, I guess the low low prices and great value on everything in store today just carried me away. I promise not to go on about fantastic deals on furnishings, glassware and home design on here any more. I’m really sorry.
Sale ends Sunday.
That’s better.
So we’ve all been beaten up by Lee McQueen – any other Apprentices we’ve all met? I’ve had a girlfriend pinched off me by Alex Wotherspoon in the past, as it ‘appens.
Jennifer Maguire once obsessed about me. Oh and Nicholas de Lacy-Brown got bullied at school. I may have casually joined in a couple of times.
I had my lunch money stolen off me by a girl like Claire every day for 4 years whilst at primary school.
When I commuted regularly Michael would sit in the same train carriage and be an all-round obnoxious and laothsome loudmouth.
All the others inhabit offices, newsrooms, shops, restaurants, hotels, parks, cars, planes, trains and every other part of your life and manage to cast a dark, depressing cloud over your day…probably.
I see Raef going into overpriced restaurants alot.
I often work with recruitment consultants so I see hundreds of Raefs. They rarely end up as rich as they think they deserve to be (in fact, never)
I once saw Ruth Badger on a train. It was one of the most underwhelming experiences of my entire life.
He’s an entrepeneur in property.
Raef is my impression of piqued, but with more class.
You’re several light years off the mark there, JQW. Completely unlike one another.
BTW: I noticed in last night’s program that there was an excerpt from Television’s great album Marquee Moon used as background music. Have they used this before?
I watched The Apprentice last night and it made me cross. Again.
I think that there should be a new rule in the boardroom, where liars are confronted with snippets of film showing them uttering the comments they deny they ever said, sort of like a 3rd umpire. Otherwise people could be erroneously fired.
Clarry…They’d all have gone by now then….leaving the 2 drunk guys with a £100,000 job.
John, if you’d said that to my fucking face you’d be one testicle down
Good call Clarry – sort of like a goal-line camera. Helene’d be out on her ear if they did that – the boggly eyed lying poo.
Mikey – I know it’s not practical but people should be brought to task. They are such fucking liars. Grrr!
Piqued – Tell me your Profanisaurus entries. PLEASE?
I have a few, Skipper’s tablecloth, Piss Pregnant, one they used the premise of but didn’t credit, along the lines of ‘Onan The Barbarian’ but it appeared as something the same but slightly different, though not enough to make me a little livid, and one more due in the next issue, though it’s not confirmed yet.
SH – Exactly – Helene’s a prime example! People might complain that it’d slow down the flow of the boardroom bollockings, but if they can do it in rugby and cricket then so can AS. Maybe they could make it into a feature – each person in the boardroom has one chance to confront someone, gambling when best to play the card.
Piqued – Gimme the definitions too…
ST -a tissue for wanking into (catch semen etc)
PP -needing a piss so much it makes one tumescent
OTB -wanking off with a studded leather glove or suchlike
Liking PP best.
Oh, they’re all good, yeah
*saunters off*
*gets stabbed*
Excellent, it’s possible to rile people by comparing them to the Apprentice. Job done, I’d say. Naturally I don’t consider you such a doofus as Raef.
He’s in a league of his own.
*tumbleweed*
Ha ha! I agree with all of this! And in celebration, why not join in the fun by trying to solve my incredibly difficult riddles? The first prize is a Spitfire, and you only need an advanced knowledge of engineering to be in with a chance. Fuck The Apprentice, get done diddling riddles instead.
http://bpperry3.blogspot.com/
I would’ve entered your competition but it doesn’t make any sense.
I wouldn’t have, JQW is right by the way
My competition does make sense, Swineshead. If you know the answer to the riddle, that is. Why not try taking a guess that ISN’T a crankshaft from a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine? Eh?
And I’m keeping schtum on whether Wagonwheel’s right or not, Piqued. You should enter yourself – you might win a Spitfire. That’s right – a SPITFIRE.
I’ve already given away a car to the mysterious Mr. Tits, don’t forget.
So then, who’d like a nice carton of avocado with a hint of chilli ice cream….?
I never got a car – NC is a fucking liar.
Don’t believe his crap – he just wants the blog stats.
I really enjoyed the entertainment yesterday and found the shock of punching the air when Lucinda’s team snatched the cinema chain from Agent Orange hair, Michael and Claire. It quite reminded me of my behaviour when watching “International It’s A Knockout” or Juex Sans Frontera Sports or something when I was a kid, that was plenty of passion and excitement as GB once again failed to triumph.
That wasn’t Mr. Tits. Mr. Tits chose to gamble his Eurovison Song Contest DVD for a car, and won the car. I then gave him the car, and he can’t prove I didn’t. So there.
Win a Spitfire here:
http://bpperry3.blogspot.com/
From the identity of Mr Chips to NC’s response, it all seems far too fishy for my liking.
Mr Chips is currently on strike, surely?
If you can call wandering around London with a whistle and a placard trying to get money you’re not entitled to ’striking’. The police should take their baton charging training out for a spin, I reckon.
It kills me the way Sugar always says “You wasn’t doing anything.” Surely speaking the language you do business in is rule number one.
I’m with you on that, Richard. Being good with figures doesn’t mean you can abandon the Queen’s English, willy nilly.
Paul, I’m surprised the Guardian aren’t paying you for that fine blog you wrote them. I thought there was a fixed fee – modest, but more than nothing. You ought to be paid for it.
Here, here. Or Hear, hear. Whichever one it is. I agree with AC is essentially what I’m saying.
P’raps they’re short of money? It does seem a bit off not to pay the man.
GUARDIAN – PAY THE MAN!
This is as indecent a situation as Winston’s salary in comparison to Mickey’s. Swineshead should pull his finger out, frankly.
What’s it got to do with me? All I’ve done is help Winston with my petition.
On another note, Andrew Collins used to do a bit of writing for Eastenders, so if anyone could have chucked a few lines (and lines = quid) Winston’s way, it was him.
It’s hear, hear – I made that mistake the other day SH.
I’ve never been bothered by the absence of lines for Winston, only the absence of money in the poor man’s wallet. Mickey’s said about twenty five lines this year, yet still walks away with £100,000 a year (probably). I ask you, yes you, is that fair? AND he’s never had a car crash into his stall.
IT’S A FUCKING DISGRACE.
Thankyou for the Clarry-fication.
AHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHA
Oh.
Ho ho!
And Paul’s money, or lack of it, IS your responsibilty as far as I’m concerned. Don’t try wriggling out of it.
I had nothing to do with Groves’s liaison with the Guardian. In fact, I think he’s been incredibly disloyal working for them when his job is weekly comments on our apprentice blogs. The bastard.
That’s right, worm your way out of it. Next you’ll be telling me you had nothing to do with that sandwich you gave me that was full of all dog dirts. That bloody thing rendered me blind AND mad, you evil little bounder. And all because I crushed you and that damned guinea pig in a door.
But you go ahead and deny it now. Deny it like you’re denying your involvement in Paul’s money problems.
You’re a bastard too.
Look at you. You with your eyes and your sanity. Damn you!
You want my advice, readers? Do not cross this man. Learn from my misery, ladies and gentlemen. Learn that, if you cross Swineshead, you end up crashing into walls and thinking you’re Napoleon.
What’s all this got to do with Lee McLee McQueen? And the Queen?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/Sunk/leemcqueen.jpg
Play your ‘THAT’S A LIE’ card NC!
Is that Napoleon as played by Arthur Lowe?
Nothing. I just wanted to warn these people about you. Lee McQueen has every reason to be concerned when you’re about. Like me, he was born without taste buds, and that’s an Achilles Heel you’ve exploited before. I could have been eating meat paste for all I could taste of them dog dirts.
Clarry – I’m blind and insane.
Jim – I’m blind and insane.
You are very good at typing for a blind and insane man.
And illustration.
I use one of those special machines. Those ones.
Don’t question this.
I’m still laffing at the image of SH overturning his desk from the underside… That’s quite a feat!
Yes, the first succesful horse penis transplant was performed on Swineshead in 1998. I’ve heard he can play skittles with it.
1998 was quite a year. And Napoleon’s a bastard.
A blind insane bastard. Don’t forget that, readers.
*falls down stairs*
*blames it on the Duke of Wellington*
Well if the Duke will leave his wellies on the stairs
Helene’s facial expressions when she was trying to pretend that Lucinda was lying to Jennifer were worth the admission money alone. She looked like she was trying to shit out an electric eel whilst simultaneously playing a Jedi mind trick on Suralan.
Alex wotherspoon will not win. no way.
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