Thursday 16 April 2009

The Apprentice - the sweet smell of success


OK, we know Paula probably wouldn’t have made the final. Too likeable. And can’t do maths.
But it seems so harsh to lose an otherwise reasonable candidate so early on. You could see Sr’alan doing some calculations of his own about the three victims in last night’s boardroom, though. Yasmina has won a task. And Ben? Well, he’s just good telly. Unfortunately, the little turd has “entertainment value” written all over him. Plus, he won a scholarship to Sandhurst – did you know that?
On the plus side for Paula, Sr’alan was weirdly complimentary about her product… he liked it so much we thought he was about to go and have a relaxing aromatic shower at one point.
You could tell Sr’alan would immeasurably rather have pointed his finger in opposing team leader Noorul’s direction – perhaps because as he was oozing contempt about Ignite’s soap, that soap was simultaneously oozing honey on to his suit.
Nick revealed a couple of weeks ago, in his best sinister voice, that he’d been watching Noorul and last night we finally realised why.
His opening meeting, as the teams decided what soapy products they’d be making, was a brilliant Apprentice moment. “Any… um… ideas…?” Noorul asked Team Ignite, clearly bereft of any himself.
Everyone fell silent. You could hear the slow drip, drip of the water cooler. A windmill creaked in East Anglia. We at Tellytalk took that as a “no”.
The one idea Noorul did have to sell their leaky honey soap (which becomes just like a normal soap once you’ve used it, you know) was to dress his team as a terrorist squad – sorry, beekeepers – and send them down the Tube. Not surprisingly, everyone ran away from them in horror.
Over on Paula’s team, everything seemed to be running smoothly. Until Nick pointed out they’d mistaken cheap cederwood oil for sandalwood oil (£12,000 a kilo). And Yasmina had mixed up three grams and three per cent, which meant they’d used rather a lot of it too.
The team spent about 20 minutes standing open-mouthed in shock.
Yasmina’s reaction was the best. “No, half of 45… s****”
We didn’t think Nick was supposed to tell them what mistakes they’d made until the boardroom. Even when she knew, however, Paula still didn’t seem to price her products high enough to break even.
The initial mistake, however, was Yasmina’s. In a fair world, Paula probably wouldn’t have gone. But The Apprentice isn’t fair.
And this year’s “personalities” have been a bit dull, so far.
They probably need mouthy little gits like Ben, to keep the interest alive, if nothing else.

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