The BBC Apprentice: Ep 10, “Never mind the Scallops”

Hello and welcome to week 10 of the Apprentice and with 7 candidates still left and only a couple of weeks to go, big Al needs to get that firing finger busy.

The batphone rings at 6am and its Commissioner Sugar’s office ready with another location and another task

We see shots of Stephen ‘specifics’ Brady, who should have been fired for the heinous ‘Grandeur’ last week, spouting garbage about how he is buzzing and how he is going to give 110%, the idiot.  He is team leader this week, so we can only hope he gets it badly wrong and doesn’t darken our door again.

The BBC Apprentice: Donut Let Me Down

The far from magnificent remaining 7, head over to meet the Lord on a rooftop overlooking the city of London where they learn that apparently all Londoners play hard but also work hard.

What does that even mean?  Anyway, this week’s task is to represent a daily discount site (think Groupon) and clinch deals that will go live on the company’s website for 24 hours.

The USP of the task is that all the deals need to aimed at the high end of the market which I’m sure will resonate with Adam ‘choreograophy’ Corbally, who’s whole ethos is high end; anyone for Sushi?

The daily deals website they will be selling for is a company called Keynoir?  No nor me.   The company will be getting an hour’s free publicity in exchange for letting a load of idiots loose on their website.  Hopefully they won’t be trying to sell bottles of fake tan or bikini strimmers to the elite of London.

The BBC Apprentice: Yellow Meatball Submarine

With only 7 contestants left, the teams are going to remain slightly imbalanced, unless my math skills have completely deserted me.  It does seem a tad unfair though that one team will have a numerical advantage, although that numerical advantage is named Adam, so maybe we should be using the subtract button on our calculators and not the plus button eh?

Actually I don’t really care if there is an imbalance, as Teflon Stephen, who last week was forced to step up as team leader to save his skin, is managing Sterling (Gabrielle, Ricky & Stephen).  Leaving the much stronger team in Phoenix, lead this week by Jade; (Jade, Nick, Tom & Adam).

The BBC Apprentice: The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Dill

I’m glad to report that Stephen already looks a nervous wreck and the task has only just kicked off.  He obviously realises that if he loses this week then he is surely going to be booted out, which is marvellous news.

Stephen, who as you might have gathered I’m not a big fan of, is now confirming that his strategy is to sell as many deals as possible.  Blimey, with business insight like that, how is this twonk not already a CEO of a blue chip?  And if you find that slightly patronising; observe the way that Stephen talks down to Gabrielle, saying that “some things are beyond her” and that he needs to “keep her on a tight leash”.

More of Stephen’s patronising patter a little later.  For now, we see Stephen and Gabrielle heading to a dentist and clinching some teeth whitening deals.  Ok, it maybe a shame that Stephen has got some success, but I don’t think teeth whitening is what the people at Keynoir had in mind when they said ‘high-end’.

They’ve left Ricky to fend for himself; couldn’t Stephen and Gabrielle have split up to pursue separate deals, or is against the Apprentice rulebook?  Anyway, Ravishing Ricky Rude is questioning the 3 hours it would take to get to a health spa in Tring and back.  These opportunities have been handed to the contestants for a reason, so I can’t imagine that the Tring trip would be a waste of time.

The BBC Apprentice: Maybe I’m Mayonnaised

After a bit of a conflab, the Tring trip is binned and Ricky is going to pursue meetings in the capital instead.  And his first appointment is a disaster as he spends an age being shown around a snooty restaurant only to be told that they wouldn’t discount, “not even by a pound”.  He does get to eat some lovely scallops though.  More complete scallops later.

Over in team Phoenix and Jade and Nick are trying to charm the Loose Women panel to get discount on a spa treatment at the Sanctuary.  Unfortunately Nick has been instructed that Jade will be doing all the negotiating, which isn’t going well.

Eventually, Nick does step in to melt the stoic faces of the Loose Women panel and lo and behold they get the £200 treatment down to £99.  Result!

Alco-frolics Adam and Tom have headed over to a high end hotel to try and clinch a dinner deal.  It takes an age, but they finally bag a 35% discount after Adam badgers them to death about chucking in free tea & coffee.

Jade rings a ‘special’ massage parlour for a ‘special’ deal.  I’m sure brothels always have plenty of capacity, but this may not float Keynoir’s boat, but then again…

Adam, who I’ve grown to like but for all the wrong reasons, is talking about “living the dream” and ruling out bowling alleys and ice rinks, the clever lad.  Although he fails to really come up with anything inspirational that his team can go out and target.  How is he still here?

The BBC Apprentice: Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkfish

I’m snacking whilst watching tonight’s episode, which in hindsight may have been a mistake as my stomach is now turning at the site of Stephen’s hairy toes being nibbled at by tiny Garra Rufa fish.  Apparently the fish eat all the useless dead skin away, meaning that there may just be an Obi-Wan style pile of clothes when we get to the boardroom.

Luxury?  Really?  Skin eating fish?  I’m glad to report that Stephen seems to have misread the task.

They clinch a deal, although I’m guessing and hoping it is a wasted effort.

Oooh look, it’s Marcus Wareing, one of only 4,388 celebrity chefs who have adorned our TV screens over the last few years.  Jade and Nick are discussing a potential restaurant package with Marcus but are making a right royal cock-up, blaming the calculator and not their own incompetence.

Wareing’s hair looks like he has dipped it in chip-fat and when coupled with his miserable demeanour, he comes across as very unlikeable.  He does however give Jade and Nick a lifeline, a second chance to clinch the deal, which they do at a rather splendid 30% off.  Things are looking good for team Jade and her band of merry men.

The BBC Apprentice: Magical Fishtory Tour

Meanwhile, Ricky is eating another plate of Scallops.  Are we supposed to swallow that all the restaurants that Ricky is visiting just happen to be serving up the same dish to him?  Scripted or coincidence?  I’ll let you decide.

Time is running out for the team’s to clinch some last minute deals.  The dastardly duo of Adam and Tom, who last week spent a day getting bladdered, have been awful this week and haven’t clinched a single deal.  What has happened to Tom?  Is he running out of steam?  He was a front runner until a couple of weeks ago, but it feels like he is coasting towards the final; a final he may not get to at this rate.

Tom and Adam finally clinch a deal in a high-end perfumery for some candles or something.  Awful, just awful.

Stephen admits to feeling the pressure.  It’s a pity that pressure in question isn’t Gabrielle putting her niceness aside to ram her mobile sideways down his throat.  He claims to have given “100%” which is 10% down from his opening gambit when he was putting his tie on at 6am.

Jade makes a last minute dash into a Mercedes dealership only to be met by a supercilious manager who dismisses her out of hand.  Shame they weren’t selling neon signs as his was lit up to read “Merced”.

Right, times up and the teams hand over a couple of leather bound folders to the peeps at Keynoir.

They are going to wade through their deals and pick out what they consider good enough go on their website for a 24 hour period.  The team that sell the most deals will win, which could be lucky for Stephen as this was his strategy all along!

The BBC Apprentice: A Day With The Knife

The 7 sit down in the boardroom and Inspector Gadget Stephen is disturbingly being lavished with praise by the Lord for his ‘strategy’.  And there’s me thinking he was dumb, more fool me!

Ricky is in the firing line for his tour of the restaurant, but surely it would have been quite impolite to tell the pompous restaurateur to stick his scallops and start talking discounts?   He did however clinch two deals in one place that that redeems him in big Al’s eyes.

Jade is lambasted for not going down the multiple deal route.  She did however clinch a deal in every venue she visited in tandem with Nick, whereas the other half of her team Adam and Tom managed to bag something to do with candles and a restaurant deal where, lest we forget, Adam managed to clinch free tea & coffee, Woooooo!

The BBC Apprentice: Let It Brie

So, which deals did Keynoir plump for?  They took 3 of Stephen’s 9 deals and just 2 of Jade’s 6 on the table.

For team Stephen, Ricky’s 100 dinners sold out and 90 of the lunches were bought, making over £6k.  Stephen and Gabrielle’s entire days efforts were to sell 7 golf deals, contributing a whopping £350 into the team pot.   It’s not looking good for Stephen, which is a real shame, honest.

Its better news over in Jade’s team; despite Adam and Tom’s no-show, Jade and Nick’s two deals (the Sanctuary package and dinner at Marcus Wareing’s gaff) made over £14k.

So a stonking win for team Phoenix, although I still think there should have been a penalty clause in place because of the imbalance in team numbers.

The winning team get to go off to Cliveden House to have afternoon Tea.  Not just any old afternoon tea mind; this is the Carlsberg of afternoon teas, the world’s most expensive afternoon tea no less.  It costs a staggering £500 for a couple to have a few cakes and a cuppa, although I’m guessing that there was some kind of contra deal struck up with the Beeb and the owners of the stately house.

Over in the world’s greyest café, Bridge café and Stephen is shouldering a lot of the blame, although we all know he will change tact as soon as he sits down in that boardroom.

The BBC Apprentice: The Fool On The Dill

Back in the boardroom and big Al is persecuting Ricky for capping the dinners at 100, with Keynoir saying they could have sold 250, which probably still wouldn’t have been enough to carry the team to victory.

Slimy ‘Belissimmmo’ Stephen is keeping to script and deflecting blame left, right and centre.  His first target is Gabrielle, who he continues to patronise by telling her he likes her passion.  He should just pat her on head, the condescending twonk.

Then, realising that the Lord is miffed with the whole Tring debacle, he blames Gabrielle (again) for some reason and then Ricky for not going heading to Tring when first instructed.

I come back to what I said at the start; if Stephen was that concerned about Tring, why didn’t he ditch the nibbling fish and head to Hertfordshire himself?

The BBC Apprentice: Ham a Loser

After Nick and Karen have filled the Lord’s head with more negativity about the remaining 3, Al beckons them back in to the boardroom for the final reckoning.

We have to presume that Ricky is safe.  He went out on his own and secured £6k worth of business compared to the paltry £350 that Stephen and Gabrielle contributed.

Big Al calls Gabrielle “a nice girl”.  Taking a leaf straight out of the book of Stephen’s Misogynistic approach to all things ‘female’.  Unfortunately, the 1970s sexism aside, it does appear that Gabrielle has run out of steam, I fear it may be her turn to depart.

When asked the question why he should stay in the process, Stephen opens up with an impressive, “….is that for you will get someone who will make mistakes…” .  Blimey, I think Stephen may have just talked his way into getting the bullet.

Favourite moment of the show is when Ricky speaks up to tell Stephen to stop being so condescending towards Gabrielle.  I reckon wrestling Ricky could slap the figure four leg lock on Stephen at any time, I for one would cheer the house down!

As it is, I think big Al has realised that Gabrielle has run her course and she gets the finger of fate.  What a disappointing result.  Gabrielle was never a contender but surely Stephen should have gone.  Let’s not forget what big Al said to him last week that by being team leader this week he had to win or he would be out on his ear.

The BBC Apprentice: Getting Feta

But wait, big Al reloads his finger and BOOM, Stephen is out of here.  YES!  If I had one of those party popper things it would have been fired at the TV screen right there and then.  In your face Stephen!  Least favourite contestant this year.  I hated his duplicitous, unscrupulous ways and his chauvinistic attitudes towards birds (sic).

Ricky’s eyes are filling up as he fears that Big Al’s finger is reloading for a treble execution.

But he survives, just.

So, as sad as I am to see the lovely Gabrielle go, at least Stephen won’t be annoying me next week.

Just a couple of weeks left and we are down to our final five.  Who’s your money on?  I think Nick (Holzherr not Hewitt) must be a front runner, although I’ve a sneaky feeling that Ricky is going to come good and storm to victory.