The Apprentice

[Alex]

...Does Comic Relief has just finished, and I can't remember laughing so much in a programme.

It was just so bizarre, seeing some fairly unusual celebrities argue and bicker and make jokes about each other. Rupert Everett quitting almost instantly was bizarre, but Piers Morgan and Allistair Campbell bouncing off of each other was really great, as was pretty much everything that came out of Cheryl Tweedy's mouth. Infact Tweedy's reaction to the squids, and her "Are you a bit OCD?" comment were amazingly funny bits. It was just full of things I thought I'd never see, like Mark Owen on the dodgems grinning like a small child, and seeing Anne Robinson get sponges rubbed in her face.

It seems we'll find out who the worst apprentice is during tomorrow night's Comic Relief, I've a feeling it might be Piers Morgan for screwing up the ticket sales bit. Though it should be Ross Kemp as he just came across as a moody git for most of it.

The new series starts soon too, which I'm looking forward too.

[Milky Tears]

Anne Robinson's 'tache was scary.

[Milky Tears]

Profiles up on the BBC site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice/

Sir Alan interview in Thursday's Mirror:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/tv/r...name_page.html


More about the "Sexy Execs Fired Up For Off-Screen Love" on the News of the World's Apprentice site:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/apprentice/index.shtml

[Milky Tears]

Has everyone stopped watching this since the move to BBC1?

Last night's was possibly the best episode ever.

Some great boardroom stuff.

Paul is a tool.

[Paul Monk]

I still watch and love it. Paul was a bit of a prat but then we all knew that! Katie needs to go next. Get rid of the toffs!
Tre is a comedy genius though. His reasons for not liking the French were inspired.

[Joe Meredith]

Katie has to be one of the most hateful women ever to grace the screen, but she's bound to survive longer as she makes good TV (GRR)
Fair play to Michelle Mone (of Ultimo Bra's) for making her opinions of aformentioned Katie known on 'You're Fired' though!

[Alex]

I didn't find it a surprise that Adam went tonight, he'd been in the board room just too many times to survive another visit.

Katie is annoying, isn't she, she's just too smug and patronising for my liking. I do like Kristina though, she works hard and speaks her mind but doesn't get drawn in to shouting matches too often.

[Paul Monk]

We like Kristina too. She our fav to win.

Katie is EVVVVVIIIIILLLLLLL.
Her personal slating of Adam was well out of order.
And her description of events in the boardroom to the others in the house was such a lot of rubbish. Siralan is onto her though!

Adam's a nice guy but it really was his time to go.

[Jonno]

We've done a sweepstake at work, each giving our choices for the two finalists. I went with Kristina (sp?) and Simon.

Not been too impressed with the candidates this year - most of them don't have an ounce of common sense. Or likeability.

[Paul Monk]

I think you got some good choices there Jonno. I reckon you could win something.
Katie has loads of personality. Its just the wrong sort of personality. And Tre comes out with some classics too.

[Jonno]

No monetary stake involved - it's purely for fun!

I hated Tre after the first couple of editions, but he's grown on me a bit and is certainly watchable in it.

[Alex]

Another reason to dislike Katie, if the Sunday Mirror is to be believed:

'Apprentice' star Katie has affair
Sunday, May 27 2007, 11:03 BST

Apprentice star Katie Hopkins has been enjoying an affair with a married work colleague. The 31-year-old businesswoman introduced Mark Cross to her parents following a series of dates and told friends that he was her "new man".

A source told the Sunday Mirror: "Katie is great at her job - and she is great at seducing men. She thinks of Mark as the new man in her life. He is a married man but sometimes she just can't help herself." Mark's wife Ruth confirmed that she knew about the affair this weekend: "Mark had warned me that people might find out. But I can't say any more."

Hopkins has already had two previous affairs with married men who worked for the same firm.

[Jonno]

We've done a sweepstake at work, each giving our choices for the two finalists. I went with Kristina (sp?) and Simon.

That's what I wrote on 19th May. Wish I'd placed a bet on that with the bookies now!

I'm expecting Kristina to win though.

Katie was the loathsome drama queen to the bitter end.

[Alex]

How odd was that?! I can't believe Katie just suddenly realised that she might have trouble with her parents providing childcare, surely that must have been discussed before she left to go on the programme...

I'm not convinced that Simon really has a chance, he seems a bit wet sometimes and the part where his tenant's greivances list was read out was incredibly embarrassing, if I was Sir Alan it would put me off him a lot as it suggests he's really not that reliable.

Perhaps obviously then, I think Kristina will win, I'd but a bet on it but the odds are going to be ridiculously poor, aren't they.

[Dino]

How odd was that?! I can't believe Katie just suddenly realised that she might have trouble with her parents providing childcare, surely that must have been discussed before she left to go on the programme...

I'm not convinced that Simon really has a chance, he seems a bit wet sometimes and the part where his tenant's greivances list was read out was incredibly embarrassing, if I was Sir Alan it would put me off him a lot as it suggests he's really not that reliable.

Perhaps obviously then, I think Kristina will win, I'd but a bet on it but the odds are going to be ridiculously poor, aren't they.

And worse, Tre, Katie and the others will be back to "help" in the final task.
My gloating will be short lived.
I think Kristina will win also. Simon will have his finalist steam taken out of him by an embittered Tre. Or will Simes rise to the challenge? I'm not a businessman in any sense, but The Apprentice is brilliant viewing! I'll miss it when it's over.

[Alex]

The BBC website has this article about the show:

As the picture of their private lives built up, so too did we get glimpses behind the window dressing of the show itself. So what do we now know about the would-be apprentices and The Apprentice?

1. They have families. Parents, children, wives and boyfriends, to be exact. Tre has a lovely wife, Lohit a supportive boyfriend and Kristina an 18-year-old son, born when she was just 17. But perhaps most startling of all is the revelation that alpha female Katie has two small girls, both born during a short-lived marriage to her boss. And she too is ex-Army.

2. Tre looks like he's sniffing sour milk for a reason. It's not just his aggressive personality, he is in constant pain after a nearly-fatal car crash 10 years ago. There are steel plates in his back and pins in both legs. "I have pain all the time," he says, adding that he draws strength from his religion - Islam - which he says promises great rewards in the afterlife for those who endure suffering.

3. Can't place Lohit's accent? It's from Dubai and New Zealand. His family emigrated to the United Arab Emirates when he was tiny, and when he was 13, they moved to the Antipodes.

4. Business speak says so much, yet so little. Simon is habitually referred to - and not just by himself - as an internet entrepreneur with an interest in property. What this actually means is that he runs a website selling lighting equipment to schools. And business is not booming, by his own admission. And his property portfolio? He lets rooms - and sleeping spots on sofas - in his house.

5. Location, location, location. Despite the gratuitous shots of Canary Wharf - visual shorthand for the world of business - Sir Alan has no office in London's Docklands, or, for that matter, the City. Amstrad's head office is in Brentwood, Essex. He has a base in the inauspicious environs of the Mile End Rd, an office in swanky St James and Viglen - where Wednesday's interviews were conducted - is in Wembley.

6. Props maketh the man. The boardroom is a studio mock-up of Sir Alan's Brentwood HQ (no real-life boardroom has lighting that looks that good on telly). He owns the yacht prominently featured in the opening credits, but not the helicopter. It's chartered from RotorMotion, a company which does brisk business among flash types in the City.

7. Timing is everything. The series is filmed in autumn. Newspaper headlines glimpsed in early episodes date from October, and two candidates came a cropper when trying to sell food to Muslims during Ramadan, which ended in mid-October. Last week's episode showed presenters on a home shopping channel wearing Remembrance poppies.

8. There's time and then there's TV time. "One of the first things that we tell them is 'Look, you're gonna be away from home for 12 weeks'," Sir Alan said when Ifti claimed to be off-form because he was missing his family. But filming takes about two months. And the final two work for Sir Alan before he decides who stays and who goes. Former runner-up Saira Khan has criticised the show because "the final decision is not based on the programme that people see, his final decision is based on these two people who have been working with him for the six months".

9. Spotters of continuity errors don't have to look further than the long walk to the taxi after each candidate is fired. These are all shot on the same day, early in the filming. While the most glaring discrepancies are avoided by buttoned-up coats - which the candidates are told to buy before filming begins - the shoes are a giveaway. Katie fired herself in a black suit, but under her coat as she climbed into the taxi was a white suit and pink heels.

10. The past never happened. Sir Alan lost his apprentice Michelle Dewberry just four months after she was chosen. In Wednesday's episode he made great play of the need for commitment, but made no mention of why this had become such an issue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729621.stm

Call me naive, and I know reality tv is obviously manipulated to a certain extent, but the part about how the two final candidates work for Sir Alan for months before he decides who to hire on a full time basis really shocked me, I don't think that's on at all...

[Paul Monk]

Its a bit deceitful isn't it. I guess from his Siralan's point of view its better to to that because he is investing a lot of money in these people and to base it on one task is probably not good business sense.

[Alex]

I was thinking about this, and the thing is that presumably he isn't really. I've no idea how much he gets paid for doing the show but I imagine it's a lot, and there's also the fact that each year he gets 12 weeks of free advertising for Amstrad - which'd normally cost a lot lot lot more than the 100K salary he pays the eventual winner (though I still think they're a bit of a shoddy company and I'd never buy one of their expensive products!).

And the whole point of the show to me is that he takes on the best candidate after months of testing them, which'd never happen in a normal job interview scenario.

Bah, I'm just still feeling cheated by this, it really has disappointed me and I'm not really intrigued anymore as to who will win tonight as a result of it (though surely it has to be Kristina, Simon just comes across as weird sometimes!)