2014 - Week 4

You're fired: MASS CULL!  Total wipeout.

#1: First Steven, whose sass and passion was 'mistaken' for being a pain in the arse no-one could bear.

#2: Then Hypnotherapist Sarah, for, oh you name it.  General incompetence.  We also learnt that she had trialled out setting up a dating website by just going on online dates.  Lord Sugar swiped left.

#3: Finally, Ella Jade for failing to make a film, despite her business idea being making films.  Although we should let her put forward her best defence: "I'm not 100% expertise in that field of what goes viral very quickly".

Boardroom begging: I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. Lordsiralun had to fire Ella Jade three times before she actually got it and stopped whining 'please let me prove to you that I can blah blah blah'.  What a moany princess.  She even poked her head back through the door to pout and try doe-eyes.  It was embarrassing.  How I laughed.

What a reward!: An actual trip to Iceland for Team Summit.  And not the shop!  It's just a slight shame Eyjafjallajokull didn't leave them stranded there, stuck in a lagoon James'd just widdled in.

Fat Daddy: Felipe's portly at most. No need to stick Felipe in a ripped shirt and have Felipe be humiliated by a fitness idiot with a permed manbob who loves his own abs more than decency and kindness. Felipe's one of the Top 100 Columbians after all! Show some respect to Felipe.  (Said Felipe.)  

Next week: Apprentice Coach tours.  YOU COULDN’T PAY ME ETC.

2014 - Week 3

You're fired: Lindsay, after she openly admitted in the boardroom that she was "rubbish" and Lordsiralun suggested she should go back to “swimmin’”.   Goodbye too to Nurun, who could sell in Peterborough, but found the big boy city pressure of pushing scented candles to tourists in a gentile Greenwich market stall a bit too much.

Lucky escape: James Hill “multiple business owner”.  A man who both slicks *and* bouffes his (head) hair - and dries his armpit hair with a hair dryer. 

Breach!: James Hill might be familiar with hair care, but he could benefit from some guidance on regulation and the law, after claiming Team Summit’s previously unsold candles had an RRP of £45 - until Lady Brady publicly admonished him for attempting a misleading price practice and stood over him until he sheepishly rubbed it off his chalkboard.  How this regulator laughed.

Sarah-watch: Everyone's favourite hypnotherapist continues to 'shine'.  After she'd got over her “NO-ONE WANTS TO BUY MY CANDLE WAAAAAAH” sulk, she took on a new tactic, shouting "SMELL MY CANDLE" and stuffing it in a random passerby's face.  Eventually a customer offered her a tenner.  Sarah's response?  A really grudging “£10?  Fine.  Pfff.” *eye roll*

Next week: They create an online video channel.  It looks like they’re going for cooking and sexercise.  What could possibly go wrong?

2014 - Week 2

You're fired: Tall Robert, lover of Shoreditch and sock-less loafers - before he'd had a chance to explain to Lordsiralun how he wasn't PM because a canoe is not the same as a luxury yacht. It's fine, I'm sure there's a place for him on Made In Chelsea, personal-shopping luxury tech jumpers for Mark-Francis. 

You're also fired: Scott the Scot. For being sulky mainly, after no-one wanted to make his technologically innovative idea of 'a pedometer'. 

Wearable tech? Yes, I'd quite like a jacket which charges my phone. No, I do not want it modelled on eighties Executive-wear, with reflective gaffer tape on my shoulders and novelty Christmas lights on the lapels. 

Poor boardroom defence: Daniel tried to explain that when he'd pitched that he wouldn't wear the boys' creepy perve-spy jumper out the house, he had ACTUALLY meant he wouldn't wear the boys' creepy perve-spy jumper AT NIGHT, so by implication he would *totes* wear it in the day - like, didn't you get that, durrrrrr. 

Canadian Steven-watch: Disappointingly quiet, but he did use his IT skills to rotate an image from portrait to landscape - by physically turning the laptop.

Hypnotherapist Sarah's feminist manifesto: Sarah was able to play her strengths today - channelling every last inch of focus into modelling that jacket like she was participating in Miss Amstrad 1985 and gunning to win.

I've got my eye on you, mate: Aussie Mark is often right about how things played out. But MY GOD he's such a whiny dickhead about it. 

Best prize evah: That James Bond rocket water jet treat looks AWESOME. Even if the only thing you can do is rise a few metres above the Thames praying you don't get Weil's disease. 

Next week: Home fragrances. Let the marketing of Glade plug-in shambles ensue!

2014 - Week 1

Same score as ever (dun da dun da dun da dun etc), but to celebrate a decade of Apprenticing, this year there are twenty 'whole' contestants to whittle down over the course of twelve weeks. Lord Sugar tells us he will dispose of the bodies candidates according to his bloody whim, meaning we can expect a Hunger Games Cornucopia-style mass slaughter at ANY MOMENT.  Excellent!  This year, the tasks are all inspired by the 'business challenges' previous Apprentii were asked to carry out over the past decade - once again unaided by modern gizmos like 'the internet' or 'the tube'.  Let's hope we see the return of such classics as 'unscrewing a pole placed in the crotch area on QVC' or 'attempting to have an Imam bless a kosher chicken'.

Let's go team!

You're fired: Chiles. Because his name is CHILES.  Actually, Chiles' real error was the tried and tested 'waste time driving across London to sell cheap product X (potatoes), whilst ignoring the more profitable local sale of product Y' (a load of printed T-shirts they’d already invested in 'personalising' which were simply left to fester at the printers).

BREAKING NEWS: My colleague Sally has informed me that this not Chiles’ first attempt at using TV to better his life – he also recently found love on Take Me Out by demonstrating his karate skills on a watermelon.

Oh so lucky escape: Sarah Dales, the girls' Project Manager. She was WOEFULLY bad - and I say that in the context of ten years' worth of Apprentice failures. 

Sarah's highlights #1: Firstly, Sarah demanded her all-female team wear heels and short skirts to bamboozle punters into mass-buying vegetables.  Hooray for feminism! ("I really feel we should think about sales strategy, Sarah". "Yeah but has everyone brought nice make-up?")

Sarah's highlights #2: Then she was obsessed with chopping up lemons because she believed they could mark up the price by selling individual fruit pieces. (Mmmm, a manky old lemon slice. Do you have a bag for me to take it home for my G&T tomorrow?)

Sarah's highlights #3: She refused to do any actual labour and just clip-clopped around, tossing her extensions "because I'm PM. I'm the PM. I'm being PM", but still claimed all the sales "because I'm PM. I'm the PM. I'm being PM".

Sarah's highlights #4: Finally, she attempted to pitch one small washing up tub's worth of backstreet cleaning products to London Zoo for £250. Yes, that's two bottles of bleach, a sponge and a pair of non-brand marigolds for £250. !!!!!!  Though she did concede that it might not be ideal for chucking into the penguin pond.  

Frankly, it’s shocking that a "former PA and hypnotherapist" would make such bizarre and irrational business choices, right?

The team names: Decadence and Summit.  Nope, I'm not quoting a suggested party theme on Towie - those were the *actual* team names. (Honestly, this stuff writes itself.)

Worst board room defence: Wearing sockless cream moccasins and drawling "I wanted to add as much value to the sausages as possible" (yes, you, giant Robert). There’s nothing Lordsiralun or Shoreditch love more than an organic cheese slice and some free-range avocado.

The (other) one to watch: Steven. When the boys launched a ridiculous, targeted assault on Steven in the board room he immediately gave it RIGHT BACK with increasingly high-pitched, preposterously OTT sass. He’s a finger-click and head-swish away from a firing, but he’ll be TV gold in the interim.

Next time: Tonight, they invent 'wearable technology'. I cannot even...