The Apprentice fails to stay on message

In the run up to the new series of the £100,000 ugly business beauty contest that is The Apprentice, the programme-makers were keen to stress the “greed is good” mentality of previous years would not be repeated.
Even Sir Alan Sugar, top dog in the showcase of mongrels, made it clear that in these recessionary times the [...]

And the winner of The Apprentice is…

Well, now we can all sleep easy in our beds for another year.
The waiting is over, the sense of anti-climax is immense and The Apprentice for 2008 is Mr Shouty.
Aka the diamond in the rough, the dinosaur impersonator, the man who “totally f****** nailed the blue cactus” in Morocco, the one none of us really knew what the [...]

The Apprentice finalists – picking the winner

The job interview from hell, for the viewers rather than the candidates, is almost over for this year at least.
Old Man Sugar won’t have resorted to some old-style fortune telling to decide who will be The Apprentice.

He would have known from very early on in the selection process who was likely to make it this far, [...]

Playing it safe on The Apprentice

It all feels a bit too conservative for my liking.
Some might regard SirA’s decision to allow four of the remaining candidates on The Apprentice to go through to the final as a bold and imaginative move, but I can’t help thinking he’s playing it safe.
What it suggests to me is that there is no stand-out [...]

Men and motors on The Apprentice

Is The Apprentice good for business?
It is a question some are asking again as this latest series goes down to the wire.
The answer really hasn’t changed since last year’s series. It wasn’t good for business then and given this year’s paucity of quality candidates it has arguably been even worse this year.
It is a bit [...]

All fall down on The Apprentice

This week on The Apprentice it started badly and got steadily worse.
I don’t know what I found more ghastly – the sight of Michael in his boxers stumbling into the bathroom, or his sulky, petulant drawl as he explained how “up” for it he was.
Uuuurrgghhh.
At least it was balanced with the impeccable Raef getting ready for the [...]

Double trouble on The Apprentice

So now we know that in Sir Alan’s world bribery and deviousness gets you fired, hoodied yoofs are the bane of his life and yet he’s happy to live with bullying and lies.
Ahead of the most recent installment of The Apprentice we learned that the bearded Sir hates yobbishness and anti-social behaviour, as long as it isn’t the mindless [...]

The Apprentice and the hoodies

I’m indebted to Le Craic for initially pointing me in the direction of Sir Alan Sugar’s attempts to tackle the UK’s flourishing yob culture.
After initially reading the link provided I laughed it off. But then I did a little more digging and got angrier with each new sentence I was reading.
I have no doubt that the [...]

The Apprentice – ode to the hopeless

I’ve been inspired by The Apprentice.
It isn’t often I’ve been able to put my hand on my heart and say that, particularly during this new series.
But this week they were designing a new range of greeting cards and I’ve been moved to capture the whole sorry affair in a suitable style.
Indeed, this could be expanded to [...]

The Apprentice – a reality check

Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, go on The Apprentice to try and get in through the back door.
And if they don’t succeed, at least they get their 15 seconds of reality TV fame to catapult themselves onto the motivational speaker circuit or maybe even another reality-style programme on a little-watched digital channel.
Sir Alan Sugar [...]