The Apprentice

Ok so who is going to be this week then?

Vote James, Surrallan.....please

Oooooooh .........here we go... c'mon Suralan

Bloomin eck, I didnt think Rocky was gonna get it

Oh dear ? I think I've just got sucked into the whole "Apprentice" thing. I didn't think Rocky would go, but maybe we'll get more stunning gems of self awareness from Mr "I taste success in my spit in the mornings" as he's staying.

Phew - glad rocky got it - dont think i could have coped with any more hard focussing on his boil

what a bunch of utter shockers

She was veeeerrrrry lucky her team won, she'd have gone for certain, she was absolutely fucking useless. Whoever heard of mozzarella and tomato, or indeed tinned tuna on melba toast, being hot canapes? Silly bitch.

Am still PMSL at those blinis ?

My ex-boss ? - so the only reason I'm watching!

We've just had a gem of TMI from James on the You're Fired programme.

"In the boardroom when siralan was talking to me I zoned out, when he went to Rocky and I realised I wasn't getting fired, a little bit a wee came out. Not a lot, just that little bit I was holding onto"

?

Actually I think the girls got massively lucky - basically their clients were nicer about not demanding refunds. I thought their food was way worse.

You're not kidding. Remind me never to eat in that Yasmina's restaurant.

Agree that the girls' food looked pretty grim, but as a participant at the boys's canape reception, I can tell you that their canapes tasted grim too (and were cold, and took ages, etc, etc), the saving grace being that they were not the size of bricks. What they didn't show was that the boys were nearly an hour behind - we all had to be held in another room and were on the way to being plastered by the time we were let loose. ?

Honestly, how hard is it to prepare some simple, tasty canapes?

? Poor you Lalu.

I thought the girls' food was grimmer than a grim thing. My husband, no foodie, let me tell you, said the tuna flatbreads (is that what they were?) looked like dogmeat on crispbread.

An ex of mine used to run a one-woman catering business from our flat, and she did a better job single-handed than all fourteen Apprentices managed.

Then again, she was a former professional chef who had something approaching a clue about what she was doing. ?

I agree with Sophie - the girls had much nicer customers, although its obvious they are all just playing along - would like to see the candidates selling to the public instead of to corporates. So far this series feels too 'set up in advance'. That said I am LOVING it - could not believe how rubbish the food was. Who in their right mind would call a massive sweet pancake 'a blini'?

And I nearly cried at 'I'm guessing its grilled... in some way'. As the comedian said on You're Fired, yes, because of course there are soooo many different ways to grill something ??

How could someone who purportedly owns a restaurant not know what a blini is and go on to serve a sweet pancake?

I pray to god I never inadvertently visit her restaurant. I wonder if she employs the same "cheapest possible ingredients" strategy there?

That's a very bad ad for her restaurant. I think they should all have go a telling off. I know the task is to make money but this is ridiculous now, you just wouldn't want these people in your business. They can't even make 8 canapes without looking like they are feeding Battersea dogs' home

L
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Someone on the Digital Spy forum said they looked like catfood on ryvita ?

Me too. Yes, the girls might have won this one off task, but it was god awful and would hardly have been the start of a glittering catering company. They'd have been in a loss by the end of the week.

I'm not up to much in the kitchen, but I think I'd have single handedly done a better job in 'assembling' (cause that's all it needs to be, lets face it) edible canapes for 50 people at a profit.

Does anyone else cringe when, year after year, they refer to their 'company' and last night their 'chief exec'.

They obviously think it sounds professional or impressive to bang on about chief execs and companies, when really I think it just shows them up as not having an effing clue what a 'company' is.

Yes, all that "this is Misfit A from Ignite Catering" bollocks. And one of the guys saying "we are a fledgling company". For whose benefit is that? Are we meant to believe that everyone involved doesn't know these people are from the Apprentice?

L
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Maybe the BBC think the viewers are as dim as the contestants? The whole "negotiation" thing is fake as well, as least in our case, as we were always going to let them cater a canape reception. £60 a head though - what a bunch of losers, I wouldn't have paid £6 a head for what we were fed ?

The very fact it is all set up for them to go and pitch shows it is fake. Any real company faced with those bumbling idiots saying "£60 per head" and "grilled in some way" would tell them to piss off.
I assume everyone at the very important because it's in the gherkin and not only that it's an AMERICAN company type reception knew to expect a load of bollocks?

L
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? I wondered if it was your firm <stalkericon>

Surely the sensible thing to do would have been to subcontract the actual food? Or are they not allowed to do that?

Well of course ? I had a good chuckle watching it last night with "Gherkin" this and "international law firm" that; although, having said that, I still have loads of my friends who want me to take them up to the Gherkin bar for drinks because it's the Gherkin. I've told them that it is overpriced and that they will be fleeced - that doesn't seem to diminish their enthusiasm.

Sophie, no idea if they are allowed to sub-contract, but I suspect not.

I know a lot of people seem to hate Philip, but I had a lot of sympathy with him - he knew it was shite and there wasn't really anything he could do about it. Yasmina was awful, I couldn't have worked for her - she treated the other girls with such disdain and kept talking over them.

I liked Philip. He was perfectly correct in everything he was saying - it WAS tacky, it WAS crap, and why shouldn't someone say so? How can any single business person serve up any of those canapes (and is canape really pronounced canopy?) from either team and not die of shame to be associated with it?

L
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The presence of a camera crew might be a giveaway too! ?

Incidentally, Lalu, did you have to sign a release form? I've had to do that every time I've been on telly, even when I played the blink-and-you-missed-me role of "colleague of man who won a BBC3 comedy scriptwriting competition".

but I don't see that a camera crew necessarily precludes the businesses from saying 'sorry, you are rubbish, we are not using you'

L
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Yes we did - confidentiality and release agreement, so we couldn't even tell people for 6 months (last night's episode was filmed in mid-Sept).