The Apprentice UK 2013

Alex looks fucking ridiculous and using "perverts" in a TV advert is every kind of wrong.

Oh, it was "herberts". As you were.

I can't believe this shower of shite are in the last eight. This year's candidates have really been lacking in, er, everything?

Next week:
http://prettyfantasmagorical.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/haunted-pasta.jpg?w=320
vs
http://www.thomasnet.com/articles/image/iStock_cardboard.jpg

I love Miles, he is a total dude.

That camera shot of Lear yawning whilst she watched the other teams video was classic.

depressing how they're setting up neil as 'someone who is good at business' when i can't think of anyone i'd less like to work with, or be in the same room as. genuine psychopath vibes off him. louisa is an awful human being too, those two should have got together in a coulson/brooks twinning of evil, rather than louisa and the (likeable) jordan

I basically like Jordan in the same way that I liked Ricky last year (how's his recruitment business working out for him and Sugsy, by the way?) in that he seems to have some sort of common sense and he isn't a complete fucking tool.

Yeah, some of us heard "pervert" rather than Herbert, too

How many food puns will they make us swallow tonight?

can't decide whether Oh! My! Pow! is the best or worst name in the world.

It's up there with 'Octiclean' in it's mix of clever and stupid.

i quite liked the Popty Ping idea.

blandness of food never hurt innocent veg pots.

I've got a feeling that AlSug has a soft spot for Alex (or at least his business idea), and Leah's going to get the boot.

(Miles is terrible but he knows when to soft pedal his attack)

Leah has an annoying duck face.

I like the popty ping idea to. They would have won if he had gone with his gut instinct.

Yeah I though that was a good idea. A real forehead slapping moment when Alex made the decision to go the other way.

This week, a predictable result that was signposted less than ten minutes into the episode.

Also, if all the business plans are on the table already and in play for decision-making, why are we even bothering with this charade?

Since several series back when it was apparent that the winner always bailed after a year?

Sorry, that didn't make sense. I mean, since several series back when the producers realised that the winner always bailed after a year, and that the entire idea of finding an apprentice (or business partner as it is now) was just a complete joke.

So since then the programme has been entirely about ratings and nothing else.

Yeah, but they always at least pretended we didn't know what the business plans were.

Myles so dull they've decided to spend all of You're Fired talking to Ricky Martin instead.

Dara: "Why not apply for next year's Apprentice? Meanwhile, here's a VT of the current five remaining candidates being humiliated!"

This week, a predictable result that was signposted less than ten minutes into the episode.

― Meine Damen und Herren, ein grosse sh*tstorm! (snoball), Wednesday, July 3, 2013 8:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, but the highlight was the discussion about Jordan's 'other' business partner..

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy

fucking love the interview show, really really hope this is the point where hairy sociopath neil clough comes unstuck like that one absolute cock from about 4 yrs back who sailed through to this show then got disembowelled

also, tv box guide thing says tonight's episode was 10/14, there's the 'final 5' show which is 11/14, next week's interview ep which is 12/14 - where it goes down to final 2 - then the final which is 14/14. what's 13/14? is it just another zzz 'more about the two finalists' show?

The Jordan thing is just weird - his model is actually kind of transparent in that he's got a friend who does a bit of Android/Apple coding and the two of them have come up with the idea of selling out his skills to turn people's games ideas into actual games for cash. By extension he would also offer this to companies to develop apps for them. The bit he doesn't seem to get is that AlSug doesn't care if he's the frontman for a consortium, that consortium will still only get 50% of the new company between them. I would have fired him purely on the basis he failed to understand such a simple business proposition tbh. It's not exactly an empty marketplace either, added to which I'm really unclear who his target audience is. People who want to play a game on a mobile device that they've invented but can't be arsed learning how to write it? I'd guess the Venn diagram of 'people who play games on mobile devices', 'people who have translatable new game ideas' and 'people who aren't prepared to learn how to do something which could lead to $$$' is a pretty small intersection.

Talking about previous winners, I looked up Ricky Martin's "recruitment for science" company. It's a pretty broad brush definition of science as it's mainly in the pharma/biotech sector and covers any job in that sector so has warehouse managers, assembly line workers etc... about half of the roughly 100 jobs he has are <£25k so it isn't exactly the raging success he implied it was, certainly not to the stage he needs more staff.

you're saying that like writing android games is easy. would easily take someone who already codes 6 months to learn the android ins and outs.

I don't mean to imply it's easy, what I think I'm trying to say is that anyone who's got to the point of thinking of making a game of their idea and is prepared to pay to see that as a reality is a) pretty likely to have tried to learn Android coding themselves or b) not the hobbyist Jordan suggested was his prime customer and/or c) will probably have looked into it already and either done it or been scared by the prices (which might have pushed them back to a).

I was thinking about this today, and it seems to me that Ricky is The Apprentice's equivalent of X Factor's Leona - someone who basically had it together but needed a bit of a push. Ricky became a lot more polished and confident as last year's series rolled on. This year, there's no-one like that, everyone seems to be Leon Jackson. Especially Jordan.

It cracked me up that all three blokes are/were proposing a 'revolutionary' online platform. What is this, 2003? Miles looked like he was trying to reinvent Achica and Neil admitted that he'd be going into direct competition with someone very successful.

Jordan clearly doesn't win, because he's still selling his services on his website and is doing some game development because it's his 'passion'. Also tarting himself about as a motivational speaker and an expert CEO.

I believe the winner is announced closer to transmission time, and they film each finallist getting the "You're Hired" speech ..

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy

Really hope this is something along the lines of "Jordan you are a parasite for basically trying to hire out your programmer mate(s) while you take a cut of the money for doing sod all."

I thought Stella said in her employment tribunal that she had had to work effectively without pay for 6 months as she'd been expected to start after winning but didn't 'start' until broadcast? (I suppose it might have changed as a result of that case, but we're two weeks from transmission so the winner will be known. OTOH contracting all the finalists to do something for you knowing that one will have to default on the contract might be a decent short-term business model if you can agree good enough compensation...)

Since we do it every year, let's look round the finalists' websites.

Jordan - done, although it does reveal that he's got quite a high opinion of himself as an Android/iOS coder making me wonder whether he was actually going to be his own silent partner and try to blag a bigger share.

Luisa's cupcake business has a dreadful Innocent Smoothies tone and was last updated in 2011 when she stripped off for a charity calendar. They have an up to date twitter than only mentions her as "founder", not owner. Hmm.

Neil's business idea certainly isn't going to be a beard grooming salon.

He said what it was but I can't remember... was it estate agency?

Online estate agency? Like, hello, is this 1999?

The thing is, I don't think he has any experience as an estate agent, so not only is his plan laughably behind the times, he probably wouldn't be able to make it work anyway.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrggggggghhh!!!
http://static.bbci.co.uk/programmeimages/224x126/images/live/p018cksy.jpg

Luisa's other two business btw are an online cupcake tat reseller (food colouring, cupcake papers, baking tins etc) that she co-owns with someone she shares a surname with (was she married when she had the kid? If so, it might be co-owned by her ex-husband; if not then it's co-owned by her dad or a brother/other relative) and a 'cupcake academy' that teaches icing and things but crucially didn't launch until December 2012 so maybe implies she didn't make it. If she was using the series as free advertising then she'd surely make it easier to find as it doesn't come close to flagging up on any obvious google hits.

Leah set up a cosmetic surgery company in Londonderry in Feb 2013 and has acquired a building to expand into in Q3 2013 so I think we can rule her out too. (Guessing that's her business proposal, so it may well be her that gets called a parasite)

Francesa has a personal website under construction that's due to go live in 10 hours. She's still listed as principle choreographer at a dance company. Did we know she choreographed the iLiKETRAiNS video for "The Christmas Tree Ship"? Now we do. She still owns a look-a-like agency.

Rebecca's business plan was online sales of moissanite jewellery as a cheap alternative to diamonds.

neilclough.net is a horrible framed website which has next to no detail on it and doesn't seem to sell anything except his time as a motivational speaker. On the basis of his web presence, he's the winner (as Francesca's website launch isn't timed to coincide with the finale).

"you are a parasite this interview is terminated" is next level brutality from that one guy

Really hope this is something along the lines of "Jordan you are a parasite for basically trying to hire out your programmer mate(s) while you take a cut of the money for doing sod all."

― Meine Damen und Herren, ein grosse sh*tstorm! (snoball), Thursday, 4 July 2013 10:02 (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In fact, more than *hope*, I'd say that's the only scenario where that comment would be 'acceptable'...

Someone on Digital Spy has turned up that Luisa's companies have a net worth of £194, according to her directorship notes in the parent company. And yes, her husband (who she apparently still lives with despite the alleged 6 month thing with Jordan and the pimp boyfriend from the press) is co-owner. He's dissolved three companies over the past couple of years, over £1M in the hole in each of them.

Yes, but that form of parasitism is part of the definition of modern (and ancient) business methodologies and prenciples.