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BBC The Apprentice (1) – Learning When To Shut Up

Tweet        The Apprentice (1) – Learning When To Shut Up An Apprentice first: firing a likely winner in the first episode. No, don’t shout at me: I agree Bilyana had a bad attack of verbal diarrhoea in the boardroom and played a full part in the undignified but regular Apprentice game of shaft the sister. However […]

The Apprentice Episode 7 – Blowin’ In The Wind

Tweet    The Apprentice Episode 7 – Blowin’ in The Wind Being off school can blight your life. It all depends on what you miss. Long Division; the Past Historic; Dovetail Joints: no sweat, you’ll catch up, you’ll get the hang of it, you’ll pick it up from the repeats and action replays. But if […]

BBC: The Apprentice Episode 6 – Steptoe vs Pickfords

TweetThe Apprentice Episode 6 – Steptoe vs Pickfords Best decision of the week: when Tom and Jimmy (some mouse that Jimmy) wanted to quit a job half way through because it was taking longer than they thought and wouldn’t make money, PM Helen immediately and decisively said “no – we can’t leave a client with […]

Sugar gets his Girl Friday

Tweet The Apprentice – The Final So Stella it is. The rules of The Apprentice have always been vague to the point of pointless and implemented by The Lord Sugar with a delighted capricious inconsistency that leaves us in no doubt who makes the final decisions and therefore who is in charge. But The Apprentice […]

The Apprentice – nasty, brutish and short

Tweet The Apprentice – Episode 10 – London Bus Tours Thomas Hobbes, 17th century English philosopher said of human life that it was “nasty, brutish and short, a war of every man against every man”. This pretty much sums up the business ethos that The Apprentice promotes week in week out. Everything is grist to […]

The Apprentice – The Final: Yas you’re hired!

Tweet The Apprentice – Week 12: The Final Capitalism is a paradoxical system. Sralan expressed it perfectly if unwittingly as I’m not sure he has much taste for irony. In an evenly balanced contest according to Sralan both women got it almost right. Kate won the personal presentation, her three-tiered box of ‘one for her, […]

The Apprentice Week 11 – wheels, spokes, Darth Debra departs

Tweet The Apprentice Week 11 – now only two can play Sir Alan Sugar in government? It is rumoured tonight that SAS has been offered a job by Gordon Brown. Given the rest of the news, this is a bit like the captain of the Titanic inviting you on a cruise. This invitation, if true, […]

The Apprentice Week 10 – fallacies and moved goalposts

Tweet The Apprentice Week 10 – intelligent, thoughtful, skilled team-player, good listener, good manager – you’re fired. If Sralan Sugar had been in charge of the European Champion’s League Final this week they’d still be playing: he moves the goalposts so suddenly and so often no one could ever score. Last week the high-ticket Rocking […]

The Apprentice Week 9 – Sellers, Closers and Negotiators

Tweet The Apprentice Week 9 – Getting Real This was my come-uppance week. Sralan had a good show and even Ben showed a bit of the self-knowledge one despaired of him ever acquiring. It is a troubling aspect of The Apprentice that everyone later on The Apprentice You’re Fired (TAYF) suddenly becomes more likeable, more […]

The Apprentice Week 8 – Margate Mission Muffed

TweetThe Apprentice Week 8 – Margate Mission Muffed Sugar’s increasingly capricious firing decisions and inconsistent rationale for them invites analysis. The promising Rocky Andrews was fired in week 2, partly on the argument that he was ‘too young’; yet the strikingly immature Ben, just 22 remains after some of the crassest remarks and dumbest behaviour […]