Do you think, if we tried really hard, we could get this to number one for Sunday?
Because I think we should try.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
The Apprentice 2010: Week 10
This is going to a be a lightning-quick tour of last week's events, because I just haven't had the time. Also, I'm doing this from memory, rather than watching it all again.
So they get hauled to a bus station at the skrake of dawn, and told that this week's task is to organise bus tours of London. Heh. Some of them look like they've never been on a bus in their lives, nor spoken with anyone who's been on a bus, but they smile gamely as the teams are swapped again. On one side we have Liz (the leader), Stella and Stuart, and on the other, Jamie, Chris and Joanna (with either Jamie or Joanna as leader, I forget which). Clearly Lord Shugagh is liking his New Plan to always put his 2 least favourite people on opposing teams, so that he's pretty much guaranteed to be able to fire one of them, and surely we'll be saying farewell to the Baggs or Mediocre Chris tonight, no?
Step 1 is to plan the tours, a process which both teams spend a good 30 seconds on. Liz's lot decide tourists are gagging for a Cockney Tour, while Jamie and co opt for 'Ghosts and Ghouls'. There's some kind of deal to be made with a tourist centre; whichever team gives the better offer gets to sell their tickets through the tourist place, thus guaranteeing more sales, you'd think. Baggs goes in and offers them 25% of the price of all the tickets they sell; they point out that generally it would be around 35%, so they'll wait to see what the other team offers. Chris goes in and basically offers them everything he owns, including various internal organs, and they hastily agree. Just in time, as it happens, since Joanna, on getting wind of the deal, heads straight down there to explain how it was all a mistake and really they didn't mean to offer so much and is there any chance Chris could have at least one kidney back, and Tourist Centre girl laughs at her.
Up to this point, Joanna and Jamie had been busily engaged in the most polite argument I've come across, which went something like:
Joanna: moan moan honk honk moan
Jamie: You're annoying me, shut up
Joanna: Jamie! I have never been spoken to like that by a man, you're scaring me!
Meanwhile Stella swots up on her apples and pears, while Liz and Stuart are researching possible locations for their Cockney tour. Too late, they realise that their chosen area of London is, essentially, a building site. Fortunately, there's a jellied eels seller, with a quaint-looking stall, so, clearly, he's going to be the highlight. Liz asks him to 'up the cockney' a bit, and a customer nearly decks her.
And so to the day of the tours, which can apparently only take place if our Young Hopefuls are dressed like failed extras from an Easyjet ad. Each team splits the responsibilities: 2 people to sell tickets, and 1 to lead the tour. First the ticket sellers: Stuart and Liz on one team, and Joanna and Chris on the other. Joanna and Chris have the advantage that the tourist place are selling for them, but Baggs is not to be outdone, and stands right outside the door telling everyone how crap the other team's tour is, until the tourist centre girl comes out and tells him what he's doing is illegal. He tells her to call the police, which, unfortunately, she does not. Baggs skulks off to tag Joanna instead. Every time she sells a ticket, he runs up to the customer and yells 'Their tour is rubbish, our tour is 4 quid cheaper than theirs and theirs is rubbish and ours is 4 quid cheaper!'. Eventually this leads to a mediocre face-off with Chris, who tells Stuart to f-off. Stuart tells Chris to punch him, which, unfortunately, he does not. That's twice in 2 minutes the nation's hopes have been dashed.
On the buses, things are going equally well. Jamie is leading his lot around places where Sweeny Todd murdered people, describing the deaths in such grisly detail that several people are close to collapsing. He informs them that 'the Thames is the second biggest river in London', but, quite properly, does not follow up with the name of the actual biggest, because no one would want to know that. He also imparts the information that Big Ben is '12 diameters wide', causing a young swotty student-looking type to visibly quiver. However, things take off a bit when he leads the upper deck in a reasonably energetic rendition of 'London's Burning'.
Cut to Stella, who's on a bus with 8 people who are politely, if impassively, observing her singing 'Knees Up Mother Brown'. She manages to get lost on the way to the jellied eel man, miss Downing Street and the Cenotaph, and end up trying to pass off a random piece of graffitti as 'a Banksy, maybe'. To which the woman next to her replies 'no it isn't'.
Back in the boardroom, it's a hard one to call - it looks like Chris-Joanna-Jamie may have had more passengers, but then they've promised Nick's soul to the tourist place and that might cost them. Some too-ing and fro-ing about how Baggs charged too much (£35 a ticket or something insane) and Chris was a bit dim in the tourist place, and eventually it's announced: Chris-Jamie-Joanna have won! Hurrah! Baggs to leave!
And then there's some kind of glitch in the matrix, because when Liz, Stella and Baggs get called back in, something odd happens. Liz and Stella defend themselves in the usual way "I'm dead good, me", and Baggs comes off with some tripe "Hiring me will be a gamble, but I sold yo-yos in school and my parents only ever gave me a tenner and nothing else ever" and somehow, for reasons we will never know, Liz gets fired.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yes. Liz.
One can only assume that they figure that since Baggs got this far, they might as well milk it and throw him into the interview round, which happens this week. And you have to admit it'll be unmissable.
So they get hauled to a bus station at the skrake of dawn, and told that this week's task is to organise bus tours of London. Heh. Some of them look like they've never been on a bus in their lives, nor spoken with anyone who's been on a bus, but they smile gamely as the teams are swapped again. On one side we have Liz (the leader), Stella and Stuart, and on the other, Jamie, Chris and Joanna (with either Jamie or Joanna as leader, I forget which). Clearly Lord Shugagh is liking his New Plan to always put his 2 least favourite people on opposing teams, so that he's pretty much guaranteed to be able to fire one of them, and surely we'll be saying farewell to the Baggs or Mediocre Chris tonight, no?
Step 1 is to plan the tours, a process which both teams spend a good 30 seconds on. Liz's lot decide tourists are gagging for a Cockney Tour, while Jamie and co opt for 'Ghosts and Ghouls'. There's some kind of deal to be made with a tourist centre; whichever team gives the better offer gets to sell their tickets through the tourist place, thus guaranteeing more sales, you'd think. Baggs goes in and offers them 25% of the price of all the tickets they sell; they point out that generally it would be around 35%, so they'll wait to see what the other team offers. Chris goes in and basically offers them everything he owns, including various internal organs, and they hastily agree. Just in time, as it happens, since Joanna, on getting wind of the deal, heads straight down there to explain how it was all a mistake and really they didn't mean to offer so much and is there any chance Chris could have at least one kidney back, and Tourist Centre girl laughs at her.
Up to this point, Joanna and Jamie had been busily engaged in the most polite argument I've come across, which went something like:
Joanna: moan moan honk honk moan
Jamie: You're annoying me, shut up
Joanna: Jamie! I have never been spoken to like that by a man, you're scaring me!
Meanwhile Stella swots up on her apples and pears, while Liz and Stuart are researching possible locations for their Cockney tour. Too late, they realise that their chosen area of London is, essentially, a building site. Fortunately, there's a jellied eels seller, with a quaint-looking stall, so, clearly, he's going to be the highlight. Liz asks him to 'up the cockney' a bit, and a customer nearly decks her.
And so to the day of the tours, which can apparently only take place if our Young Hopefuls are dressed like failed extras from an Easyjet ad. Each team splits the responsibilities: 2 people to sell tickets, and 1 to lead the tour. First the ticket sellers: Stuart and Liz on one team, and Joanna and Chris on the other. Joanna and Chris have the advantage that the tourist place are selling for them, but Baggs is not to be outdone, and stands right outside the door telling everyone how crap the other team's tour is, until the tourist centre girl comes out and tells him what he's doing is illegal. He tells her to call the police, which, unfortunately, she does not. Baggs skulks off to tag Joanna instead. Every time she sells a ticket, he runs up to the customer and yells 'Their tour is rubbish, our tour is 4 quid cheaper than theirs and theirs is rubbish and ours is 4 quid cheaper!'. Eventually this leads to a mediocre face-off with Chris, who tells Stuart to f-off. Stuart tells Chris to punch him, which, unfortunately, he does not. That's twice in 2 minutes the nation's hopes have been dashed.
On the buses, things are going equally well. Jamie is leading his lot around places where Sweeny Todd murdered people, describing the deaths in such grisly detail that several people are close to collapsing. He informs them that 'the Thames is the second biggest river in London', but, quite properly, does not follow up with the name of the actual biggest, because no one would want to know that. He also imparts the information that Big Ben is '12 diameters wide', causing a young swotty student-looking type to visibly quiver. However, things take off a bit when he leads the upper deck in a reasonably energetic rendition of 'London's Burning'.
Cut to Stella, who's on a bus with 8 people who are politely, if impassively, observing her singing 'Knees Up Mother Brown'. She manages to get lost on the way to the jellied eel man, miss Downing Street and the Cenotaph, and end up trying to pass off a random piece of graffitti as 'a Banksy, maybe'. To which the woman next to her replies 'no it isn't'.
Back in the boardroom, it's a hard one to call - it looks like Chris-Joanna-Jamie may have had more passengers, but then they've promised Nick's soul to the tourist place and that might cost them. Some too-ing and fro-ing about how Baggs charged too much (£35 a ticket or something insane) and Chris was a bit dim in the tourist place, and eventually it's announced: Chris-Jamie-Joanna have won! Hurrah! Baggs to leave!
And then there's some kind of glitch in the matrix, because when Liz, Stella and Baggs get called back in, something odd happens. Liz and Stella defend themselves in the usual way "I'm dead good, me", and Baggs comes off with some tripe "Hiring me will be a gamble, but I sold yo-yos in school and my parents only ever gave me a tenner and nothing else ever" and somehow, for reasons we will never know, Liz gets fired.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yes. Liz.
One can only assume that they figure that since Baggs got this far, they might as well milk it and throw him into the interview round, which happens this week. And you have to admit it'll be unmissable.
Friday, 3 December 2010
The Apprentice 2010: Week 9
Apparently I was wrong last week when I said that this week's task was the one where they have to sell miscellaneous tat to unsuspecting members of the public (I was thinking of the one which, last year, brought us Nooral and a skeleton); rather, this is the one where they have to buy miscellaneous tat from unsuspecting members of the public.
They really don't give an ass any more, as evidenced by taking a year and a day to answer the phone (Stella eventually gets down the stairs, wrapped in towelling; Jamie sits up in bad and looks all handsome, and the rest of them swear loudly). In the half an hour which they allegedly have to get ready, they manage to tong hair, moan about being tired, and do the ironing. Off to London's Financial District, where they form an orderly line to await Lord Shugah arising slowly through the floor, like some sort of inverted Angel Gabriel.
The task, as we've said, is to buy all the items on a supplied list as cheaply as possible. They have 10 hours; if they don't get back in time, they get penalised, and if they miss any items they get penalised. The ones who spend the least, win. We're back to girls and boys this week, which mercifully means that either Baggs or Laura has to go; no more jammy being on the winning team - this week, Lord Shugah is on the ball.
Jamie and Liz are in charge. The boys basically explode in a fury of racing around the streets trying to buy anything they can lay their hands on, while the girls stay back at base with their list and their phones and their Yellow Pages, and Plan. Not well, of course ('What's our strategy?' 'I think we need to figure out where we can buy these things'), but enough that they know what they're looking for.
Jamie is desperate to prove he's not a twit, so he tells the boys they're to aim for 70% off, make up whatever stories they want, and 'negotiate their bloody bottoms off'. He then sends Chris and Stuart off for half the things, and goes on the hunt for the other half himself. There's a fabulous moment when he walks into a shop looking for a 'tikka, 22-carat gold', not knowing what it is, and the salesman says 'Yes, that's not a problem... what's a tikka?'. Now THAT, my friends, is a sales technique.
Stuart and Chris are trying to buy a Blue Book, which they suss out really quickly is a rare American magazine, and they start sniffing round bookshops, where the owners do a lot of teeth-sucking and slow shaking of heads because they've never heard of it. Meanwhile, the girls figure out that a Blue Book is actually a taxi driver's manual, and nab one from a taxi driver school for 50 quid by telling the guy in the shop that his mate said he'd look after them. Jamie's having no luck with figuring out what a tikka is, whereas Laura and Stella have Googled it or something and picked one up for £160, having gone into the shop saying 'You have the item and we have the money', which even I know is a crap negotiation technique. Eventually, however, Jamie strikes gold, and wanders into a jeweller's looking sad because he wants a tikka so much and they are trying to charge him so much money, and isn't it so so sad, and lo! he gets it for £135. The jeweller's now homeless and starving, like, but never mind.
Stuart and Chris have evidently taken Jamie's command to 'have a story ready' too seriously, and now that they have worked out what a Blue Book actually is, they go to a bookshop and try to haggle. Chris comes up with some crap about his brother doing a taxi driver exam on Monday but being unable to study for it because Chris borrowed his Blue Book and left it in Nottingham or something... Please consider this for a moment. Consider that this is a regular shop, and 2 guys in suits have walked in, and one is claiming that he borrowed his brother's taxi driver exam books (? What? Why?!) and then managed to leave them in Nottingham (??!?); these 2 guys are accompanied by Karren with 2 arrs, who you'd imagine they would at least recognise as being off the telly, and a camera crew. Presumably he imagines it's some kind of candid camera show or something, because he gives them the first discount ever in the history of Blue Book sales, as long as they give a pound to charity.
The basic gist of happenings is thus:
> the girls are fairly rubbish at negotiating. They hair around Knightsbridge trying to buy truffles from Gordon Ramsey (well, Stella tries, while Laura sits next to her and shreds the Yellow Pages with her laser eye glare, because she thinks it's a stupid idea but doesn't like to say so); they eventually manage to buy 50g of truffles (cost: £2000 per kilo) for £200 and an agreement to come back to the restaurant for dinner some time.
> Jamie is very good at negotiating, but feck useless with common sense; he manages to spend half the afternoon being unable to buy 4 metres of kitchen worktop.
> Stuart and Chris are lying gets, and not even good at it. Trying to buy tartan, they wander into a Scottish shop and Chris spins some complex yarn about needing the tartan cheap because he has to go to a Scottish wedding next week and he wants to take the tartan for his nan's birthday present. What?
There's a last-minute dash back to the boardroom, with Liz almost stabbing a pensioner for not being able to write fast enough, Chris begging embarrassingly ('I have no money and I really need truffles'), Stuart racing up the stairs and almost landing on Jamie's knee, and the girls being late and incurring a fine. In their wake is a collection of robbed, deperate shopkeepers, vaguely hoping that they'll be on tv.
Then it gets interesting: the boys only got 7 out of the 10 items but made it back on time, whereas the girls got all of them but were back late. This means that the girls get a £50 fine, and the boys are charged as if they had bought the 3 missed items at list price plus something I miss. The girls explain their planning technique and their route around the various items, and it's all very P5 project. The boys explain that they ran around with fire in their bellies telling lies.
The girls have spent (including their fine) £1094.40, where the boys have spent (including £500 of fines) £1020.50. Heck, says everyone. Jamie witters on about the kitchen worktop again, and then the boys get sent to Paris, to gad about in berets on the Champs Elysees.
Back to the boardroom for the girls, and bizarrely, they all seem to have turned on Stella who, ok, was wick at negotiating, but no more so than anyone else. Lord Shugah makes some sexist comments about how they'd be better at buying handbags and shoes than computer chips, and then they all turn on Stella again, for being 'too corporate'. Obviously Laura's going, if only Liz has the wit to bring her back in, which she does. Stella comes too, so that they can snark at her some more.
It turns out that Liz and Laura can't stand Stella, which is quite exciting. Also, Laura's 22 and has never had to scream, and reminds everyone that she was a shambles as project manager. Stella and Liz blame each other for the whole truffles fiasco, and then Laura snipes at Stella again.
Obviously Laura goes, although not before Lord Shugah gives Stella a good fright by pretending he's going to fire her. Back at the house, they're all snarking about Stella (mysteriously, the boys are back from their weekend in France). When Liz and Stella come back, Liz complains that Stella was mean about her in the boardroom, and announces that Laura will be missed. They all agree. Gulp.
So there are 3 weeks left. Next week is the final team task, then there are the interviews (please let Stuart get to the interview stage, pleeeeease), and then the final. It is time to begin predicting. Obviously it depends a bit on who's on which team, but I suspect that next week will see the end of Jamie (or maybe Stuart), and that the final could be Liz and Chris. Anyone else?
They really don't give an ass any more, as evidenced by taking a year and a day to answer the phone (Stella eventually gets down the stairs, wrapped in towelling; Jamie sits up in bad and looks all handsome, and the rest of them swear loudly). In the half an hour which they allegedly have to get ready, they manage to tong hair, moan about being tired, and do the ironing. Off to London's Financial District, where they form an orderly line to await Lord Shugah arising slowly through the floor, like some sort of inverted Angel Gabriel.
The task, as we've said, is to buy all the items on a supplied list as cheaply as possible. They have 10 hours; if they don't get back in time, they get penalised, and if they miss any items they get penalised. The ones who spend the least, win. We're back to girls and boys this week, which mercifully means that either Baggs or Laura has to go; no more jammy being on the winning team - this week, Lord Shugah is on the ball.
Jamie and Liz are in charge. The boys basically explode in a fury of racing around the streets trying to buy anything they can lay their hands on, while the girls stay back at base with their list and their phones and their Yellow Pages, and Plan. Not well, of course ('What's our strategy?' 'I think we need to figure out where we can buy these things'), but enough that they know what they're looking for.
Jamie is desperate to prove he's not a twit, so he tells the boys they're to aim for 70% off, make up whatever stories they want, and 'negotiate their bloody bottoms off'. He then sends Chris and Stuart off for half the things, and goes on the hunt for the other half himself. There's a fabulous moment when he walks into a shop looking for a 'tikka, 22-carat gold', not knowing what it is, and the salesman says 'Yes, that's not a problem... what's a tikka?'. Now THAT, my friends, is a sales technique.
Stuart and Chris are trying to buy a Blue Book, which they suss out really quickly is a rare American magazine, and they start sniffing round bookshops, where the owners do a lot of teeth-sucking and slow shaking of heads because they've never heard of it. Meanwhile, the girls figure out that a Blue Book is actually a taxi driver's manual, and nab one from a taxi driver school for 50 quid by telling the guy in the shop that his mate said he'd look after them. Jamie's having no luck with figuring out what a tikka is, whereas Laura and Stella have Googled it or something and picked one up for £160, having gone into the shop saying 'You have the item and we have the money', which even I know is a crap negotiation technique. Eventually, however, Jamie strikes gold, and wanders into a jeweller's looking sad because he wants a tikka so much and they are trying to charge him so much money, and isn't it so so sad, and lo! he gets it for £135. The jeweller's now homeless and starving, like, but never mind.
Stuart and Chris have evidently taken Jamie's command to 'have a story ready' too seriously, and now that they have worked out what a Blue Book actually is, they go to a bookshop and try to haggle. Chris comes up with some crap about his brother doing a taxi driver exam on Monday but being unable to study for it because Chris borrowed his Blue Book and left it in Nottingham or something... Please consider this for a moment. Consider that this is a regular shop, and 2 guys in suits have walked in, and one is claiming that he borrowed his brother's taxi driver exam books (? What? Why?!) and then managed to leave them in Nottingham (??!?); these 2 guys are accompanied by Karren with 2 arrs, who you'd imagine they would at least recognise as being off the telly, and a camera crew. Presumably he imagines it's some kind of candid camera show or something, because he gives them the first discount ever in the history of Blue Book sales, as long as they give a pound to charity.
The basic gist of happenings is thus:
> the girls are fairly rubbish at negotiating. They hair around Knightsbridge trying to buy truffles from Gordon Ramsey (well, Stella tries, while Laura sits next to her and shreds the Yellow Pages with her laser eye glare, because she thinks it's a stupid idea but doesn't like to say so); they eventually manage to buy 50g of truffles (cost: £2000 per kilo) for £200 and an agreement to come back to the restaurant for dinner some time.
> Jamie is very good at negotiating, but feck useless with common sense; he manages to spend half the afternoon being unable to buy 4 metres of kitchen worktop.
> Stuart and Chris are lying gets, and not even good at it. Trying to buy tartan, they wander into a Scottish shop and Chris spins some complex yarn about needing the tartan cheap because he has to go to a Scottish wedding next week and he wants to take the tartan for his nan's birthday present. What?
There's a last-minute dash back to the boardroom, with Liz almost stabbing a pensioner for not being able to write fast enough, Chris begging embarrassingly ('I have no money and I really need truffles'), Stuart racing up the stairs and almost landing on Jamie's knee, and the girls being late and incurring a fine. In their wake is a collection of robbed, deperate shopkeepers, vaguely hoping that they'll be on tv.
Then it gets interesting: the boys only got 7 out of the 10 items but made it back on time, whereas the girls got all of them but were back late. This means that the girls get a £50 fine, and the boys are charged as if they had bought the 3 missed items at list price plus something I miss. The girls explain their planning technique and their route around the various items, and it's all very P5 project. The boys explain that they ran around with fire in their bellies telling lies.
The girls have spent (including their fine) £1094.40, where the boys have spent (including £500 of fines) £1020.50. Heck, says everyone. Jamie witters on about the kitchen worktop again, and then the boys get sent to Paris, to gad about in berets on the Champs Elysees.
Back to the boardroom for the girls, and bizarrely, they all seem to have turned on Stella who, ok, was wick at negotiating, but no more so than anyone else. Lord Shugah makes some sexist comments about how they'd be better at buying handbags and shoes than computer chips, and then they all turn on Stella again, for being 'too corporate'. Obviously Laura's going, if only Liz has the wit to bring her back in, which she does. Stella comes too, so that they can snark at her some more.
It turns out that Liz and Laura can't stand Stella, which is quite exciting. Also, Laura's 22 and has never had to scream, and reminds everyone that she was a shambles as project manager. Stella and Liz blame each other for the whole truffles fiasco, and then Laura snipes at Stella again.
Obviously Laura goes, although not before Lord Shugah gives Stella a good fright by pretending he's going to fire her. Back at the house, they're all snarking about Stella (mysteriously, the boys are back from their weekend in France). When Liz and Stella come back, Liz complains that Stella was mean about her in the boardroom, and announces that Laura will be missed. They all agree. Gulp.
So there are 3 weeks left. Next week is the final team task, then there are the interviews (please let Stuart get to the interview stage, pleeeeease), and then the final. It is time to begin predicting. Obviously it depends a bit on who's on which team, but I suspect that next week will see the end of Jamie (or maybe Stuart), and that the final could be Liz and Chris. Anyone else?
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
The Apprentice 2010: Week 8
After episodes entitled things like 'Selling to trade', this week's offering is called 'Crisps'. We begin with the review of Sandeesh & Co and the Great Downhill Skiing Disaster-fest, complete with Stuart being an irritating twerp. Jamie answers the phone and is told they're to pack for a 2-day foreign trip, with clothes for all weathers. Stuart reckons Lord Shugah is sending them to a war zone. Ah, yes, the famous 'Illegal Arms Trade' task. Having said that, even if it's not a war zone to begin with, it will be once Laura-the-moan-pants, Jamie-the-whinger and Joanna-the-foghorn get there.
It turns out to be Germany. "I 'ate the Geemins" says Christopher, to kick off the casual racism. They have to flog them crisps, coming up with some decent flavours, making them, and then shipping over to Hamburg to flog them. On team Baggs-MoanPants-Stella-Joanna, it seems they're fighting to be in charge, apart from Baggs, who's knackered from last week. Baggs thinks Stella should be in charge so that if they lose she'll get sacked, showing a reckless disregard for both self-awareness and common sense. On Chris-Christopher-Liz-Jamie, Chris gets put in charge, confident he'll do a good, if monotone, job.
So they need to come up with crisp flavours. Chris & Co are going for traditional German, such as sausage, bratwurst and goulash, in a 'bringing the mountain to Mohammed and also bringing the Hungarian mountain while you're at it' move. Stuart's lot (for he is talking non-stop) realise that there's no point in pretending not to be British, and are going for pot roast flavour, sausage and eggs, and CURRY CURRY CURRY honks Joanna over everyone else.
Joanna, Stuart, Christopher and Jamie go to Hamburg, while the rest stay behind to make crisps. They practice some German on the way: Baggs can count to 20 (which is approximately the number of seconds I give it until Joanna punches him in the face), while Christopher practices chat-up lines on Jamie. Once they get there, it's all 'Guten Tag' and 'Danke schon' from Jamie and Christopher (who ditch each other to fall in love with curry wurst), while Baggs is doing a lot of 'Das ist Wunderbar', 'Cheeps cheeps' and 'Ja, ja'.
Joanna is pleased to find the Germans love curry chips, and then that a survey of one proves they love shepherds' pie and fish & chips, even if, when she says 'would you like to see them flavours in crisps?' he says 'no'. She and Baggs decide sausage is the way forward, so they go to look at some sausages in a sausage place. The man is telling them what the sausages are. 'White sausage' he says, pointing. "I've got one of those" says Baggs, and the nation delicately heaves. Then she phones Stella and honks CURRY CURRY CURRY again. Unfortunately, Stella and Laura have already started making crisps, and are using flavours I don't quite catch. I'm fairly sure one of them is cheese and paprika, and the others sounded like variations on toothpaste and orange juice.
They make a shed-load of these things, so now they have to set up meetings with people who might want to buy them. Christopher and Stuart phone around and speak a lot of English with German accents. It's all very Fallen Madonna Wiz Ze Big Boobies. Stuart decides to call himself 'Herr Baggs', and thinks he must sound stupid to the Germans. Not just the Germans, Hairbags, not just the Germans.
Christopher phones a hotel to make an appointment, and is offered 9am or 1pm; he choses 9am and then gets sidelined by Jamie, who fancies a night on the rip, and changes it to 1pm, allowing Joanna and Hairbags to steal the 9am. Dun-dun-DUN. Having ditched the Baggs, Joanna takes Stella to the appoinment, and some bags of crisps. The beef and something one is liked; the cheese and paprika one 'will increase bar sales'. At this point, Joanna does some kind of magic. She wants him to place an order for 6 months. The guy wants to place an order for 3 months. Joanna splits the difference and suggests 12 months. The guy opts for 6 months. It's like that thing last year when your woman sold all those people-shaped sleeping bags, and the country could only do a collective head-tilt, and slightly frown.
Hairbags and Laura are meeting a chap called Mike Sandwich. Heh. Hairbags has told Laura not to speak too fast; they go in and he says something like 'Ich heise Stuart und das ist mein colleague Laura (*Laura: Gut Tag*)'. Herr Sandwich (there's an image) looks blank and then clicks. "You're speaking in German?". Then Laura says "asimsureyoureawarethemarkethaschangedandweknowthatthehandcookedgourmetnaturalcrispmarketisthenextbigthing" and some other things, and Herr sandwich looks blank again. He's not fond of the crisps, either. Hairbags tells her off afterwards, and she huffs. She doesn't know what else she could have done. Hint: talk at a normal person speed.
Christopher and Jamie hawk door-to-door for a bit, unsuccessfully. For some reason, one guy thinks they're called 'Funny Chips', and also that they're stinkin'. Then they try to flog them to a girl who has no authority to do anything more than butter bagels, and probably can't even buy a bar of soap for the toilets with company money, never mind a truckload of currywurst potato snacks.
Hairbags and Laura are meant to go to a big meeting, but Stella (who's their project manager) gets there before them, and Laura throws the strop of the decade. We're not talking a bit of a huff. We're talking yak yak yak poor me load of bollocks yak yak yak *falls out of the cab and loses a shoe* (ha ha ha ha ha!). She hopes they lose the task, so they can SLAP IT UP STELLA.
Chris and Liz go to the meeting that would have been at 9am except that Christopher changed it, and the guy can't buy anything because he bought so much from Joanna and Stella earlier, but they try grovelling, and that earns them a telling off. To rub salt into the wound, Stella and Joanna then go to the place with the bagel butter girl, speak to the manager instead, and get a big order.
Back to Blighty, and the board room. In they go, and Nick immediately grasses on Hairbags and tells Lord Shugagh that he declared himself knackered. Everyone snickers. Laura gets a telling off for speaking like a rapid-fire machine gun. Jamie's all proud that bagel girl liked the crisps. The orders are in, and Stella's lot have made €19327, while Chris and co have made €17995. Stella, Laura and Joanna get to go shopping with Baggs in tow, which is surely a fate worse than just losing and being booted out; the others can relax in the Cafe Auf Loserness, safe in the knowledge that they're not in the same room as Baggs and Laura.
Back in the boardroom, and the whole 9am-1pm appointment thing rears its head, causing Chris to do his 'glaring' face, and Jamie to try to 'recall it in his brain', and eventually recollecting that 'the early word catches the birm'. Chris introduces us to his 'shocked' monotone. He's bringing Christopher and Jamie back in, because of the appointment fiasco. A bit more monotone from Chris - "I'm not a loser, at the end of the day... Well, obviously I am in terms of the numbers which you have". Christopher is accused of being too nice and working too hard and getting on too well with people, but points out that he went to Germany even though he doesn't particularly like going to Germany. Jamie says how great he is, so Lord Shugagh asks him what his sparks of brilliance have been, and he does some waffling about how skilled he has been in going from being 24 to being 28.
Long and short, they're all a bit wick at this business lark, and Chris has now lost about 28 tasks in a row, and Jamie is getting worse by the week, but Christopher's too nice, so HE'S FIRED.
Next week is the flogging random tat to whoever will buy it task, which is always fabulous.
It turns out to be Germany. "I 'ate the Geemins" says Christopher, to kick off the casual racism. They have to flog them crisps, coming up with some decent flavours, making them, and then shipping over to Hamburg to flog them. On team Baggs-MoanPants-Stella-Joanna, it seems they're fighting to be in charge, apart from Baggs, who's knackered from last week. Baggs thinks Stella should be in charge so that if they lose she'll get sacked, showing a reckless disregard for both self-awareness and common sense. On Chris-Christopher-Liz-Jamie, Chris gets put in charge, confident he'll do a good, if monotone, job.
So they need to come up with crisp flavours. Chris & Co are going for traditional German, such as sausage, bratwurst and goulash, in a 'bringing the mountain to Mohammed and also bringing the Hungarian mountain while you're at it' move. Stuart's lot (for he is talking non-stop) realise that there's no point in pretending not to be British, and are going for pot roast flavour, sausage and eggs, and CURRY CURRY CURRY honks Joanna over everyone else.
Joanna, Stuart, Christopher and Jamie go to Hamburg, while the rest stay behind to make crisps. They practice some German on the way: Baggs can count to 20 (which is approximately the number of seconds I give it until Joanna punches him in the face), while Christopher practices chat-up lines on Jamie. Once they get there, it's all 'Guten Tag' and 'Danke schon' from Jamie and Christopher (who ditch each other to fall in love with curry wurst), while Baggs is doing a lot of 'Das ist Wunderbar', 'Cheeps cheeps' and 'Ja, ja'.
Joanna is pleased to find the Germans love curry chips, and then that a survey of one proves they love shepherds' pie and fish & chips, even if, when she says 'would you like to see them flavours in crisps?' he says 'no'. She and Baggs decide sausage is the way forward, so they go to look at some sausages in a sausage place. The man is telling them what the sausages are. 'White sausage' he says, pointing. "I've got one of those" says Baggs, and the nation delicately heaves. Then she phones Stella and honks CURRY CURRY CURRY again. Unfortunately, Stella and Laura have already started making crisps, and are using flavours I don't quite catch. I'm fairly sure one of them is cheese and paprika, and the others sounded like variations on toothpaste and orange juice.
They make a shed-load of these things, so now they have to set up meetings with people who might want to buy them. Christopher and Stuart phone around and speak a lot of English with German accents. It's all very Fallen Madonna Wiz Ze Big Boobies. Stuart decides to call himself 'Herr Baggs', and thinks he must sound stupid to the Germans. Not just the Germans, Hairbags, not just the Germans.
Christopher phones a hotel to make an appointment, and is offered 9am or 1pm; he choses 9am and then gets sidelined by Jamie, who fancies a night on the rip, and changes it to 1pm, allowing Joanna and Hairbags to steal the 9am. Dun-dun-DUN. Having ditched the Baggs, Joanna takes Stella to the appoinment, and some bags of crisps. The beef and something one is liked; the cheese and paprika one 'will increase bar sales'. At this point, Joanna does some kind of magic. She wants him to place an order for 6 months. The guy wants to place an order for 3 months. Joanna splits the difference and suggests 12 months. The guy opts for 6 months. It's like that thing last year when your woman sold all those people-shaped sleeping bags, and the country could only do a collective head-tilt, and slightly frown.
Hairbags and Laura are meeting a chap called Mike Sandwich. Heh. Hairbags has told Laura not to speak too fast; they go in and he says something like 'Ich heise Stuart und das ist mein colleague Laura (*Laura: Gut Tag*)'. Herr Sandwich (there's an image) looks blank and then clicks. "You're speaking in German?". Then Laura says "asimsureyoureawarethemarkethaschangedandweknowthatthehandcookedgourmetnaturalcrispmarketisthenextbigthing" and some other things, and Herr sandwich looks blank again. He's not fond of the crisps, either. Hairbags tells her off afterwards, and she huffs. She doesn't know what else she could have done. Hint: talk at a normal person speed.
Christopher and Jamie hawk door-to-door for a bit, unsuccessfully. For some reason, one guy thinks they're called 'Funny Chips', and also that they're stinkin'. Then they try to flog them to a girl who has no authority to do anything more than butter bagels, and probably can't even buy a bar of soap for the toilets with company money, never mind a truckload of currywurst potato snacks.
Hairbags and Laura are meant to go to a big meeting, but Stella (who's their project manager) gets there before them, and Laura throws the strop of the decade. We're not talking a bit of a huff. We're talking yak yak yak poor me load of bollocks yak yak yak *falls out of the cab and loses a shoe* (ha ha ha ha ha!). She hopes they lose the task, so they can SLAP IT UP STELLA.
Chris and Liz go to the meeting that would have been at 9am except that Christopher changed it, and the guy can't buy anything because he bought so much from Joanna and Stella earlier, but they try grovelling, and that earns them a telling off. To rub salt into the wound, Stella and Joanna then go to the place with the bagel butter girl, speak to the manager instead, and get a big order.
Back to Blighty, and the board room. In they go, and Nick immediately grasses on Hairbags and tells Lord Shugagh that he declared himself knackered. Everyone snickers. Laura gets a telling off for speaking like a rapid-fire machine gun. Jamie's all proud that bagel girl liked the crisps. The orders are in, and Stella's lot have made €19327, while Chris and co have made €17995. Stella, Laura and Joanna get to go shopping with Baggs in tow, which is surely a fate worse than just losing and being booted out; the others can relax in the Cafe Auf Loserness, safe in the knowledge that they're not in the same room as Baggs and Laura.
Back in the boardroom, and the whole 9am-1pm appointment thing rears its head, causing Chris to do his 'glaring' face, and Jamie to try to 'recall it in his brain', and eventually recollecting that 'the early word catches the birm'. Chris introduces us to his 'shocked' monotone. He's bringing Christopher and Jamie back in, because of the appointment fiasco. A bit more monotone from Chris - "I'm not a loser, at the end of the day... Well, obviously I am in terms of the numbers which you have". Christopher is accused of being too nice and working too hard and getting on too well with people, but points out that he went to Germany even though he doesn't particularly like going to Germany. Jamie says how great he is, so Lord Shugagh asks him what his sparks of brilliance have been, and he does some waffling about how skilled he has been in going from being 24 to being 28.
Long and short, they're all a bit wick at this business lark, and Chris has now lost about 28 tasks in a row, and Jamie is getting worse by the week, but Christopher's too nice, so HE'S FIRED.
Next week is the flogging random tat to whoever will buy it task, which is always fabulous.
Monday, 29 November 2010
A Delay In Processing
This week's Apprentice round-up has been delayed, due to unforeseen circumstances, including (but not limited to) me having too much work to do, me having to many other things to do and the snow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)