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.
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