Young Apprentice 2011: Week 2

The Apprentice is starting to stretch our credulity to breaking point.  First, we're all pretending that Lewis is not just Rhys Rosser one year on, that Gbemi isn't Edna without gloves, and that James is not, in fact, the result of throwing Ben-who-didnt-go-to-Sandhurst, Stuart Baggs and Jedi Jim into a blender and then accidentally reanimating the whole darned mess.  And second, we're meant to believe that when the two teams come up with completely, entirely new, never-before-thought-of inventions, that Lord Sugar has a Big Machine out back that can make them overnight.

Anyway, this week's task was babies; specifically, passing them round the group and looking terrified (apart fromm Gbemi, who has a 9 year old sister and therefore is, like, a baby expert), and then inventing something to do with them that hasn't been done before and that people might buy.  Then it's the usual design it - make it - make a box to put it in - pitch it to retailers thing.

Lewis ends up in charge of the boys, if such a thing as being 'in charge' of this lot is really possible.  James and Sir Harry of Posh immediately start sniping and yelling and taking credit for every invention known to man.  Somehow, in the middle of this, someone (James or Sir Harry of Posh, according to each of them respectively, or someone else entirely, according to the rest of the planet) decides that what the world needs is a hippo-bottle-storage-insulaty-standy-upy thing.  It's basically a softish hippo, which the baby can play with, and then you rip its head off (the hippo's, not the baby's) and there's a bottle of milk in there, staying warm or cold or whatever temperature you put it in at, and the baby is all happy because even though its hippo is dead, it has a bottle.

Surprisingly, the boys have trouble settling on a unique selling point for this... unique... device, with Sir Harry of Posh thinking it's all about the hippo being familiar to the baby, and the rest of them thinking that maybe it's quite handy that it keeps the milk warm.  Not that it matters, because when they get to the pitches, wee Lewis is so nervous he can hardly get a word out, but then reliable Harry steps up for the final one and does very well.

Chez girls, Gbemi is in charge because of having a sister and all, and one of the generic blonde girls is all "Ooooh, design, how innovative that would be", and eventually they come up with a sort of sling thing that you put on your arm when you're holding a baby, and it supports the baby's head.  Which is not totally awful, but sounds a wee bit like a cushion.

Anyway, their big drama comes when they have to take photos for the box, and one of the generic blonde girls (possibly the same one as earlier, possibly not) casts a black mother and a white baby.  Chaos and hysterics ensue.  Because we all know that NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO PICK UP A BABY THAT'S NOT THE SAME EXACT COLOUR AS THEM.

At the pitches (which Gbemi insists on doing, thus adding further fuel to the "Edna in non-disguise (apart from not wearing gloves)" fire), the retailers' concerns are more basic.  "What does it do?" asks one of them, after several minutes of Gbemi telling them it's both washable AND handable, oh yes.  Mercifully, Gbemi lets the previously-unseen Haya do the final pitch, and she does it well.

In the boardroom, Nick and Karrrrren do that thing where they read out the results in the order that makes you think the team that has lost has actually won, and LO! the girls are victorious, and go off to Dance with Diversity, which they would have been a good tag line for their box image.

In Cafe Sombre, the boys are disconsolate, and I feel sorry for wee Lewis, because I quite like him.  They all blame each other, of course, so we needn't dwell on that, and then it's back to the boardroom to bicker there, and now Lewis has to choose his 2 fall guys.

He opts for Sir Harry of Posh, and Ben-who-seems-nice-but-hasn't-been-seen-much-but-is-now-wearing-a-bright-pink-shirt-presumably-in-a-bid-for-attention.  Unfortunately for Ben, this is the moment he chooses to open his mouth, and even more unfortunately, what he says when accused of not doing a lot is "I have a relaxed approach to working".  The nation facepalms.

So Ben gets fired, for not doing much, which seems unfair as he seems quite pleasant and possibly reasonably competent.  On the other hand, he wouldn't be great viewing, and basically that's our only requirement.