The other project manager, Sara, fared little better. She’s a strong personality – we know this, because she, er, kept telling us – who also got infected with the curse of the pep talk. She too sat her down and told them how she was going to run things, how she’s a strong personality, and they subsequently looked at her as if she’d just tried to convince them that Howard The Duck was the best film ever. A good start it was not. The task this week, that was over just 35 minutes into the show (at a point, fact fans, where if you look in the background you could see Sralan’sTrustedAdvisor Nick smiling, rather than adopting his usual semi-permanent tut), was to take over a London pub and sell food in it. The teams needed to theme their pub, and as usual, the ones with the most profit one. Neither team really covered themselves in glory here, and for the second week running, I managed to twig the three heading for the boardroom within twenty minutes. This isn’t me being smug (alright, maybe a little smug), more that for three series straight, I’ve never managed to get it right once. Either I’m getting savvy to how all this works, or The Apprentice is getting a little, dare I say, simpler? My suspicion is the latter. The boys’ team was where the real action was. The bloke out of Little Britain was appointed Head Chef, while Ian seemed happy to be told what to do by, well, seemingly anyone. Lots of mistakes were made: food was priced without costs being worked out, the failure to go the wholesalers pleased the local supermarket no end, and they spent more on menus and marketing than the other team, well, spent entirely. As usual, the person who speaks up and makes constructive points gets dragged into the quagmire, and so Simon found himself in the boardroom with Ian and Little Britain Head Chef. This was in spite of the fact that Simon had repeatedly warned that they need to stop and sort out of the costs. Seemed quite sensible from the comfort of my armchair, but it’s a potentially sackable offence in the world of The Apprentice. There’s a business lesson for you. Sralan naturally ranted and raved a bit, threw in one or two swearwords to appear naughty, but soon seemed to have it down to Ian, who kept blaming his Head Chef, unaware that Little Britain Man had a name of his own (er, I might even look it up for next week), and Little Britain Man The Head Chef (whose made up name is getting longer as this review progresses. Hang on a sec …[heads to Google].. yep, he’s called Kevin) who kept blaming Ian. The result was fairly clear though, and the man who didn’t understand the word ‘lose’ was soon made all-too-aware of the word ‘sacked’. Sara’s personality remained strong throughout all of this, which was a relief. Mid-season Apprentice usually throws up two or three cracking episodes, and while this wasn’t golden, it was certainly entertaining. The theme pub idea wasn’t bad, and it’s certainly better than dragging out the old “go and buy these 10 items” that I suspect will crop up later in the series. Sralan also fired the right person. Read our review of last week’s episode here.
