Luke Owen discusses last night’s opening episode of The Apprentice 2012…
It’s that time again. Over the next 12 weeks, 16 “top business people” will be shouting over each other, making silly business decisions and saying utterly stupid things in order to become Lord Sugar’s brand new Apprentice business partner.
It’s always hard to judge the candidates on the first week of The Apprentice because there are so many people to take in. Off the top of my head, I could probably give you the names of around 5 of them – and that’s only because one of them is called Ricky Martin. The only way you can really talk about the candidates at this stage is to just give those nicknames like, “that one who argued about price”, “the Irish one” or “that one with ghastly eye shadow”.
But you can always judge people on the stupid things they say. In fact, one of the highlights of The Apprentice has always been the ridiculous things that come from the candidates lips and true to form, this show was chock full of them. From Katie (blonde one who didn’t say anything) calling herself the Blonde Assassin to Jade (girl who thought she was a lion) saying she would “roar her way to the top”. Not to be outdone, Lord Sugar himself had some belters: “If I wanted a friend, I’d get a dog” and “This isn’t a game of Where’s Wally”. Yes, he managed to drop a Where’s Wally reference in 2012. But if this contest was based on great quotes, the show would already be over with Ricky’s “I am the reflection of perfection”.
This week’s task was for our teams to buy blank merchandise they can brand and sell on the streets of London. A very simple task which benefited Gabriella (the one who led the girls’ team) who owns her own print business. They drew up some very cute looking cartoon animals to go on t-shirts and puzzles to sell to kids and families. While the boys led by Nick (the one with the hair) put a badly printed red bus on a bag and a Union Jack on a naff teddy bear. Clearly, this is the first lesson you learn in business school – tourists will buy any old crap so long as it has something to do with London on it.
Despite trying to sell the teddy bears for ungodly £15, the boys’ pants merchandise was actually selling fairly well. However, the same could not be said for the red bus bags (branded with “This Is A” and then a picture of a bus) which couldn’t be given away. They managed to sell a large stockpile of them to a local shop (for a good price) but were called back before the end of the day when the store owner realised they were actually badly printed and asked for a refund. A highly embarrassing moment for the team.
It seemed the girls’ cutesy animal designs were also selling well and Gabriella’s on-site personalisation was a huge hit amongst the market stalls. But the sub team, who had gone to London Zoo, did not fare so well. After getting stuck in traffic for over an hour, they decided the best course of action was to walk round as a group targeting families together rather than fanning out and selling individually. This is where Bilyana (the Russian one) made a name for herself as her bullish tactics rubbed her teammates, and the general public, up the wrong way. First she led them on a “short walk” to the local shops which turned out to be miles away, then she took part in a cringe worthy ‘hide behind the cushion’ moment as 4 of the girls tried to bully a shop worker into buying their stock so much that the owner of the store had to come out and tell them off.
Back in the boardroom, it was revealed that the boys had won with an impressive £800 profit against the girls’ £200. The lesson here kiddies is that it doesn’t matter how pants your merchandise is – if it has a red bus on it, tourists will buy it. The girls did the usual routine of shouting over each other and making stuff up before team leader Gabriella (with the quiet voice) brought back in Bilyana (Russian bully) and Katie (the Blonde Assassin). It seemed a sure thing that Katie was to be the first on the chopping block after Lord Sugar’s earlier warning to not be a “Where’s Wally”, but Bilyana managed to talk herself into her own grave. Quickly earning the “just shut the hell up” award for today’s show, Bilyana talked about how she grew up in a rough area of Russia before coming over to the UK where she was made head girl of her school. I’m amazed she didn’t boast about the 100m swimming badge she got. She rambled on, said nothing of value and even tried to pull the “I’ve still got something to say even when Lord Sugar is giving his summations and I’m not supposed to say something” routine which has never worked and never will. Despite Katie being the Where’s Wally, Bilyana was simply the Wally and got herself fired to which she responded, “that’s a shame”. I don’t think so actually, you were quite annoying.
As I said earlier, it’s hard to judge how the series is going to go after the first episode because you’re still trying to work out who everyone is. But on the surface of things, we had a team that had stock given back to them for being shoddy and a team which shouted at a woman so much she told her Dad on them. Not the world’s best start I’ll be honest.
Apprentice Advice: Never claim you know “loads” about an area or task – because you don’t and it will come back to bite you on the arse.
I live tweet throughout each episode of The Apprentice. You can follow me @CGLuke_O.
Quote of the episode: “I am the reflection of perfection” – Ricky “Also a professional wrestler but not a Latin singer” Martin
Top Twitter comment: I’m making a special THIS IS A TAXI bag for Bilyana. #theapprentice – @RyanJL
Luke Owen is a freelance copywriter working for Europe’s biggest golf holiday provider as their web content executive.
