[Andy McDandy]

As you all know, tonight sees the launch of series 94 of The Apprentice, where eighteen dead-eyed mercenary cunts fight it out for the privilege of partnering with a grumpy sod for a bit until they go bust.

As usual I'll be providing the commentaries each week, and cordially invite you all to join in the chat about how shit they all are. Tonight we kick off by sending them to Austria, to sell holidays. Now, let's have a look at the runners and riders:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profil ... candidates

Predominantly from London and the south east, with a couple of token northerners and Irish expats thrown in to be junked in about week 5.

Their profiles are the usual mix of hard to verify bragging and stretched definitions. A few claim to have won awards with titles so generic there's no way of knowing what's true or not. They all look like Trump kids/spouses and all sound like wankers. As ever, the question remains unasked - if they're so shit-hot, why are they taking weeks out of their schedule to be ritually humiliated jumping through hoops for a business loan?

Early picks for top wankerdom:

Liam "runs a company" producing comfortable but stylish workwear. That's right, he runs a t-shirt printing gig. He's not arrogant though. Just look at how fucking un-arrogant and amazingly humble he is!

Anisa claims to have invented unique pizza flavours such as Chicken Tikka. Someone tell Dominos, and every fucking pizza cabin in the country.

Emma is an utter psychopath, who talks about her great successes in cloud migration and her dreams of being better at branding. Somewhat sexy, but in that "Baroness from GI Joe" way.

Finally Max, who claims "I’m a former top UK tennis player". A check of the rankings shows that he is a former tennis pro, but has never been ranked, and has a career prize pot of $118. That's not a typo. He says he likes to be "firm but fair", so a bullying cunt as well as a lying one.

Update tomorrow on all the action!

[Youngian]

Emma's an office crush for Mark Kerrigan (David Mitchell in Peep Show).

My most creative instincts flow through my excel-sheet colour coding – a true passion of mine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profil ... mma-street

Aoibheann should be heading for Dragon's Den

I have designed a unique patented utility belt specifically for hairdressers, makeup artists, and costume designers on the go. In my experience within the beauty and hair industry, I noticed a significant problem: the tools that artists typically wear are often not functional, ergonomic, or aesthetically appealing, nor was there any focus on hygiene. This realisation drove me to create a tool belt that is not only ergonomic, but also enhances the entire creative process.

[Killer Whale]

Emma's an office crush for Mark Kerrigan (David Mitchell in Peep Show).

My most creative instincts flow through my excel-sheet colour coding – a true passion of mine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profil ... mma-street

If I had a Euro for every time I've told a junior colleague not to hide data in formatting, I'd probably have enough for a lunch in one of Malcolm's reasonably-priced cafés.

[Bones McCoy]

Emma's an office crush for Mark Kerrigan (David Mitchell in Peep Show).

My most creative instincts flow through my excel-sheet colour coding – a true passion of mine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profil ... mma-street

Aoibheann should be heading for Dragon's Den

I have designed a unique patented utility belt specifically for hairdressers, makeup artists, and costume designers on the go. In my experience within the beauty and hair industry, I noticed a significant problem: the tools that artists typically wear are often not functional, ergonomic, or aesthetically appealing, nor was there any focus on hygiene. This realisation drove me to create a tool belt that is not only ergonomic, but also enhances the entire creative process.

The long winter nights must simply fly by, eh Baldrick.

[Andy McDandy]

I can picture my old CDT teacher telling me to write in my project report that I had "identified a weak point in the structure, which necessitated an urgent rethink of the overall design", rather than write "the thing snapped off".

[mattomac]

Did like the name “Keir shave”

Sounds and looks like AI made that up.

[The Weeping Angel]

Ooh a bolshy Northern lass.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profil ... a-rothwell

Proud northerner, Emma R, has seen her business evolve from a side-hustle in her boyfriend’s garage to a fully-fledged thriving business. Set-up during lockdown, she’s out to show that she’s no mug. Will she be able to brew up success in the boardroom and add some Sugar to her business?

[Andy McDandy]

Okay, here goes.

They went to Austria. They tried to sell tickets to tours (cycling or mountain themed). They sold lots of tickets for less than they paid for them. They made tits of themselves.

Emma Street (Baroness from GI Joe meets Agatha Runcible from Vile Bodies) is a robot in human form. With a stupid furry hat. You see this sort of glaze come over her when she's contradicted, and has to adjust to the new paradigm.

Motivational speaker Frederick and tutor Johnny both seem quite normal and level headed.

"Hair transplant" guru Carlo (Turns out he 'puts people in contact with' actual medical people. He's a receptionist.) is another robot.

Nadia "Bobbie from the Expanse in a green trouser suit" Suliaman looks like she could be fun. Mainly when she looks like she's an inch away from decking Emma (see above).

Emma Rothwell (the feisty northerner TWA spotted) is first out. Sold no tickets, and didn't speak up for herself. She could have defended herself by saying she lost the team nothing, compared to everyone else. Remember - "do nothing" is always a valid option.

Next week, the technology episode/challenge. Fundamentally uncreative people fiddle with AI. What could possibly go wrong?

[Bones McCoy]

At least they've got interchangeable Emmas.

[Andy McDandy]

Week 2 and it's the "fiddle around with tech and try to sell the results" challenge. This year, create a virtual pop star (think Gorillaz) and sell it to companies so they can flog stuff. See, I can talk this bidniss shit.

Here we encounter the perennial problem the show faces - in reality, any business owner would delegate or contract this out to someone who knows what they are doing, and would give them time to work on it. Instead, we got a rush job resulting in two anodyne avatars wurbling about empowerment.

On the winning team, last week's loser Anisa steps up to lead the team again. Not surprisingly, her team mates let her. They produce a dull but functional avatar singing a dull but functional song. At a dull function, they sell it to some companies.

Losing team, led by Amber-Rose, ignore presence of actual animation expert Jordan, and come up with a badly animated pair of 1990s-era Playstation characters. Aiobheann ("I'm wacky, me!") decides to autotune the actually quite nice vocals, making them an awful artificial mess. They sell less than the others, and despite Amber-Rose and Nadia getting this close to just murdering each other, it's Aiobheann who gets the boot.

The other problem here is - and I know I've raised this in previous years - you've only got one metric: money. If, for instance, you hire a professional singer (as the winning team did) but fail, that's a waste of money. If on the other hand, you do it yourself and lose, then you're a stupid amateur, what were you thinking?

Anyway, while Nadia lines up more of the others to fight in a deathmatch, it's a quiet week for most of the others. Carlo is this year's cloud cuckoolander for sure, while Emma's shaping up as the hateful GBNews shoo-in. The rest are all just a bit bland so far. Must try harder.

[soulboy]

The auto tune debacle was so bad that they didn't even get a kicking for the fact that one of the avatars, Nadz, was literally bollocks.

[Andy McDandy]

Week 3 and it's the scavenger hunt. Which is apparently all about planning. Or logistics. Or negotiation. Or whatever. Suffice to say, if you lose, it was all about whatever you slipped up on.

Relaxing in the McMansion along with a camera crew and in full make-up, the gang are visited by Sranal who sends them to Stratford-on-Avon to buy some items from a series of photogenic artisan traders, curio shops and flea markets. The usual drill then; nothing that can be snapped up at the local cash and carry.

Team 1 is headed up by Max the "tennis player". He assigns t-shirt printer Liam as his 2IC, and tells Carlo (Fredo) to stay right by his side so he can keep an eye on him. Did he say keep an eye? No, of course not! He doesn't think of Fredo as weak, just....weak willed.

Liam improvises a bit too much and cobbles together a boat hook from a hook and a broom pole. Seems to me like a perfectly good money saver, but Sranal isn't impressed. He's been on more MASSIVE YACHTS than Liam's had hot dinners, sunshine, and won't be fobbed off by any half-arsed quick thinking.

Max tells Fredo to keep notes of how things are going. He doesn't. Finally, Fredo gets the chance to show off his legendary rapport building and bargaining skills. He tries to buy a quill pen, goes in too low, offends the pen-seller, and doesn't get much of a bargain at all.

Team 2, headed by this year's Essex wide boy Dean get most of their stuff done fairly harmlessly. Emma the Nazi killbot does nothing. In fact I can't really remember much of what they did, aside from buy too much rhubarb, the bastards.

Boardroom time, and it's knives out. Fredo does his "I'm smart! Not dumb like everyone says!" routine. Max says he'll take full responsibility for missing out the most expensive item, before insisting it was a group decision. Sranal tells Fredo to get in the MASSIVE YACHT and go out for a fishing trip with Karen and Tim. A gunshot sounds. A few birds cry out. Sranal sits alone in the garden, pondering on what he's done, and was it worth it.

It was.

[Andy McDandy]

Bit of a quiet episode last night. This was the food challenge, aka let's watch these idiots much up basic arithmetic and produce horrible chow.

Teams are given a choice of loads of tomatoes, or loads of potatoes. Take them, do something with them, and sell the results to the public, to a 'corporate client', or to anyone who'll have them.

Team One, led by Mia (Keeley Hawes) choose tomatoes. They make mini pizzas, and are asked by a corporate buyer to provide loads of diced tomatoes with no seeds. Rather than telling them to fuck off, they embark on the job. Lots of picking the seeds out of chunky salsa ensues.

But at least they're not team 2, led by Swansea's hardest, Nadia. She has determination. She has a plan. She has a vision. Yup, they're dead.

Her plan? Bangers and mash as street food. Not just any bangers either, but premium beef sausages, and an attempt at gravy that looks like liquid shit. Everyone on her team knows they're doomed, but she won't hear a word of criticism, or advice, or recrimination. Even when Karen steps in to warn her that she's horrendously overspending, she just blames the others for getting the numbers wrong. Even when team mates point out that a sit-down knife and fork meal just doesn't work as street food, they just don't get it. Her vision, that is.

Everything is her idea, and any dissent is shouted down. That is, until it goes wrong, and then it was a group decision and nobody had the guts or wits to warn her.

In the boardroom, there is no blamestorming. She's out almost as soon as she sits down. The mooks either side of her look terrified, then are sent packing. It's anticlimactic, yet strangely satisfying in its realism.

More food next week, plus the perennial "marketing to children" task. Oh dear.

[The Weeping Angel]

is Mia the one who claims to be a food entrepenuer?

[Andy McDandy]

Yes, that's her.

[davidjay]

Does that mean she had a Saturday job in Gregg's?

[Andy McDandy]

Going by the rule of stretchiest possible definition, she sold someone some food, once.