[Killer Whale]

Dr Poo seems to be emerging as the biggest twat so far

He's out next week, Nailed on.

Called it. Not exactly difficult, though. Even in this bunch of losers, he was so obviously the dumbest.

[Andy McDandy]

Last night's scavenger hunt (this year on Jersey) was fairly forgettable, save for the double firing of Bristol Shitty (Jack) and the Ilford Bungler (Amina). What was notable however, was the entirely contrived nature of the challenge.

As usual, the teams are given a list of 9 items to source for as little as possible. There's quite a price range, from the very cheap to the quite expensive. Penalties are charged for missing an item or running out of time. The items are mostly touristy - Jersey brandy, Jersey snacks, Jersey jerseys and so on. As in previous years, the teams have to rely on paper maps, trade directories, and no internet (but are allowed to keep their mobiles for making calls - presumably shots of them racing around to find a phone box and some 50ps wasn't considered sexy enough). Hee hee, look at the silly millennials failing to read a map! Chortle!

But once they get to the shops where their items lurk, the sheer artificiality of it becomes really apparent. Set aside the time it takes to get the cameras in place, and note how ready each shopkeeper is for the team. How many of the shops are charming little artisanal workshops and boutiques. How for a couple of items the teams have to gamely take part in some traditional and photogenic crafting activities. The BBC's never really gotten over that potter's wheel, have they?

Meanwhile, the remaining contestants are dividing sharply into twats and actually maybe OK. Mostly in the former, but in the latter we have Twatter de Danon (Maura) and the Harlow Harpy (Sam) (both saddled with mansplainer Bristol Shitty), Wannabe Polymath Tre (actually quite collegial, supportive, modest - hard to dislike), and mortgage liar Raj (reasonable team leader).

[Killer Whale]

Got bored. Ended up on my phone arguing with twats on social media about agricultural policy. Missed most of it. Oh well. I won't be seeking it out on iPlayer, I don't think.

[Andy McDandy]

Bit of a dull one last night, another "invent something and try to sell it" episode, this time a formula E (eco-friendly car racing) brand.

Usual drill - miscommunication spoils everything, plain and simple beats stabs at creativity, ineptitude is revealed, and in the end the decision on who to go seems hard to fathom.

Team one come up with a blue and white car bodywork design, with plenty of blank space for advertising. It works. Their ad is boring, but their pitch is lively. They win.

Team two design an orange and green car. In an inspired bit of improvisation, one of them claims it's a tribute to the Indian flag, which has one potential investor (from Tata) doing the "That's bullshit but 10/10 for effort" look. Other investors point out that the colour scheme is horrible, it's hard to plaster logos on it, and it's shit. They do a video, directed by God Delusion, which is shit. At their pitch event, one of them forgets her script and flounders before getting back on track.

Team one win, unsurprisingly. On team two, the speech-forgetter gets fired, while serial fuck-up God delusion gets through. I'm at pains to understand why.

[Andy McDandy]

After last week's debacle saw the God Delusion being told bluntly by Sralan Sweetex that he didn't have a creative bone in his body, he's given another chance to prove his worthlessness as the teams are told to design and market a new cereal brand. Including an augmented reality element, which is rapidly becoming the new "including an app". Basically, we want to see you making dicks of yourselves in front of a green screen, now shut up and dance!

As we all know by now, any task involving children will mean two things:

1. Horribly misaimed marketing, either going over the kids' heads, or massively patronising them.

2. An attempt to give a product a 'worthy' theme, probably the environment, which is as boring as hell.

Team Cleveland Steamer, including most of the likeable and capable people, does a superhero theme. Team leader Steve (a dead ringer for internet funnyman Michael Spicer) umms and aahs, while his colleagues do all the hard decision making. They strike a deal with Iceland to sell their stuff, which is a gamble that pays off. One of the biggest wins in the programme's history, on top of last week's success with their racing car. Spicer claims all the credit, but to be honest they really would have had to do something pretty spectacular to lose.

Over on Team Belgian Biscuit, Harlow Harpy Sam is in charge. She knows all about what 6-8 year old kids like, because she's got 2 toddlers. They decide to do worthy, going for an environmental/arctic theme over their second option of something space-related. They design a mascot - a polar bear in a purple t-shirt, wearing a crown, who teaches kids to do the penguin dance. I just wrote that sentence. God delusion films Dentist on the Knob sacrificing what dignity he has left doing said dance. They market their creation and everyone goes what the fuck. It's bland, tasteless, has this polar theme while flavoured with tropical fruit, and is shit. They sell fuck all.

This outcome was inevitable, and hinted at throughout the episode as Sam went with her instincts and the others looked on in bafflement and despair. Sam blames God Delusion for the awful AR stuff, Twatter de Danone for the crap marketing, and Phil the Pies for the crap food. Sralan blames her for being in charge of them all and sends her packing.

Next week they get sent to Hungary. Sadly not to feature in porn, but to flog day trips.

[Watchman]

I saw the last 15 mins. definitely past its sell-by date

[Killer Whale]

I saw the last 15 mins. definitely past its sell-by date

Yeah. It was like watching a repeat.

[Andy McDandy]

No big review this week, as I'm otherwise engaged. But in summary, they went to Budapest, sold tickets for tours, and both did reasonably well. So it was down to firing someone for the hell of it, and God Delusion walked.

[Andy McDandy]

We're 2 thirds of the way through, and there are still 10 of them left. The maths says that there must be a mass firing coming, to reduce it to the typical 4 or so who make it to the interviews.

Still, it wasn't this week. Instead, we had the advertising challenge - do an ad for a product (in this case an electric van). Group one target small businesses, while group 2 go after campers. The camper effort is pretty shoddy - it's called e-B&B, which makes the various advertising bods they present to think of cheap hotels in Blackpool. The ad is competent, in the sense that nobody's on fire. Ridley Scott and pushing bicycles up Clovelly high street it is not. In normal circumstances it would fail, but it wins. Why? Because the alternative is just....breathtakingly crap.

Step up, Noor. One of the quieter contestants so far, her input mostly kept to eyerolls at her teammates' stupidity, or being elbowed out of conversations where she can contribute by the alpha (aka arsehole) men. This week though, she's in charge, and it's fucking terrifying.

She has a vision - one of electric vans being used as mobile pop-up shops, ideal for online retailers. Her teammates consider this and know it's a non-starter. It defeats the point of online retail, there are legal and logistical issues, why not use it as a delivery vehicle if you insist on the retail angle? No, says Noor. She has a vision. And that means everyone else shutting up and doing what they're told. As Galadriel in full "All shall love me and despair!" mode sets about her advertising masterpiece, her team come up with a bland name that reminds most punters of a fast food joint. That's the best thing they do.

In the studio, Angry Galadriel decides she doesn't want any boring vehicles in her vehicle ad. Instead we get 15 seconds of 2 women playing on their phones before Tre's voice-over kicks in saying this is the new green way to do business. Tre knows it's crap, and suggests rewrites. Angry Galadriel shoots him down. He does his best with what he has. The team know they've lost. An ad for a van consisting of 2 people texting in a fairground sideshow. Sweetex has a point when he asks if it was directed by David Lynch.

In the boardroom, Noorma Desmond insists it was brilliant, and it was just everyone else who was crap. And with that, off she fucks.

Next week, selling stuff on shopping channels, aka getting barked at through an earpiece while trying to spin plates and jump through hoops and sell crap.

[soulboy]

Ridley Scott and pushing bicycles up Clovelly high street it is not.

A pendant writes - Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, not Clovelly.

[Youngian]

Is the winning prize still a 12 month job with the Sugar Corporation? Over a decade ago I wasn’t clear what Amstrad does these days apart from commercial real estate investments.

I watched some Dragon’s Den catch ups on YouTube as I haven’t seen it for years. Still worth watching. Theo has been replaced by a grumpy clone who has it in for the young and trendy Will Smith lookalike with his new fangled business ideas.

[Andy McDandy]

Prize is a £200,000 investment in their business, which as many have pointed out doesn't go as far as you might think. Very much the "smallest large number" thing.

IIRC Sugar has Amscreen, which is big screens in public spaces to advertise things on. Presumably he makes money from selling ad space.

[soulboy]

For several years now the prize has been a £250,000 investment in the winner's own business.

At the start of the process the contestants submit a business plan and the interviews episode now concentrates on picking holes in it. Typically, they'll propose going from one hair salon to ten in a year and to be bigger than Vidal Sassoon within three years. This ambitious plan is usually accompanied by incredibly optimistic, back of a fag packet sums.

The one thing you have the opportunity to properly prepare for in advance and they almost universally bog it.

[Watchman]

Which makes me think; if the business plans are seen in advance, Sugar forms a view of what he might be interested in investing in, and if the twat is less of a twat than all the others, they are in with a good chance.

[Andy McDandy]

In some cases the business plan isn't written until just before the interview stage. So what they go in with is more an idea of what they'll do with the cash if they win.

[Andy McDandy]

Which makes me think; if the business plans are seen in advance, Sugar forms a view of what he might be interested in investing in, and if the twat is less of a twat than all the others, they are in with a good chance.

Normally, if he fires someone "with regret" it means one of the following:

1. It was just bad luck their team failed, both ideas/teams were just as good/bad as each other but someone had to lose.
2. They're normally quite competent/likeable but had an off week.
3. They were stitched up and another team member was more deserving, but dodged being in the final 3.
4. Their business idea was a humdinger.

[Watchman]

I'll go with that, although I do think the "final night" swotting to get their business plan in shape has a lot down to making it "good t.v." type editing

[Andy McDandy]

Bit of a dull one last night. With 2 weeks of tasks to go, it was the turn of the shopping channel challenge, or trying to sell tat while people shout through an earpiece that you're doing a shit job. Not drawing any hasty conclusions here, but apparently that's an essential skill to master if you want to work with Sweetex.

They were all crap, just one team was a bit crapper than the other. Raj (Winner, Best Mortgage Advisor of the Year (Leamington Spa branch of the Coventry & Warwickshire)) and Maura the Happy Pixie were sent packing. In best Apprentice tradition of stretch the truth to the absolute limit with anything you claim, her job of yoga teacher turned out to be posting the occasional video of her doing yoga poses.

Just give it to Tre. Everyone knows he's going to win the thing.

[Andy McDandy]

Apologies for missing last week; life was busy.

Last week saw the remaining seven try to market a new vegan cheese. The winning team, as ever, went with boring but functional. The losing team were a bit more creative. They gambled, and lost.

What sticks in the craw though is that on that team, they left one member (Foluso) with the entire marketing and advertising side, while the other two dicked around with flavours. She was clearly swamped, got no support at all, and did the best she could. She got fired.

Onto this week, and it's interview time. As ever, the rule here is to take their claims and work out the narrowest definition of "true". We're talking Braverman's photocopier here.

First up is Tre. He's got an idea for energy drinks. He has no idea what they'll taste like. He has no idea about how to make them. He has spoken to someone on the phone about making them. He is confident that he can sell anything though. He's out. Shame, I liked him.

Next is Flo, the Karen Brady tribute act, with her plans for a recruitment agency for high level financial people. Aside from the fact that hedge funds and commercial banks don't fucking find their fucking executives through temp agencies, it's a blinder of a plan. Off she fucks.

Then it's the turn of Paul the Dentist on the Knob, who for some bizarre reason wants to abandon his highly successful dental career and go into manufacturing surgical gowns. While I admire his boldness, I think the VIP PPE lane is no more. Anyway, every interviewer (and Sralan himself) ask him the same question - why? So he goes off and has a rethink and decides to stick to the teeth and open a second surgery. OK, sign over half of your entire business says Sralan, and Paul to his credit tells him he's out. Which is kind of the point - if he sticks to that he will never need the prize money.

Which leaves us with perhaps the most dismal two to grace the final since last year. Phil the Piemaker (heavily in debt, not quite as olde worlde and artisan as his company sells itself as), and Rachel the Yorkshire Fibber with her idea for a gym franchise, which is exactly the same as every other gym chain. No charisma, just dull, average, bare minimum and stroll up the middle mediocrity.

Still gets me hooked.

[Watchman]

I got the impression that when the dentist turned him down, Sugar thought, “ fuck, I’ve left myself with Simon the Simple bankrupt Pieman”