"I'd understand if she was drying her eyes over being dumped for a Cheeky Girl"

Tissues are wonderful items to have around the house, they're good for blowing your nose, dabbing the tears from your eyes and wiping away unwanted stains....unfortunately they didn't wipe away that odious streak of piss Michael in this weeks Apprentice.

Yes it was the always entertaining advertising task, every series of The Apprentice has had one, and every time some silly sausage forgets to really specify what it is they're advertising! So by now, in its 4th year, someone would have learned from this. Clearly Alex has, because his advert practically forced the message down your throat, much like he might do with a lady.....what? All I'm saying is he looks like a selfish lover. Anyway, Alex's advertising campaign for Atishu (Props to Lee McQueen for a genuinely good name) and box design came across like some sort of fluorescent hallucinogenic nightmare, but because it featured a shot of the horrific dayglo box (below) and patronised fuck out of the audience ("Tissues! Tissues! I'm advertising tissues! Tissues!") they won.

Ever thought what it feels like to be stabbed in the eyes?

Raef was the one responsible for not learning from the mistakes of others as he directed a heartwarming advert about, to quote Helene; 'The relationship between a mother and son, between a boy and a girl and between us and our tissues...." I'm sorry, what? Is this something to do with the discussion Clare and Raef had about another use for tissues in this deleted scene? Still, utterly ridiculous that statement may have been, it was still a damned sight better than Lee McQueen's stumbling delivery.

The advert, featuring actual tissues and, bizarrely, weathergirl Sian Lloyd. I'm still completely flummoxed by Raef's choice to hire her to advertise "I Love My Tissues". (Shit name...) She was pretty dreadful, but Raef's nervousness about meeting her was heartwarming.

Unfortunately it had a distinct lack of box, right up until the band at bottom of the screen at the end....in their defence I thought it pretty bleeding obvious that it was a box of tissues (And a damned sight classier looking box of tissues.) they were advertising. But Sir Alan was not happy. "Ah dunno wot yer advert's abaht!" he exclaimed, I suspect he has no love for the Cadburys gorilla. Michael (Former male escort allegedly, see here.) was on Raef's team...so surely he couldn't have been taken into the boardroom cos he'd have got fired right?

I mean Sir Alan said last week that he'd had enough of him...no, the stupid cockney cunt fired Raef, because he's "all hot air" and is only lucky that "you've only been here once." Bull-fucking-shit. Sorry Sir Alan, I like you and all that, but Raef proved himself as a fantastic team leader in the laundry task, and has been complicit in the big successes of Lucinda last week and Lee the week before. So exactly how does that make him full of hot air? The main problem with the ad was a lack of the product, fair does but Michael was the one most vocal on removing the shot of the box in the first place. In, I think the third time this series I think Sir Alan has made a mistake, but fuck it, he's richer and more powerful than I am. My main worry with Michael is that a similar thing happened with last years winner Simon Ambrose, granted he was a much more likeable figure, but he fucked up a couple of times and Sir Alan kept him on, and eventually gave him the job...surely he's not about to do it again?

"I've reached the end of my rope with you..."

"...whimper...sniffle...whimper...don't fire me..." Prick

I don't know what the fuck Sir Alan sees in "Good Jewish Boy" Michael Sophocles, but he's safe again. A snivelling, odious, monotonous whinging plea to Sir Alan seemed to save his good jewish arse for another week, claiming he could be team leader next week and prove himself. And I hope to fucking god Sir Alan sees sense and fires the slimy little scumbag. Anyway, that's enough vitriol for just now, let's take a look at the task shall we?

This week saw the teams sell wedding dresses at the big wedding fair at the Birmingham NEC. And whilst not being nearly as exciting, or as downright bewildering as last weeks Marrakesh jolly, it did provide some great moments. Such as....

Bear with me...

Raef dressed as a bear in a rather odd move to try and shift more wedding night lingerie...right, not sure I get the strategy, but rather that than having Raef parade around in a sexy nightie. Or is it?

Lucinda was team leader this week, deciding to take Raef's gamble of the expensive designer dresses (2 grand a pop! Crikey!) and snatched the wedding night lingerie off of Helene's team as a result, primarily because I think the woman didn't want to have anything to do with the company providing Helene's wedding dresses.

In what was perhaps the most bizarre marketing strategy ever (though it did the trick for Helene) a woman selling coloured wedding dresses (Cos let's face it. How many virgins are in those virginal white wedding dresses these days?) said "Jordan and Jodie Marsh have had similar dresses and everyone wants to be a celebrity." I don't know much about women, but I'm prrretty sure they don't want to be done up like a tabloid slapper on their wedding day.

As a result of losing the lingerie (not literally thank christ.) Helene was forced to go with the wedding cake option, which provided some of the most cringeworthy scenes in Apprentice history as Sara and the aforementioned odious prick Michael practically tried to browbeat people into buying their wedding cake. (which were...er...more expensive than the dresses they were selling...nice one!)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lucinda's team won with a profit of just under six grand (they only sold 2 dresses, gutted Helene.) and Sara was fired from Helene's team, somewhat unfairly in my opinion, but there you go. Hopefully next week will be Michaels undoing in my favourite task of the year, the advertising task! And Raef gets nervous about meeting Sian Lloyd. Seriously.

"You can pull down your trousers and we can check..."

"...pull down your trousers and we can all check..." Alan Sugar's on that "Good Jewish Boy" Chatline again!

That Alan Sugar's getting right saucy! Yes, it's another week in The Apprentice and what a bloody week! The teams were sent off to Marrakesh for the bartering/buying task, prompting Lee and Raef to discuss the sort of clothes they should be wearing, sadly Raef left his linen suit at home. That said, Nick donned a lovely white linen jacket, which unfortunately made him look more like a local butcher than Roger Moore.

Butchers, incidentally lead us to the downfall of two, yes two candidates. Once again highlighting exactly how bloody stupid some of this lot are, the two Jennys and even "Good Jewish Boy" Michael hadn't a fucking clue what a kosher chicken was. A particular highlight was when Ginger-Jenny asked for a kosher chicken at a Hal-Al butcher, what the hell was she trying to do? Trigger a bloody riot?

Jenny and Michael doing their bit for Middle Eastern relations

Good on Claire for pointing out they were looking for a Jewish item in Muslim country, points taken away for her being satisfied with Other-Jenny's "They do Muslim Kosher Chicken too..." I'm growing to like Claire, not as much as Raef, Lee or Sara but she does seem to know what she's doing. Ginger-Jenny also attempted to bribe a bloke in a sports shop to not string Alpha's raquets. This obviously did not sit well with Sir Alan who saw right through her, and fired her, describing her as a snake. This was not before a rather long and drawn out discussion about whether or not Michael was Jewish. It was an emotionally draining episode this week, by the end of the hour I was bloody exhausted. But that's enough about the losers, let's talk about the absolute dream team that was; Lee, Raef, Sara, Lucinda and...er...Helene.

Lee is just so god-damned enthusiastic about everything! But the boy done good, getting all the right items, even if in his quest to find a juicer, he attracted a baying mob all trying to sell him juicers, I was afraid a fight was about to break out!

This is what happens when you tell people you'll pay 1,000 dirams for an orange juicer!

Really good to Sara proving herself to Lee who laid into her quite a bit last week, and she proved herself to Nick too, which by default surely means Sir Alan. One of my favourite moments of Alpha's time in Marrakesh was Raefs face when Lee swore down the phone...way round this, why doesn't anyone in The Apprentice put the phone to their ear? Saves broadcasting Lee McQueen yelling fuck in polite company.

Also in Raef news, he was looking dapper as ever in the last few minutes as Alpha enjoyed a balloon ride (Incidentally Lee's "This is...happy days, happy days." brought a tear to my eye) and picnic. So yeah, very happy that all my favourites were in the same team and are safe for another week.



Next week:- The teams try and sell wedding dresses at a wedding fair, and someone dresses up in this bear costume! I'm hoping it's Raef.

That bear's got a hell of a range...

"Sorry to hear your beautiful 11 year old child has been shot in the head."

...lots of love, Alan Sugar xxx

This was, of course another exciting week in The Apprentice. Sir Alan set the teams the task of coming up with a new greetings card holiday, to be fair, this episode did just highlight the fact that Valentines Day is a load of old bollocks set up by card companies to make money. If only there was some sort of day celebrating being single? This was Raef's idea, and it seemed like a pretty good one, that is until someone asked the question "And who exactly would send the card?" Yes...well...quite. Not only that but they spent about 3 hours debating the position of an apostrophe for "Singles Day", I don't even think there is one.

Still, a slight oversight this may have been, but the Matt Lucas-esque Kevin and his team came up with the slightly bizarre idea of a drive to save the world...by knocking down trees to make cards and envelopes, pay for fuel to transport the fuckers around the country and add to the high amounts of wastage this country suffers from.

Yeah...that aint gonna work, and it's hardly what Sir Alan was looking for was it? Though I'm not entirely sure his Urban Dystopia greeting card ideas would have sold too many down Clintons either. Talking about Clintons, my favourite scene this week had to be when Kevin claimed Clintons were just as bad as Bush if they rejected his idea, that's how you sell an idea! It's actually a shame he got fired, next week is the bartering task and I'd quite like to see him go "If you don't give us this chicken for £1, you're just as bad as Hitler."

Yes, Kevin got fired. But he truly brought it on himself, bringing Sara into the boardroom with him. Ah Sara, she had a pretty rough time this week, her pets birthday idea was slammed by the evil evil Jenny in favour of her ridiculous green awareness idea, then she was accused of doing nothing! Thankfully Sir Alan saw through this playground bullying and sacked Kevin, for the obvious reason that he was team leader and seeing that the absolute moron with the bad idea wasn't in the boardroom he was completely utterly to blame. Of course, Alex, Jenny and Lee didn't see it this way and started laying into Sara on her return to the house, until Raef put a stop to it. "A decision has been made, this is reliving the boardroom and she doesn't need to answer these questions. It's disrespectful." what a stand up gent! In that situation I probably would've punched Alex squarely in his throat...and that would mainly be for his choice of hat. But poor Sara, I just wanted to give her a hug by the end of the episode. Hope she proves herself to these odious streaks of piss next week. And I was quite sad to see Lee McQueen show his dark side, but I'll let him off with it on the grounds of naieve belief that Alex and Jenny weren't making Sara into a scapegoat. So a dark ending to another entertaining episode, 'mon the Sara!

Sugar Cone

Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry, Mint Choc Chip, Rum and Raisin, Avocado and Chilli. Avocado and Chilli ice cream? It's like something out of the fucking Great British Menu.

But it aint, it's the fifth week of The Apprentice and while not being quite as entertaining yet tragic as last weeks the ice cream task did provide us with some cracking moments. Sadly none of these moments involved Raef driving an ice cream van...it did however present us with Raef in his dressing gown looking very dapper indeed.

Some very interesting use of editing this week, as it seemed like Clare and her team were really going to lose. Jenny, Raef and Lindi secured a deal with the same cinema chain Renaissance were attempting to secure, and they just seemed to be doing incredibly well. In retrospect, maybe this presentation of events was to lure us into exactly the same false sense of security that the gloating pair of Jenny and Lindi were under.

Lucinda was team leader for this week, and it was really good to see her take control of her team and show that maybe she isn't the airy fairy punchbag that Ginger-Jenny and Helene thought she was. In fact, Helene even said she was prepared to admit her opinions of Lucinda had changed....that is until they got into the boardroom. For a risk assessment manager, Lucinda did not "assess the risk" of speaking for Helene, who, lets face it can speak for her big self.

Lindi was eventually fired after a long debate about "exclusivity", which Alpha had promised to a pub and the cinema chain, thus limiting future deals. I think between The Apprentice and You're Fired the word "exclusivity" was uttered about a hundred times....it became pretty painful. To be honest, I'm not bothered about Sir Alans decision, Lindi has done nothing to make me think she deserves to stay on and seeing as this new series seems to be focusing on keeping the bitchy characters in for entertainment value, it was clear to me that "Best salesperson in Europe" Jenny is being groomed for a massive fall.

Still, as unpleasant as all the inevitable female bitching in the boardroom was, there was some absolutely delightful moments such as Lee McQueens boyish enthusiasm about making his own ice cream and the slightly seedy image of Ginger-Jenny offering tasters of ice cream to two drunks in a car park. That's market research my friends!

My Beautiful Laundrette

David Tennant is definitely doing the Christmas Special. So you can knock all this "Exterminated by Daleks" talk on the head right now y'hear?

Anyways...let's take a break from talking Who and focus on last nights Apprentice!

Sir Alan set the teams the task of running a laundrette and we had some very early contenders for the best moments of Series 4.

First of all we had this absolute lunatic thinking it was a good idea to charge £4.99 per item. Now, faithful reader, this essentially means she was charging someone practically a fiver to wash a pillow case. Good een. Of course, their pitch to the manager of a large hotel failed miserably...but the fact they offered to do his laundry for five grand with a straight face was incredible. Not only was that incredible but the sheer fucking cheek of asking customers for tips did not impress Sir Alan.

Sir Al was also unimpressed by the idea of a laundry helpline, prompting him to utter perhaps my favourite ever line in Apprentice history: "Hello girls, how are my pants doing?"

Also, said lunatic is marking herself out as the villain of this series with her treatment of Lucinda, who I don't like in the slightest but there are ways of talking to people, know what I mean you cunt?

The boys did really bloody well last night, and I was expecting them to trip up and shatter the wonderful male bonding that was going on...but they didn't. And they're all mates, for now that is.

Sir Alan's Much Maligned Wanking Task

The class struggle of last week was a distant memory, as Raef (Definitely my favourite right now.) led the Team to victory and a private room at the Ritz. It was great to see Michael (Second favourite, primarily for his "I've worked with laundry machinery.....in Bosnia.") talk so highly of Raef but will they all be speaking so well of each other next week when, as far as I can gather, they have to run a Wetherspoons?

Michael: He's washed pants in a warzone...what the fuck have you done with your life?