Wednesday 11 April 2012
A Saucy Little Number; Apprentice Series 8 Episode 3
Clichés
aplenty time, after all it was condiment making week. So who cut the mustard? Who needs to ketchup? Who needs to pepp-r up their performance? I’ll move on!
At last Katie revealed herself to the Jedi, taking on her true role as Emperor...sorry I mean project manager. Leading the remainder of the boys team with all the skill of a silent assassin. (no I still don’t know what that means either). Whatever it was, it didn’t work out anyway. Another loss chalked up on her record, though she once again escaped in a pod with sub-team leader Michael taking the firing.
Michael, probably made one mistake in the entire episode and that was positioning himself in Katie eyeline when selecting someone to lead the sub-team. Should that team have sold more? Yes for sure. Were they on a bit of a hiding to nothing? Definitely.
Just how product billed as mass market can be that when production ‘errors’ mean there are so few is a puzzler. Regular readers will know I enjoy a good saying or two, and here’s another one that came true... “Too many cooks spoil the broth” or in this case a rather sour tasting not quite tomato sauce. Ricky “The Shark” Martin, possibly distracted by the splashing of nearby bather, failed to get to grips with a fairly straightforward production process. It left Katie no other choice than to increase the trade price to a level as unpalatable as the sauce itself.
Oh and did I happen to mention the carefully chosen brand name for said sauce, Bellissimo, was also spelt wrongly. “Bellissimo is spelt wrong”...the first four words out of the mouth of the 1st trade buyer, not a great start to any pitch.
Not that dynamic Duane and his team did much better. In fact we almost saw Nick Hewer carrying out CPR on the brave team leader after sampling a rather large mouthful of the first batch of their Pineapple and Chilli Chutney. To his credit Duane headed to a corner to remove the contents from his gullet, though this did appear less than voluntary. It was more Duane Dibbly, than The Cat. If only he was carrying a thermos.
The firing was textbook use of Sith powers from Katie, who at least couldn’t be accused of hiding this week. Whilst she at least put up a defence that even the Ewoks would’ve admired, Ricky ‘La vida Loca’ Martin revealed his true inner animal...chocolate rabbit. He melted at the first sign of Lord Sugars’ dragon breath, yet it was Michael who returned to his own self-made kitchen empire. Well you know what they say “ if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”...as long as that isn’t your own Kitchen business.
Star of the Week: Duane Bryan – By default really this time. It was a rank bad week for everyone else.
Got Lucky: Ricky “The Shark” Martin. Failed on the production line and that was the one major problem in the whole task.
Heading for a Fall: Jenna Whittingham. You get the feeling she’s one slight slip away from a firing.
For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke
At last Katie revealed herself to the Jedi, taking on her true role as Emperor...sorry I mean project manager. Leading the remainder of the boys team with all the skill of a silent assassin. (no I still don’t know what that means either). Whatever it was, it didn’t work out anyway. Another loss chalked up on her record, though she once again escaped in a pod with sub-team leader Michael taking the firing.
Michael, probably made one mistake in the entire episode and that was positioning himself in Katie eyeline when selecting someone to lead the sub-team. Should that team have sold more? Yes for sure. Were they on a bit of a hiding to nothing? Definitely.
Just how product billed as mass market can be that when production ‘errors’ mean there are so few is a puzzler. Regular readers will know I enjoy a good saying or two, and here’s another one that came true... “Too many cooks spoil the broth” or in this case a rather sour tasting not quite tomato sauce. Ricky “The Shark” Martin, possibly distracted by the splashing of nearby bather, failed to get to grips with a fairly straightforward production process. It left Katie no other choice than to increase the trade price to a level as unpalatable as the sauce itself.
Oh and did I happen to mention the carefully chosen brand name for said sauce, Bellissimo, was also spelt wrongly. “Bellissimo is spelt wrong”...the first four words out of the mouth of the 1st trade buyer, not a great start to any pitch.
Not that dynamic Duane and his team did much better. In fact we almost saw Nick Hewer carrying out CPR on the brave team leader after sampling a rather large mouthful of the first batch of their Pineapple and Chilli Chutney. To his credit Duane headed to a corner to remove the contents from his gullet, though this did appear less than voluntary. It was more Duane Dibbly, than The Cat. If only he was carrying a thermos.
The firing was textbook use of Sith powers from Katie, who at least couldn’t be accused of hiding this week. Whilst she at least put up a defence that even the Ewoks would’ve admired, Ricky ‘La vida Loca’ Martin revealed his true inner animal...chocolate rabbit. He melted at the first sign of Lord Sugars’ dragon breath, yet it was Michael who returned to his own self-made kitchen empire. Well you know what they say “ if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”...as long as that isn’t your own Kitchen business.
Star of the Week: Duane Bryan – By default really this time. It was a rank bad week for everyone else.
Got Lucky: Ricky “The Shark” Martin. Failed on the production line and that was the one major problem in the whole task.
Heading for a Fall: Jenna Whittingham. You get the feeling she’s one slight slip away from a firing.
For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke
The Apprentice Funny Bits Series 8 Episode 2
Matt Edmonson's Funny Bits from Episode 2 of The Apprentice
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qgyf9
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qgyf9
Splash Down; Apprentice Series 8, Episode 2
You
snooze, you lose. In the tough world of
The Apprentice selection sleep is for wimps, losers and obviously purple eyed
restaurant owners.
Whether it was a dastardly use of Sith powers by Katie (see last week’s blog) or a badly timed one woman sleep experiment, you got the feeling there was always only going to be one candidates head on the chopping block once ‘Sleepgate’ occurred. After all, 1st reply to everything in the boardroom to Maria O'Connor...”well at least I wasn’t asleep”. Game, set, matchsticks!
It was another loss for the girls in a task they collectively failed to impress on. From the original idea generation where they pretty much ignored the brief to create a gadget and instead created some kind of plastic waterproof force-field, to the disastrous pitches and a frankly terrible boardroom defence. There was a lack of any quality in the team, and it wouldn’t have been surprising to have lost more than one of the girls team. The particularly broad Lancastrian tones of Jenna were as pleasant on the ear as the sound of an angry parent scraping waterproof crayon off the rest of a bath not covered by Splish Splash screen. (and that’s coming from a proud and broad Lancastrian!)
Fundamentally their product solved a problem that wasn’t even there; in fact they may just have created two more. Their genius idea was to create a shield to corral children into a corner of the bath whilst distracting them with waterproof crayons. I’m not sure if the London riots were happening at the time of filming, but that solution may be something worth considering by the Met should anything happen again.
Of course, the inability of the girls’ team to make an early decision left them with a poor choice of rooms for solving a problem in. The boys quick choice of kitchen certainly left them the better options, and thanks to Duane the created an ideal kitchen gadget. Ideal in the sense that it’s one of those “must have for a month” kind of gadgets. You know the kind, the ones that we all see in the Betterware catalogue, decide you cannot do without and then within 2 months it’s gathering dust at the back of a cupboard (hopefully with crushed cabbage already removed).
The boys brought home the victory mainly due to the complete disarray of the girls, whose project manager Jane must win the prize for most ambitiously flawed pitch to a buyer ever. 1 million units...only if he’d been drinking that many before the meeting.
The boys also won despite the poor project management of Azhar Siddique. In another week of animal references Azhar ‘committed’ killer whale went head to head with Ricky ‘The Shark’ Martin. It was a battle that the producers of Frozen Planet will no doubt be looking to add to the schedules. That would be if it wasn’t for the fact that neither the shark nor the killer whale resembled anything like their predatory cousins. In fact for those of you that saw the awe-inspiring BBC documentary, both Azhar and Ricky are more akin to the poor seal trapped on the ice flow by the team of Killer Whales. It really is a matter of ‘if not when’ a wave of reality will smash them off their fragile ice home.
In such tasks the product is key, and getting great ideas initially is the only chance you have of getting a good product.
Whether it was a dastardly use of Sith powers by Katie (see last week’s blog) or a badly timed one woman sleep experiment, you got the feeling there was always only going to be one candidates head on the chopping block once ‘Sleepgate’ occurred. After all, 1st reply to everything in the boardroom to Maria O'Connor...”well at least I wasn’t asleep”. Game, set, matchsticks!
It was another loss for the girls in a task they collectively failed to impress on. From the original idea generation where they pretty much ignored the brief to create a gadget and instead created some kind of plastic waterproof force-field, to the disastrous pitches and a frankly terrible boardroom defence. There was a lack of any quality in the team, and it wouldn’t have been surprising to have lost more than one of the girls team. The particularly broad Lancastrian tones of Jenna were as pleasant on the ear as the sound of an angry parent scraping waterproof crayon off the rest of a bath not covered by Splish Splash screen. (and that’s coming from a proud and broad Lancastrian!)
Fundamentally their product solved a problem that wasn’t even there; in fact they may just have created two more. Their genius idea was to create a shield to corral children into a corner of the bath whilst distracting them with waterproof crayons. I’m not sure if the London riots were happening at the time of filming, but that solution may be something worth considering by the Met should anything happen again.
Of course, the inability of the girls’ team to make an early decision left them with a poor choice of rooms for solving a problem in. The boys quick choice of kitchen certainly left them the better options, and thanks to Duane the created an ideal kitchen gadget. Ideal in the sense that it’s one of those “must have for a month” kind of gadgets. You know the kind, the ones that we all see in the Betterware catalogue, decide you cannot do without and then within 2 months it’s gathering dust at the back of a cupboard (hopefully with crushed cabbage already removed).
The boys brought home the victory mainly due to the complete disarray of the girls, whose project manager Jane must win the prize for most ambitiously flawed pitch to a buyer ever. 1 million units...only if he’d been drinking that many before the meeting.
The boys also won despite the poor project management of Azhar Siddique. In another week of animal references Azhar ‘committed’ killer whale went head to head with Ricky ‘The Shark’ Martin. It was a battle that the producers of Frozen Planet will no doubt be looking to add to the schedules. That would be if it wasn’t for the fact that neither the shark nor the killer whale resembled anything like their predatory cousins. In fact for those of you that saw the awe-inspiring BBC documentary, both Azhar and Ricky are more akin to the poor seal trapped on the ice flow by the team of Killer Whales. It really is a matter of ‘if not when’ a wave of reality will smash them off their fragile ice home.
In such tasks the product is key, and getting great ideas initially is the only chance you have of getting a good product.
Star of the Week: Duane Bryan
– He’s the first really star of this year’s series. Saved a dying pitch with a
passionate sell of his idea.
Got Lucky: Jenna Whittingham. The Preston girl completely messed up the figures, and only ‘sleepgate’ really saved her.
Heading for a Fall: Katie Wright. Her Sith powers could be fading, named again in the boardroom fight-out.
For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke
Got Lucky: Jenna Whittingham. The Preston girl completely messed up the figures, and only ‘sleepgate’ really saved her.
Heading for a Fall: Katie Wright. Her Sith powers could be fading, named again in the boardroom fight-out.
For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke
Tuesday 10 April 2012
One special business lesson from Bubba Watson
On Sunday night UK time, American golfer Bubba Watson won
the first major of the year, the US Masters and claimed one of the most
recognisable pieces of sports clothing the green jacket.
For non-golf buffs thinking of switching off
at this point just hold on. For those
who prefer their movies, think of Bubba as Happy Gilmore, he hits the ball
almost as far. Bubba taught us all one
of the most valuable lessons that anyone can learn in business. Be that running one, or just playing your
part in working within one.
Having finished the final round level with Louis Oosthuizen
the two players went head to head on a sudden death play-off hole. Having drawn the first hole, the players both
hit horrible tee shots at the 2nd play-off hole. Oosthuizen got slightly luckier, his ball
appearing in light rough with a decent chance of making the green on his 2nd
shot. Bubba was in trouble, his ball
landing well off the fairway in the trees with no direct sight to the
green. Oosthuizen 2nd shot
wasn’t great, but Bubba looked like he would need 2 shots to make the
green. Step forward Bubba who produced
an amazing sliced shot that bent around the trees and landed on the green
within feet of the hole.
Thanks to that
amazing shot he left himself 2 putts to claim the US Masters trophy and join
legends of sport including Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Faldo, Ballesteros and
many more.
So what can we learn from Bubba, apart from believing that
even the impossible is possible.Well, Bubba never had golf lessons, he hasn’t got a textbook swing, and indeed he never changes a thing if he can help it. There is no sports psychologist, no entourage of highly paid coaches and fitness trainers. In fact when he first showed any inclination for the game of golf, his father just told him to go out, swing and do his own thing.
Here is a man who in his own way, and with his own methods has developed a way to succeed. His golf swing, as unkempt as his hair, has led him to one of the biggest prizes in golf. So what can we all learn from Bubba?
He’s a man who works hard every day determined to succeed and he’s done it in his own way.
Wednesday 4 April 2012
Animal Magic; Apprentice Series 8 Episode 1
There was a time when the world had a sepia tone. It was the Victorian era, it was mostly black
and white (I’ve seen the photos!) and every year a travelling circus would roll
into town.
Now, one of the main attractions was a freak show, basically
a collection of some of the weirdest people that the circus master could track
down. They all had their own special ‘freakyness’,
and yet all equally beautiful in their own way.
Well no longer do we have to queue up to walk past such a collection,
the circus masters at the Apprentice never let us down.So to episode one, which in the style of Friends I’ll refer to as ‘The One with the Tartan Curtains’, which will become obvious later.
The candidates were brimming with the usual blend of bravado, adrenalin and testosterone, and that was just the girls. What was obvious was that this year the candidates seem to have been asked to compare themselves to an animal. The episode was full of animal references from Ricky ‘LavidaLoca’ Martin describing himself as a shark - the apex predator through all manner of killer whales, penguins, ducks and bears.
It certainly inspired the girls team choice of team name. I am 99% sure that Jenna was referring to a Starling (the bird) in her broad Prestonian accent and not the boring Sterling name that it was mistaken for. After all it came to her in a dream.
It was a classic-ly appalling display from both teams with no one really shining yet on either side. The boys products, though inferior in quality were pitched perfectly for quick sales as they identified a key market quickly in terms of tourists. The girls meanwhile produced a beautiful, if somewhat quirky, product and indeed brand that was always going to restrict their potential sales. In the hare and tortoise race the girls would’ve won, but the Apprentice episodes are a time for hares! (sorry I seem to be effected by animals too now!!).
Duane seems to have something about him, and unfortunately
Bilyana seemed to be manoeuvring herself to being a potential Lord Sugar
favourite until her own untimely intervention.
For the Bulgarian born risk analyst, never could the old
Abraham Lincoln saying...
“It is better
to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all
doubt.”
...been so appropriate with Bilyana talking herself into a
firing. It makes you wonder if Katie ‘Silent
Assassin’ (but useless) Wright is already displaying Jedi powers that Jedi Jim
could only dream of. It was 3 episodes
of Star Wars until they discovered that Chancellor Palpatine was an evil Sith
Lord, maybe that is what Katie is.
Suddenly her playful description of herself being the ‘silent assassin’
is taking on some dark undertones. Keep
watching episode 3 I say, when Duane and Katie will duel with lightsabers atop
the Guerkin building.And so to the Tartan Curtains. I’m no fashion expert but Bilyana’s choice of ‘battle dress’ on selling day would’ve looked more in place at an ‘accurate’ historic re-enactment of Braveheart, Hollywood style. Her march to the shops complete with sales tray firmly in place would’ve scared the life out of those ancient English Londoners, if only Bonny Prince Charlie had thought of that history could’ve been so much different. That is possibly the real reason why the unfortunate sales assistant in the shop was really upset. It wasn’t because of the unprofessional and embarrassing way the girls sub-team harangued and harassed her into a decision. It was a primeval fear that a B-movie re-creation of Braveheart was about to take place on her doorstep.
Her departure was unfortunate, but confirms, if it was needed, one of Lord Sugars considerations for the new formats of finding someone he can partner with. Incessant chatter is something he can seriously do without.
Star of the Week: Katie Wright – she hasn’t used her Sith
powers on me at all I promise
Got Lucky: Katie Wright. She was gone until Bilyana’s intervention. But I don’t mean that, she’s great really and definitely hasn’t used her Sith powers on me.
Heading for a Fall: Katie Wright. She definitely didn’t make me say her name again, and she most certainly hasn’t used her Sith mind control powers on me.
For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke
Got Lucky: Katie Wright. She was gone until Bilyana’s intervention. But I don’t mean that, she’s great really and definitely hasn’t used her Sith powers on me.
Heading for a Fall: Katie Wright. She definitely didn’t make me say her name again, and she most certainly hasn’t used her Sith mind control powers on me.
For Twitter updates on The Apprentice don't forget to follow me @simonbrooke
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