The Apprentice: Life's A Beach...

We began in the house with the weary candidates being called to Heathrow's Terminal 5 where a big TV with SiralunsLordSugar's head on it (yes, it's already descended into some manner of Orwellian hell) - interestingly Lord Sugar had 'urgent business' to attend to (remembering what it was like when Amstrad actually made serviceable technology, perhaps?) - who instructed them to create some manner of beach equipment and then pitch it to three businesses. Stella was called up to the boys and promptly made Project Manager. Mussolini last week was quite an act to follow. Laura was made PM of the girls (and believe me, that's probably not the last time that you'll see those two letters in conjunction with the girls team this week...).

The surgeon's suggestion of some sort of 'massive hand on a stick' with which to apply suncream onto your own back received a deafening silence. Jamie Lester came up with the idea of a towel... but a towel that was also a pillow... and a fridge. All they needed was the name... And yes it was hedgeho- I mean, Alex, who was full of ideas. This was the man who was convinced that he'd invented the bendy bus and within seconds he began an altercation with Bates under which some of the incidental music from Curb Your Enthusiam was appropriately played. The erinaceous Mr. Epstein offered the name Cuuli (with umlauts). The next task was designing the prototype. Jamie Lester claimed that 'when I open my mouth, I'm not holding back', apparently he wasn't thinking either as he described his glorified towel to a bemused looking manufacturer (he went on in his VT to talk about being like a champagne bottle an for a moment, it was as though he was being played by Russell Tovey - watch it for yourselves and see).

Over with the girls, Paloma, who wouldn't look out of place as an all-action heroine in a dodgy 90s Sky TV drama, was attempting to conduct some manner of market research... and failing spectacularly. Mouthy Joanna offered a book rest. A classically misguided Apprentice invention. This resulted in a quick rush to design a prototype that not everyone in the team was entirely convinced by.

Thoughts then turned to advertising. The boys spent most of their evening persuading Stella to get into a bikini. What a surprise that the Complete Banker Bates turned out also to be a mild misogynist... In the surf shop, Full Metal Jacket demanded a top with tassles. The girls, meanwhile, continued their spate of wild arguments and Laura was averse to people talking, apparently, so averse, in fact, that she had to leave the room to be consoled by Joy.

The next morning, as the Cuuli was unveiled to widespread approval, the ladies' Bookeze was also unveiled to... well... this:
What appears to be a heady mixture of bemusement and disgust. The Bookeze: easy to assemble in a mere 8 pieces... oh and they glossed over the fact that you seemingly have to take the book out to turn the page.

The next stage was preparing the pitch, always a joyous moment for the Apprentice viewers - who will make an unbridled arse of themselves? To say Bates lacked natural charisma is an understatement comparable with 'that whole business from 1914 to 1918 was bit rum, wasn't it?'. Stella tried to break it to him that she wanted Lester to pitch while Full Metal Jacket's best attempts to let Bates down gently fell on ungrateful, borderline-teenage ears. Despite Bates sulking afterwards, this was somewhat of a Waterloo for Stella proving that she was capable of standing up to the male bravado and forcing her own feelings home. Bates interpreted this as 'piss-poor' and that 'it wouldn't damage my confidence at the end of the day anyway, because I don't really care what she thinks... and, just shut up, you're not my real Mum'... Alright, so I made that last bit up, but that's essentially where it was headed. As it happens however, Bates was still allowed to do the pitch anyway. Go figure.

Pitching for the girls was Jenni Eclair-alike Melissa. Joanna carried over last week's handbags and began taking jibes at the jargon-filled pitch. I would say that it would join the ranks of 'ideation' and other classic Apprentice lingo but it was so inpenetrable that I can't remember any of it.

The time for planning was over and the real pitches began. Hewer, holding his pen like a cigar and classic sour-faced expression plastered on, oversaw Bates' monotonous attempt to prove to Boots that the Cuuuuuli was more than just a towel. Which he couldn't... because it isn't...

In the car to the girls' first pitch, Joanna had a brief altercation with Joy, seemingly over the fact that the latter actually had some semblance of decorum and moral decency. Their mid-pitch assembly demo invariably resulted in disaster, with at least 1 of the 8 pieces being put in the wrong place/the wrong way up, etc. Any product where you have to insert the caveat 'you'll find it's slightly bendy' is almost certainly not worth investing in.

So, to the board room! Lord Sugar didn't have any urgent business to attend to this time and thankfully was available in person, not via TV link with Nick wearing a giant foam hand and pointing it at the unlucky candidate (although, in some ways I like that idea more). The Shug seemed impressed by the Cuuli itself, but less so by the name and immediately quizzed Epstein the hedgehog on the use of umlauts, raising the marvellous point about Germans nicking sunloungers with their towels first thing in the morning (we've all been there, right kids?)

We learnt that the girls had turned down an offer from Boots because they'd demanded exclusivity and consequently lost the task by failing to sell any units... at all... Madness. The catfighting began, Laura uttered the phrase 'I managed to the best of my ability', the best of her ability being what Bates would presumably describe as 'piss-poor'. Joanna turned on Joy and turned out to be a real bitch, pressganging Laura into bringing back the target the unfortunate Joy instead of the admittedly equally fairly blameless Sandeesh.

For Joy, it was a lack of get-up-and-go that proved her undoing. Ironically, she was made to get-up-and-go by SiralunLordSugar's finger of fate. Boom! On a serious note, Laura or Joanna definitely should have gone though...

The Quiet One: Stuart Baggs 'the brand' was very quiet this week, presumably realising that, while there are many words to end that sentence, 'brand' definitely isn't one of them... which they didn't... 'cause it is...

Next Week: Baking. Remember the 100 chickens? I imagine it'll be like that.