Archive for May, 2007
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Ooooh, what an exciting night. Not only is it also the live launch of Big Brother 8 on some other channel, and of course, being covered by the Lovely Janine, over here, but over here - whether you’re here tonight or here to catch up later/tomorrow - it’s that special episode where we get to watch people already making tits of themselves on TV go on other TV to make tits of themselves for the TV programme they’re already on! That’s right! It’s The Apprentice candidates selling things live (comoparatively live) on shopping channels. Television has itself for tea once more. Yay!
As a personal challenge this evening, I will be referring to the short bearded man previously known as Surallun by his full name, as I was told off for that being a very weak gag last week.
So from here on in he’ll be known as YesSurallun.
No that’s weaker, isn’t it? Oh alright. Sir Alan Michael Sugar it is, for as long as I can remember to type that.
So! What are Surallun and his little flunkies up to this week?!
Oh, arse.
9.01pm: Oooh! Apparently, right, 16 people have come to London to find a job, and there’s this guy, yeah, who’s looking for someone who’s “drop dead shrewd” and to succeed, they’re going to have live and work together and … oh no hang on I’ve seen this before. Every week. For seemingly the Whole of My Life.
Or a couple of months. Whatever.
9.03: Last week on The Apprentice … well, well, this happened I’m not going over it again.
9.05: 8am in the Apprentice house, and the phone rings. It’s Frances, Sir Alan Michael Sugar’s personal assistant. Frances, usually so calm, so sing-song and playful sounds fraught, distressed, anxious. I hope everything is ok.
The remaining candidates have to drag themselves up the BT tower. And take an overnight bag…
9.06: They’ve been brought to the hub of national and international communications to be told about… TV shopping. What?
Well, I suppose people see things on the television and what? Phone up to buy it? Ok… Well, it’s weak, but it will do.
The teams are shaken up - Tre, Naomi and Simon on the one hand, Katie, Kristina and Lohit on the other. Well, that’s not much of a shake up, but it will have to do…
The teams are put in their cars and rushed to… Peterborough.
9.09: The teams will have to pick products, and then flog them live on one of Britain’s premier shopping channels. As a hungover fan of shopping channels, I cannot agree, but that is by the by.
Katie is far, far above shopping channels. She names her potential consumer - a sad middle aged woman with an enormous bust with no life who uses the television for her only company. That’s the way forward, Katie, belittle your customer. Or, well everyone. Well, it’s got her this far, I suppose.
9.14: The teams will have to sell two things solo, and one thing as a team of two.
Kristina, team leader, has already decided way before the off who should be the presenter rather than part of the team… It should be her. To be honest, I think with the concept of a sneering Katie saying ‘Well I suppose you WOULD buy this, wouldn’t you?’ to camera, or a lovely happy Lohit going ‘Weeee! Biros!’, she may have a point.
Simon, meanwhile, is being more cautious, and waiting until after the training session to decide who should have the solo performing slot…
9.15: Oh. It should be him.
And he’s choosing a WEIRD strategy for a shopping channel - high price goods that will make large profits. Hm. You have to be very good to sell expensive things. Very good indeed. I’ve seen you breakdance, love.
9.19: So the solo presenter has to sell the products chosen by the team, and the team of two has to sell the products chosen by the solo presenter.
Naomi and Tre have just returned to the room to find Simon and his special choice of product.
It’s a wheelchair. Naomi looks unconvinced. Tre looks unconvinced (a word that may soon be a synonym in thesaurus.com. So that might conceivably read ‘Tre looks Tre’) (’Or ‘Tre looks tres Tre’, if you’re a bit pretentious)
(I am).
Simon demonstrates how the wheelchair works. He gets Naomi to sit in it and wheels her back and forth, ably demonstrating the dual concepts of ‘wheel’ and ‘chair’.
In a cutaway, he says that it’s nothing he would want, and fortunately for him, it’s nothing that he would want to buy for anyone in his family or social circle, but it’s all about the Market, and according to Simon, people who watch shopping channels are more likely than not to impulse-buy mobility equipment.
I think this may be a mistake. People who watch shopping channels are surely more impulse sohppers than anything. An emergency car-battery charger you might buy on impulse, on the premise that you might someday need it. A woolly fleece with wolves on is something you buy on impulse on the premise that you might one day like it. A wheelchair you might buy on impulse because?… Yeah, not so much. Sorry Si.
9.21: Simon, in turn, is going to have to demonstrate a trampoline and a Craft Decoupage set. None of them know what this is, or how to describe it. In the meeting with the actual channel’s producers the next morning, they have absolutely no idea.
The producers seem unimpressed. Seriously - yes - what are you THINKING? When is this on? 4am, right? No! It’s mid afternoon!
On the other hand my, aren’t we seeing a lot of Simon, Tre and Naomi today?
Hm, I wonder who will be in the boardroom?
9.24: 4pm, and the first team are on television - and Alan is watching at home, alone, in his little home-boardroom.
First up - Kristina. Now, at least these are reasonable products. A chocolate fountain, a steam mop and… well, we shall wait and see what else. It is a surprise (I missed it).
Kristina cannot stop saying OK, OK? After every sentence, yeah, OK? And in, OK, the middle of some, yeah? She says OK. OK! It’s killing Sir Alan Michael Sugar, who is yelling at the television in his private boardroom. It’s killing me too. OK?
9.27: Oh! There are more products than one for the team to sell. That’s lucky, because for a moment there, I thought that Katie and Lohit were going to spend half an hour sitting on a small step talking about control pants. And I think any discussion of Katie and ANYTHING to do with control, or pants, is something we should just stay away from this week.
They’re selling a foot spa this week. You can’t go wrong with a footspa. I’ve got three.
Didn’t buy a single one of them.
9.30pm: Moving on to Simon’s team, and oh sweet lord, it’s only been on for a small matter of minutes, and I’m cringing already. This is horrible.
First up, Naomi and Tre try and sell an epilator set. Naomi tweezes Tre. On the hand, which is not where I might have chosen, but it will do for now. Epilating that man anywhere is better than nothing.
Simon, meanwhile has completely frozen in the producers galley. He’s saying nothing. Nothing at all. He’s like an enormous stuffed hairless bear. Clearly been practicing with the epilator.
Still six minutes into epilating, and they’ve sold nothing. So they move on to the wheelchair.
Sir Alan Michael Sugar is shouting at the television. I KNOW, SIR ALAN MICHAEL SUGAR! That’s what I SAID!
They fail miserably at that, too. Simon is no use whatsoever.
Oh good lord.
9.35: Simon, in front of the camera - after failing to sell sticky decoupage pads by dint of not knowing what on earth they are - has picked up the trampoline to demonstrate how the easy-storage option works. This basically involves screwing on or unscrewing six courgette-sized rubber-footed legs, which sounds so simple, an idiot could do it.
Which is very much the case. Sadly, an idiot can’t demonstrate how to do it without looking like he’s the unlucky owner of the world’s most basic detachable penis. Holding the trampoline EXACTLY at groin height, Simon screws in the ‘legs’. Fiddling with both hands exactly where you’re encouraged not to fiddle on live daytime television. Then he moves the trampoline around and does the next. And the next.
Good lord this wouldn’t be anywhere NEAR as funny if it didn’t go on so long. Everyone off camera is almost wetting themselves laughing, apart from the producers, Tre and Naomi, who haven’t noticed.
Or at least aren’t telling him to stop. Which may be a different thing entirely.
9.37: “After losing the shopping channel thousands upon thousands of pounds, the teams head back to London”
Now that’s a damning indictment by Mr Patronising Voiceover Man if ever I heard one…
9.39pm: The whole thing’s just too horrible to be believed.
Sir Alan Michael Sugar is sitting in front of the candidates, telling them over, and over, and over again what a bunch of idiots they are, how badly they did and how much he hates them all.
Repeatedly. Over and over. And again.
Yes, they weren’t very good, we get it. So they made less than a tenth of what the shopping channel usually makes - but who won?
Or rather, I suppose, ‘who lost the least’?
9.42pm: Simon, Naomi and Tre made £950ish…
Katie, Kristina and Lohit made something like 1,300.
Again, and I know I always say this: Gosh what a shock. The team that were clearly going to be back in the boardroom are back in the boardroom. Now to find out if the person who is clearly going to get fired is going to get fired.
9.46: The winners go for a treat, to get steamed in a steam room. The losers go to grump at each other over a cup of tea (which is similar to a steam room if you put your face close enough).
After enough angry glances and subtle promises of backstabbing, the team return to the boardroom. Frances invites them in. She seems calmer and happier now. I am glad.
9.49: And after three minutes of not saying very much, he sends them straight back out again.
Was that worth it? Apparently he wants to think about it more. Couldn’t he have done that while they had their tea. Still, at least we get to see Frances again. Hello Frances!
Oh, they’re going back in (but not before, it should be noted, Sir Alan Michael Sugar has said calming and positive things about Simon. Interesting. Maybe he is not going after all). Bye bye Frances! See you next week!
9.53: They’re back in the room, and Sir Alan Micheal - Oh SCREW IT - Surallun is really giving Simon a big break. The man has proved himself not only a bit inept, but also moronic, and yet Surallun is talking him up, berating the others.
As someone mentioned in the comment box, there’s no reason why they should have been good at this task, but I disagree. It was all about product choice, which was poor, and about sales, which is the main interest area of most of these people.
9.55pm: Oh, there is a firing, and oh, oh, he’s heading towards Tre, he’s threatening Tre, and…
9.56pm: Naomi… You’re Fired.
Oh, cripes. That was a little a out of the blue (though not before time).
Farewell, Grumpy little Naomi!
9.59: Next week on The Apprentice, a ‘gruelling interview’, where the panellists are quized on their past, their experience, their business acumen. Hey! Hey, I’ve just had a great idea! It’s almost as if that’s a reasoned and sensible way of hiring someone! Maybe, right, an apprentice or something! Surallun, are you watching?!
And it’s over to BBC2 for You’re Fired! with Adrian Chiles. And some other random people. And Naomi. Obv.
10.03pm: This week on the panel:
A woman who presents on shopping channels for a living (oh, they won’t mention the name of the shopping channel she presents for NOW, of course, for that would be plugging. Unlike the 400 mentions of Ideal World in the last hour…)
Mark Frith editor of Heat (Quick, someone get a red marker and draw a circle of shame around some unfortunate part of HIS body and see how he likes it)
And Vanessa Feltz. Again. Why?
10.06pm: Naomi looks very nice, of course, and seems quieter and more ladylike than on the main show.
Meanwhile, I have used an enormous marker to draw a big red circle around Mark Frith’s big baldy head and written a big headline saying ‘Receding and Proud! Journos who say sod the hairline!’ in honour of Heat’s weekly conflicting fat/famine covers and stuck it on the top of the television.
Well, I think we’ve found out what pushes my buttons this evening. Now, what’s happening in You’re Fired! at the moment?
Ah, they’re discussing how to sell a wheelchair.
10.13: Naomi rightly points out that she was trying to work out how to sell the wheelchair while Tre was having a little hissy fit in the corner, mardying about whether Simon was going ‘for a disabled market’. Dick.
And it’s true that Tre has this weird hold over Simon. Simon won’t do anything without his master’s say so. Which is possibly not the best trait in a possible employee, unless you’re going to employ Tre to come and sit in the corner of your Apprentice’s cubicle in the Amstrad offices in Brentford, crosslegged on a big pink cloud, like an angry monkey, shouting.
Hang on, was that Monkey Magic, or did I dream it?
10.20: Naomi is shown clips of Katie being unpleasant about her, including a clip of Katie saying she looks like a Labrador.
That’s ridiculous. Naomi looks like a Cocker Spaniel, and everyone knows it.
That used to be my party trick at college. I used to go around parties staring intently at people and saying “…And you?… You look like an eagle/daschund/panda…” and they would nod, thankfully, like I’d just told them they had the soul of Marilyn Monroe, rather than like I’d just told them they had a face like a dog. Drama school. You can get away with anything. Seriously.
There is a competition to see what Katie looks like. Bloodhound? Kitten? Eagle? No. A camel.
For the love of all that is horsey, Adrian - have you never been to Ascot?
10.24pm: We get to see Simon unscrewing his groinal parts again. Of course. Don’t worry, I shall be looking it up on YouTube first thing in the morning. Every morning. I can’t think of a better way to start the day.
10.27: The panel are asked if the right person got fired. I completely manage to miss what they say. Sorry.
The audience are asked if the right person was fired - they give a comprehensive no.
10.29pm: ‘Naomi’s best bits’ pass in a smiling blonde, bouncing blur.
Glancing down at the comment box, I can see a consensus forming on what Naomi’s best bits REALLY were. And I shant be repeating that.
10.30: And that’s it for this week.
Next week’s show looks very good though hurrah, so make sure you’ll all be back to watch that.
And be nice to whoever’s here hosting you - because I’ll be on a plane. I shall be logging on to find out what happened as soon as I touch down, so do take studious notes for me, won’t you.
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[Full post and reader comments can be found here]
Television, Minute by minute reports, The Apprentice |
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
Praise be to the gods of rock, The White Stripes are back with their sixth album. It may have been more of an uphill struggle than the rest, taking a whole three weeks to record and mix, but ee’, it looks reet good.
Here they present us with the title track of the new album, ‘Icky Thump’. A statement on their official website assures us that ‘ Though some residents of northern England might almost recognize the title, the Stripes stress they are spelling it wrong intentionally just for “kicks” and “metaphors”‘. Ah stop mitherin’, ya dozy twonks. Nowt wrong with appopriating coloquiallisms of Gods Own County if tha means well. Now gerron wi’it, ya smarmy get.
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007
Well, at least it’s not last week anymore, an hour of torture (and a half hour of analysis of an hour of torture) in which we watched as 8 people tried to decide just what the worst way of selling shoes to young urbanites was, and then doing it. They stopped short of actually pooing in a shoe and then proffering it to the ‘yoof’, singing songs about “Poo! Poo! Poo-in-a-shoe!!!” but you got the feeling it was only just, and that one of them will be sitting out there now wishing they’d thought of it.
Only seven left, eh?
And by the end of tonight, there’ll only be a handful. Presuming, in this case, that a handful is six. Which, in the case of Anne Boleyn, it reportedly was. I can’t think of any other famous people with six fingers. And interestingly, I’m not getting many useful hits back on Google for ‘Famous people with six fingers’. I suppose MOST famous people have six fingers. Or more. Apart from Nelson, who only had four. And a thumb. None of which has anything to do with The Apprentice.
Back at nine…
9.03pm “16 people have come to London. This is not a job interview.” Sigh. They cut and paste every week, why shouldn’t I?
Because I have a shred of moral decency and a fine, upstanding sense of respect for my readers, THAT’s why.
As always, as the introduction and ‘previously on…’ ticks by, I want to do something special. Perhaps write a rap in homage to ‘Street’ Simon and his trainer-flogging speaky-ditty last week. “The Apprentice is not about low cost flights and village fetes (that’s ‘Airline’ and ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, respectively) … The Apprentice is not about expensive suits and attractive individuals, it’s about…” Oh, speak of the devils. It’s the numpties in nylon slacks. They’re starting.
9.05pm: It’s probably worth noting that I’ll be documenting everything of any import here, unless some really dramatic stuff happens to happen in the bottom left hand corner. Because that seems to have been taken over by some football. Or it has in my house, anyway.
So. It’s two months in, and everyone’s showing the strain. Cue lots of footage of people showing the strain. This means that either someone’s going to walk, or there’ll be quite a lot of tears before bedtime.
My bet is on the latter.
Lovely Frances calls and, in dulcet tones, summons the candidates to ‘Greenwich: Home of the Cutty Sark”. Not any more, sweetheart…
9.07: They’re at the Cutty Sark because… oh, it’s all about foriegn trade. So they’re going to pick ‘a country’, and then sell the products of that country, to trades.
Surallun growls at them a bit, threatens, emptily, and then, with one last glance back at the sacred old ship, throws his cigar over his shoulder. Ah. Now we know.
9.08: This week’s Team Leaders? Wait for it…
Tre, and Katie.
Battle of the behemoths. There’ll be blood on the floor ere long. And up the walls. And on the scatter cushions, in people’s hair, and, inevitably, under Katie’s nails. Oooh, it’s like CSI and Apprentice in one. With some WWF mixed in.
9.12pm: After a lengthy introduction to ‘tat of all nations’, where various trade representatives display their wares to the candidates (international horse-riding exercise machines, multinational cheese graters, or something) Team Eclipse (leader, Tre) pick Sweden, and Stealth (Katie, Kristina and Naomi, a.k.a ‘The Rat Pack - oh, and Naomi’) pick Canada.
9.13pm Rather than make calls to find appointments for flogging their things, Jadine has a big cry. Blimey, I was expecting it, but not that quick.
She is sad, and misses her daughter.
Her team feature in a set of talking heads. They are sad, and miss the fact that they perhaps should have had some sales appointments set up.
9.17: Half way through the morning, and neither of the teams have really got any appointments. At all. With anyone. People are ringing around, and being told to piss off. Next, valiant warriors our little poppets are, they go doorstepping in posh shops - Jadine and Lohit in ‘Wealthy Chelsea’, Tre and Simon in ‘Upmarket Islington’.
And get told to piss off.
9.21pm: Jadine is still looking a bit wobbly, bless her. Tre shouts at her, and, instead of yellin her merry little head off as usual, she is making little meeping noises, and sounding like she’s going to cry. I feel sorry for her. But not much, because I’m mean.
And also? Weeping, frankly, does not make for a funny apprentice.
9.23pm: With her background in pharmaceutical sales, Kristina flogs something medical to a chemist.
I’m not sure if I’d ever buy anything medical from Kristina. With that hard brassy look in her eye, I would feel sure that she was trying to kill me. Or at least that the product contained ‘E30797 - Flaked Grandmother’
Meanwhile, elsewhere in London, Katie and Naomi sell lots and lots of insoles. Or rather Naomi does. Kate sits around looking like a posh lump. Like one of those lumps in a saddle with a wig on.
But they sell 100, and, with Eclipse looking ever more pants every time we see them, I think I know who will win.
9.30pm: Katie’s having a hell of a time flogging a rug-in-a-box. Mainly, apparently, because it is ‘common’.
They have three items from their country, and they have to sell at least five of each, or they’ll get fined. This would seem easy, apart from the fact that each team has a surprise booby-product. For Eclipse, the expensive air purifier. For Stealth, some kind of bunch of square bits of carpet in a box that fit together like an unattractive jigsaw.
Boy. Now, I don’t hate it for the same reasons as Katie does. It’s nothing to do with it being common. It’s to do with it being one of the most ugly things on the planet.
9.35pm: It’s all coming down to the wire.
It’s nothing to do with the products, it’s all to do with the deadline. Jadine and Lohit have to get from West London with their expensive order, and they simply can’t do it in time.
At the end of the day, they arrive 40 minutes after deadline. Mr Patronising Announcer makes it sound like someone’s going to set fire to their pubic hair.
9.38: Surallun pits Katie directly against Tre in the boardroom.
“Katie, you’re a big loser. Tre has won lots of his tasks, so it’s Katie 2, Tre 7, is that right?”
She looks all crestfallen and bats her batty eyelids.
9.39: Tre’s Eclipse (heh, that sounds rude) made £1440, or something. But Stealth made an insole-tastic £2,500, or something.
In celebration, Katie flirts openly with Surallun, and consequently I am sick a bit in my mouth. Will someone just take her AWAY, please.
Still, at least she fights for another week. And I’ve heard next week’s show is going to be explosive. Absolutely - shall we say - unmissable.
Ooh, they’re back in the boardroom.
9.44: Within thirty seconds of being in there, Tre has placed the emphasis on Jadine having a big cry, and her weak womanliness being a the main reason for his downfall. Ooh, he’s a nasty piece of work, there’s just something about him I don’t like…
And Surallun too. He’s tiling Tre like he was the roof of a tile showroom. Is that a phrase? Well, it is now. And he’s doing it hard. He may, in fact, have got Tre to admit that he was completely in the wrong, and he failed. Something I never thought I would see.
Who’s coming back in with him, though? Jadine, obv, and…
Lohit. Unfair!
Lohit didn’t do anything right, for sure, but he didn’t do anything wrong. Simon didn’t do anything at all. But Tre lurves Simon.
In a man-way, of course.
9.50pm: Eeeeeenteresting. Two months into the programme and we suddenly discover that Lohit has a fine pair of balls.
Not that he displays them, physically, that would be wrong - although I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping for some similar display of passion in the Boardroom one day - but outraged at being brought back into the boardroom rather than Simon (like I said! Like I said!) he has a right old go at Tre.
Hurrah.
Oh, In return, Surallun tells him he’s a bit useless. and very articulate “and, you know, and stuff”.
9.54: Jadine gets told that in business, people have to miss their families, and that Surallun needs young people for his company (sweeter blood, easier to drink etc).
Lohit is too nice a guy.
Tre ‘fucked up, big time’. And at the end of it all…
9.55: Jadine, you’re fired.
Bye bye, Brand Demon, Bye bye, Queen of Eclipse. We shall miss you.
Well, until You’re fired, when we will see you for another half an hour.
But THEN, we will miss you. Not for long, obviously. We will forget who you are quite quickly, obviously, but we will, be assured, miss you, a tiny little bit, for a short while.
Bye bye.
9.58: Quote of the week: Tre - “If you tell people that you’re great often enough, you become great, and they believe it!”
Really? You’d have to sit me in a dark room and drip fire on my head for a hundred thousand days WHILE telling me, Tre. And I still probably wouldn’t believe you.
And now it’s just the ‘next week on…’ section and Jesus! BLIMEY!
You won’t BELIEVE what they’ve got lined up for next week! Explosions! BLOOD!
Sex! No! Hang on, was that all the other candidates taking drugs and tequila shots straight off a Naked Margaret?! Or was that Nick.
Oh no, now we will have to wait till next week to find out. Well, you wouldn’t want to be watching anything else, then, would you.
Like, some stupid launch show or anything?
Oh, it’s You’re Fired! over to BBC2…
Good lord! I’ve flicked on expecting to find Jadine talking about being on the Apprentice, and they’ve wheeled out Trisha instead. How is that fair.
Oh, no it IS Jadine. Dunt she scrub up well? Or, you know, ‘like Trisha’, but also ‘well’.
10.10pm: Jadine is being very quiet and considered and ladylike, and wearing a really quite odd dress. Wide, somewhat stiff straps, that look like they’re made out of - I don’t know, tulle?
Meanwhile, all the panellists are being very nice, and Adrian Chiles is handling her with big furry kid-mittens. And why?
Ah, there we are, he mentions her ‘mental health hiccup’ from a few years ago. She giggles attractively, and says she’s fine now. And yet, the whole thing is handled as if she’s going to go off at any second.
Which, of course, she isn’t. Why do people only have two settings, when it comes to depression and mental health issues? It’s always either attack or patronise, isn’t it?
Cocks.
Oh! Here is Jadine’s daughter giving her opinion on her mother’s business acumen. Apparently she thinks Jadine is great. Well, that’s good.
10.30pm: Sorry, I got led off reading and replying to comments, which I could, frankly do all day, inbetween reading about celebrity news and polishing my mad misspelling skillz (and other tools of the nu GU journalist).
Anyway. At the BAFTAS, several important actors are asked who they want to win, and give their opinon, mainly citing the big names (i.e. people they can remember without having to watch the show much, Tre, Katie etc) Barbera Winsor says she liked that one wherethey all went to France. Come on, Babs, that was months ago.
The audience are asked whether she should have been fired, they give their opinon. The panellists are asked, they give theirs.
And, much more excitingly, we are given a glimpse of the absolutely appalling QVC nonsense of next week which, no word of a lie, looks to be utterly fabulous. Do not miss it.
Unless you will be following Janine and her Big Brother 8 Launch Show blog, of course, in which case you can come back here and read aaalll about it afterwards. In the most hackneyed, cliched, trite and juvenile terms we can think of.
And believe me, I can think of many. Practice makes me.
________________
[Full post and reader comments can be found here]
Television, Minute by minute reports, The Apprentice |
Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007
Kevin, meanwhile, is driving to the airport and being bothered by Kelly as he drives. Though she is repeatedly shouting in his ear and causing him to swerve across the road, it appears that he cannot see her. This suggests that:
a) he is imagining her;
b) she is invisible; or
c) he is legally sight-impaired and therefore possibly should have caught a taxi.
He arrives at the airport, but Kelly keeps appearing. First in one queue, then another, then behind him, then in front, switching lines all over the place. Kevin looks confused, as is fitting when confronted with someone with such little comprehension of the conventions of queuing. Cripes, woman, just pick one line and STAY there, will you? Where do you think you are, France?
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
So last week saw a cacophony of bad negotiation and a symphony played in the key of crap by the We Don’t Know What Nigella Seeds Are orchestra (The WDKWNSAO for short)(Or slightly short, anyway). The right man was fired, as we could tell from the first three minutes that he was going to be. But who will it be tonight? I don’t know. But we shall all find out. Together, on the mystical journey that is Episode 8.
So. Making a TV advert tonight, is it?
Brilliant. Well, this should go well. Producing television advertising requires all the same skills as being a wannabe marketing donk, so you can imagine they’re all going to flourish. Or maybe not…
9.01pm: “This is not a game. This IS a job interview, From Hell.”
I sometimes wonder that I don’t wake up in the middle of the night murmuring “Job interview. From. Hell… Drop dead shrewd… 16 people have come to London… Famously. Hard. To Please.”, so often have I listened to Surallun and Mr Patronising Announcer’s weekly duet. Although I do sometimes dreamt that I wake up between Surallun and Mr Patronising Announcer, so that’s somewhat similar.
I don’t really.
Well, not often.
9.03pm: Last week. On. The Apprentice. The fact that Kristina dobbed in Katie and Paul’s relationship in the boardroom is mentioned severally, so you can’t imagine that that’s not going to come into play sometime during this episode.
As WilliamT mentioned in the comments, it was my birthday at the weekend, and I think I might still be hungover, so do bear with me if my wit’s a little slow this evening.
Oh, there’s Adam getting fired again. And Katie calling Kristina a hard, evil wench.
“Pot, I have Kettle on the phone for you, are you free? Oh, I’ll take a message, he says you’re…”
Oh crap, it’s started.
9.04pm: Frances calls. Good old Frances , with her lovely sing-song tones. It’s so sad that she gets to say is ‘Surallun would like to meet you in X minutes at Y place.’ It’s very early in the morning that she rings, perhaps she could sing a nice little song to them or something. Maybe a poem. I’m going to start a campaign.
Katie runs round, scaring everyone out of bed. Jumping upwearing a full tracksuit with obvious layers, Simon has either already been out for a run and is pretending to be in bed for the cameras, or is the sweatiest man alive.
9.06pm: Having ‘been a bit quiet for a couple of weeks’ Jadine is one project leader (actually, Surallun, she’s been on mute since the first show, basically, but we know what you mean). Given the chance of losing Tre, Simon, Lohit or Naomi to the other team, she takes the opportunity to rid herself of… Naomi. Interesting, because the last time the camera concentrated on Jadine and Tre at all, they would have happily ripped each other’s lungs out through the nose.
So either their relationship has improved considerably or there’s something about Naomi we don’t know.
Oh who am I kidding. “Something about Naomi we don’t know’?
I all but forget she’s in the show in the six days between Wednesday. The things I DO know about Naomi could be written on a hamster’s eyelid.
In lipstick.
9.06pm: Surallun and the candidates meet in a glass dome overlooking Picadilly Circus. In the windows behind the candidates, broody, stormy skies, promising heavy times ahead. In the windows behind Surallun, a bright new rosy dawn. This is either the least subtle digital manipulation since Kate Winslet got eaten by a supermodel, or the kind of natural coincidence that would cause producers to sell their grandparents for 50p and a biscuit.
The Teams have to create an advertising campaign. For trainers.
Surallun explains that there are hoardings on Piccadilly circus for big companies such as TDK and Coke, which we know because the camera lingers on them lovingly for something that seems like hours.
9.07pm: What Surallun wants is a campaign that sells kit. Not one that wins “The Montrose Award for Advertising Tossers”. Fair enough. He may get one that will win the ‘Pickard Award for Chin-Grater Chingability’, but that’s about as much as we can safely assume.
That’s the kind of embarrassment level that makes you wish you were rubbing your chin with a cheese grater than watching a single second more of, by the way. Like that Birthday song Jadine treated us to in the first episode. We can only WISH for something that terrible again. Maybe if she raps?
9.08pm: The team go and see an advertising man in ‘One of Britain’s top advertising agencies, with clients such as…’ (Not sure what they’re called, we shall simply refer to them as Pluggy Wuggy and Doodah if we refer to them at all) They all nod and take notes, which we all know full well they will spend the next two days doggedly ignoring.
If they’re taking notes at all, of course.
Basically, he tells them that they need to offer ’something new in the market’, and they all sit there drawing doodles of willies. And their autograph. And, in Katie’s case, doodling pretty laughing horses trampling the dead, broken remains of her enemies.
9.10pm: Out into the streets for market research in ‘London’s bustling West End’ (probably, if it’ not London’s exclusive Mayfair or London’s trendy Hoxton, I wasn’t listening) where they stop cool people and try and talk to them about their trainers.
Lohit and Tre going out to research for Team Eclipse…
L: “I wear hoodies, but I’m no hippy-hopper dude”
T: “They’re not called Dudes, for a start”
L: “Brother, then”
Bless him.
For heir brands to stand out, the teams will need a ‘distinct design, and a strong idea for the ad campaign’ Says Mr Patronising Announcer. Really? Brilliant, thanks.
9.11pm: In a project planning meeting, Tre takes over entirely, chatting away in confident sounding streety-lingo, which I’m not, I have to say, entirely convinced by.
Lovely Margaret, Handmaiden of the Dark Lord, who reminds me more and more of my mum every week, is observing the team this week, and is having problems keeping up. She asks if someone can provide her with a glossary, or at least explain ‘Beat Boys’.
When successfully done, she cocks her head. “But what about the Bump And Grind Generation, then?” She asks. If no one’s sampled that for a song yet, I’m bloody going to.
9.12pm: Jadine and team have settled on a name for their brand. They’re going with the not at all patronising ‘Street’.
Meanwhile, in a land far, far away, Ghazal is spending much of her time trying to control an unruly class. Mainly by standing at the front of the room with a whiteboard marker saying ‘Guys? Guys?’ to absolutely no effect at all, poor love.
Their big idea is ‘Image is Everything’ which Katie is dead against and - it’s not often I’ll say this, so listen well - she’s right. It’s rubbish.
No no, still not likeable. Just ‘right’.
9.14pm: Oh god, I think all my worst nightmares are coming true. Simon - who seems to think he’s quite cool (and isn’t) and Tre (who thinks he’s the coolest kid in the class) are in charge of the music. And Simon, please say it ain’t so, seems to be writing a rap.
9.16: In a room, Ghazal’s team are still having trouble finding a brand name. They’re thinking about Jam, Badge, Stamp…
Call me crazy, and accuse me of having lost track of which team is which (I have) but aren’t these lot Stealth? And isn’t that a reasonable name for a trainer and one that would utilise their already established ‘team’ brand with Surallun?
I mean, I know it kind of sounds like you’re manufacturing burglarware, but still, they might at least have considered, as opposed to the godawful Jam, which is what they seem to have…
OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND MARKETABLE, SIMON’S RAPPING.
9.17pm: Simon made up a speech episode - I’m not calling it a rap again - that included the immortal phrase ‘Street is not about low cost flights’ And something about ‘Village Fetes’. I’m not entirely sure anyone ever said it was.
It’s possibly important to note that he’s already touted himself as a ’street dancer’ and said that they can just get some actors to do some little moves, and ‘he can do the big stuff’.
Never mind considering putting my chin to the cheese grater, I’m considering sticking my head in the blender, and it’s not even twenty past yet.
9.19pm: For the first time ever, I have to say I am entirely on Tre’s side. Utterly and completely. He’s standing around wearing the glummest face since Katie lost Paul.
They’ve just auditioned six actors, none of whom could dance, and had to sit through an elbow-gnawing demonstration of handstands by Hampstead Streetdancer Simon, while Jadine shouted ‘Wicked!!!” and “Easy!!!”
9.21: The thing that’s nice about having two people in every car now - although it’s ecologically vile, obv - is that in twos, they feel completely free to go wild bitching about each other in twos.
We’ve already had Kristine and Naomi throwing around theories about Katie trying to get rid of Ghazal this week, and now. Um…
Lohit and Simon have just had the world’s most unbelievable conversation including the phrases:
“You sounded very Black! You’re more Black than Jadine!”
“You think?”
“Oh yes. And more street. But she’s more street than me. Or maybe I AM street.”
“You’re not straight…”
I would go back and transcribe the whole thing, I really would, but I just can’t. Typing, you know…
9.22: More bitching, now Katie: “Kristina is a total arse-coverer. Whenever there is an issue, Kritina tries her hardest to cover her arse. It’s just a shame she doesn’t do it better with the skirts she wears.”
I would ask her to put the claws away, but frankly I’d be too scared to. She’d fight me with her laser-nipples and set her attack-ponies on me.
Tre announces he is six feet under of bullshit. Last week he was the king of bullshit, several weeks before, he was its Master. He and Men-cow’s bottoms have a close involvement, to be sure.
9.25: Mutiny! Having gone to bed the night before having dismissed Katie’s ‘Music is Everything’ big idea, and embraced the group consensus ‘Image is Everything’, she’s woken up and mysteriously flipped. After, it seems, conversation with Katie, who now seems to be supporting her and her leadership wholeheartedly.
Blimey.
9.27: The advert for the Street trainers is looking abysmal. Two actors in a brightly lit schoolyard, neither of whom can dance, shuffling up to each other with stage-school grins on their faces.
You know things are bad when Mr Patronising Announcer tells you ‘Jadine’s last hope is Simon”.
Who is currently across town, shouting into a microphone in an accent not his own, and wearing a silly hat that doesn’t suit him.
9.30: Suddenly, the girls are actually looking good. Great, weirdly. Not individually, you understand, but the visual is good, they’ve actually hired a session singer who has turned their crappy lyrics into something listenable, and I’m feeling weirdly disposed toward them.
Professionally.
Aaaaaaaand Simon’s doing his dancing.
9.33: Well, unlike last week, at least we’re not in the boardroom yet.
In the poster campaign design room, it’s all kicking off between the women. It’s ostensibly about the slogan on the poster but it’s not really, we all know it’s not. They’re all just pissed off with each other, and they can’t work with each other for long enough to get anything done without it getting in the way.
Meanwhile, Jadine seems to be suggesting ‘yes, we need to have a good slogan, a message, a key idea, but more important than that…’
Are you saying you don’t HAVE any other those things?
9.36: The women pitch Jam to advertising people.
Katie, quite clearly is in control, and the others barely get a look in. The advert is dark, moody, and has lots of people swishing nice hair about.
‘Because music is in your soul/sole/sol’
As the man points out, they’ve out themselves on a grammatical rollercoaster. Ghazal doesn’t care. Sorry, Katie doesn’t care, and with clever voice throwing and a hand up Ghazal’s bottom, the alleged Project Leader doesn’t either.
9.38: The Street campaign - I can’t say anything about it apart from Simon.
Simon Simon Simon.
“Street isn’t about Village FETES?”
9.42: The teams do their pitches again for Surallun. We’ve already seen them, of course, so we see them. All. Again.
Which is all about the Big Man’s reaction.
He doesn’t like the idea of giving to charity, or certainly not named 10%, which is what Street plan to give to community charities (it’s all about reclaiming the street, you know).
And on the other side, he’s cross because the word ‘JAM’ isn’t obvious enough - you’re supposed to be flogging a product and their branding wasn’t good enough, their music was too loud, and ‘e dunt laaark it at awl. Sorry, I’ve gone a bit Eastenders.
And oh! The major advertising agency of Pluggme, Pluggme and Woo agree.
The ‘Street’ team win (Eclipse?)
Ghazal, Katie, Kristina and Naomi are coming back to the boardroom.
9.46: Katie: “I’d like to see Kristina fired, in a perfect world, and in a rather more physical way than in the boardroom”
That’s death threat number what? Five? Filmed! Filmed death threats! SURELY that’s an arrestable offence.
Oh, they’ve come back in…
9.50: Back in the boardroom, Surallun points has been informed that Ghazal wasn’t in charge, Katie was.
Well, you’d think at this point, that maybe Katie should take over as project manager and have to automatically come back into the boardroom and…
Oh bother, my mother’s just phoned.
Hm. So the team was split into two, they all hate each other. It’s Naomi and Kristina vs Ghazal and Katie. N&K argue for their big idea being ‘Image is Everything’, and look very smug about doing that until Surallun and Nick point out that that was shit as well.
Katie really stands up for herself, standing up for the loudest, jarringest advert perhaps every created.
Who’s coming back in? Ghazal, Katie and Naomi.
I’m surprised at Ghazal bringing Katie in, I must say, but maybe she (rightly) thinks Surallun hates the PonyLady. It could work…
9.57: Back in the boardroom Katie tries to argue for herself, and she has to argue very hard, because Surallun is giving her both barrels (not in the way she wanted to give Kristina, nor in the Paul/Katie way, he’s just shouting)
Naomi, being essentially as objectionable as a doorstop (and therefore surely a likely winner) is safe. And dull.
Ghazal, predictably, (and as some spoilsport dropped into a comment box earlier this afternoon, even more predictably), is fired.
It’s not because she’s too young, says Surallun, it’s because she’s crap.
[Sorry, I’d be more detailed, but I’m getting all this from subtitles. I can’t put the phone down, no, it’s her birthday]
And with that, the main show is over, and it’s over to BBC2 for… The sea eagles of Mull!
Oh, it’s just finishing. You’re Fired! is on in a minute.
Yes it DOES have an exclamation mark, we discussed that last week.
10.05pm: On the You’re Fired! panel tonight, India Knight, Trevor Nelson (oh, please just spend 28 minutes talking about Simon, please, please) and someone I’m having to look up. Lord Karan, Cobra Beer founder.
There we are. Ghazal has come on, and is being very pretty, and talking, and sayin almost nothing in a voice that sounds a little like an old fashioned kettle going off.
10.08pm: Sigh. The programme changes, but the plugging goes on. Lord Karan the Beer Man is asked about the ‘image is everything’ mantra, and says they shouldn’t have chucked it out. “My 8-year-old son desperately wanted these AIR trainers, desperately, these wonderful AIR trainers were the only thing he wanted so I had to buy him these…”
Yeah all right, mate.
10.12pm: Ghazal admits that Katie made all the decisions and she simply bent over and loosened her jaw hinge.
They discuss ‘Street’ as an idea.
Apparently they, at least HAD an idea, unlike the others.
Oh Come On! We’re almost halfway through! How are we not talking about the Shower of Simon yet?
10.16pm: Almost a minute of television is spent having a guided tour through Trevor Nelson’s trainer collection. Oooh, that’s what BBC2 needs! Cribs!
No, it doesn’t. Talk about Simon now or I’m turning over.
10.22: Lots of Katie, still. India Knight calls her the ‘Devil Incarnate’ and says she’d like to ‘push her down a well’ for such sins as wanting people dead.
Which seems slightly rich, maybe…
The idea of Katie being a flirt is widely touted, and to prove the point, lots of footage is given of her, in slow motion, blinking.
Finally. Simon.
10.27: Oh. They all love him.
Trevor seems to think he might win. Adrian thinks he has a nice toothy grin.
I think I want to go to bed.
10.29: Tre is discussed, as always, but as he didn’t do that much of note this week, it is not for long.
Adrian says that some ‘celebrities’ are going to give their opinion of who should win. First celebrity?
That woman who won that Sound of Music reality show last year whose name I could not remember if she was standing in front of me shouting it till she got hoarse (which admittedly wouldn’t take that long, poor love).
Fourth celebrity?
Brian Sewell. How does THAT work?
Oh put him on the panel, please.
Best bits, next week, trails for other BBC Apprentice spin-offs, and… End.
That’s it. I’m sorry. I’m off.
____________________
[Full post and reader comments can be found here]
Television, Features, The Apprentice |
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
Led down industrial walkways and shuttered elevators by an invisible hand, we keep catching glances of Kaiser Chiefs rocking away in some underground room.
Egads! Some unscrupulous types have captured our heroes and locked them in a damp, dark basement, forcing them to perform on demand. Like dancing monkeys in suits, if monkeys lived in basements. Spiders, then. Like dancing spiders. In tiny suits.
Anyway….
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
After last week’s scorching hot episode what have we in store this week? Well, we do know from the Apprentice homepage that Mr Congeniality, the ever sunny Adam is one project leader (managing Katie, known for throwing death threats with abandon hither and yon, and often at him) and Simon, Mr Who-Is-He?, is the other - and I’ll consequently be typing so fast my fingers might fall off.
And we’re into the final stretch now of the Grand Apprentice Race 2007; jumping the fences of Surallun’s tasks and rounding the corner into the final furlong of the last six (six? really?) episodes.
So more like a final lap, then. Or six laps. Um. Anyway, we could call it a two-horse race if we wanted. Though if we did, it would be entirely inaccurate, as there are 9 candidates left, and none of them are horses. And…
Lesson 1: Never start a post with a metaphor using a sport about which you know nothing. It can only get worse from there on in.
Right. So. A task in negotiating skills, we hear… This should go well, and smoothly. What with them all being quite so diplomatic and that. I can’t wait. Be back at 9…
Act one: the bit with the world’s longest introduction
9.02pm: Why IS this bit so long, anyway? This whole Introduction/Previously On… section. WHY? Is it so, when they flog it elsewhere theycan easily cut it down to 43 minutes so it can have ads stuck in it. Because Christ knows they could lose this bit alone and they’d be there. Oh alright, perhaps that’s a *little* exaggeration.
Act two: the bit with the phone call
9.04: Frances from Suallun’s office calls.
She has such a lovely, soothing voice, doesn’t she? She’s such a familiar figure. So close, yet so far away. But we never get to find out anything about her. Who IS she? What are her needs, her desires, her secret fears - what makes her heart beat that bit faster? We may never know. Or, in fact, care. She says Surallun wants to meet them on the trading floor at Lloyds. The ‘heart of business’. Or the ‘armpit of humanity’, depending on how you feel about it all.
Act three: The bit where the big task is revealed
9.06: “Here [in the City] getting the best deals is the key to success. Really? I thought that being a soulless mercenary tit was the key to success. Well, to be fair, it’s probably a bit of both. We’ve certainly got both bases covered here.
The task? We’ve seen this before - but it’s hard to see how else they would cover the ground: The teams have to buy ten named items, under the guide price, and, crucially, under the price first quoted by whoever’s selling it to them.
Act Three and a Half: The bit with the pointless wibbling about project planning
Team Stealth: Ghazal, the beautiful lady who never smiles (or does much of anything, actually), Kuddly Katie the Candidate Killer, Kristina - who quite possibly sweats lemon juice - and Adam.
Team Eclipse: Everyone else.
Poor feckless, mardybum ‘Carsalesman Adam’ has put himself forward as team leader, leading a bunch of women who hate him.
“It it had been a competition of walking down a catwalk in a bikini I still would’ve put myself forward, to be honest, because I need to prove myself”
Well, if that’s how you feel you would prove yourself best, Ads, I sincerely doubt there’s that strict a dresscode for the boardroom, and God knows you’ll probably be seeing THAT again.
9.09: They go through the items. Things I’ve seen so far on the shopping list: Bin. Um. Wetsuit. Leather trousers. Unicycle. White rabbit. A ‘BIN that you PUT RUBBISH IN’ (thanks Adam)
Simon’s leading the other team. Interestingly, he was introduced as ‘Cambridge-Graduate-Simon’, which differentiates him in a rather alarming way in the minds of the producers from ‘Car-salesman-Adam’. Or maybe I’m being too sensitive. Maybe it’s because he’s an Internet Entrepeneur, and they felt bad saying ‘Unemployed’.
Act four: The bit with The Task.
Simon and Tre go to Brick Lane - the ‘heart of wholesale leather’, to buy leather kecks.
If they can get a cheapy deal, they can get it here. Oh. They got a pound off. Bravo. Tough negotiating, dudes.
9.13: Everyone’s having a problem trying to work out what ‘nigella seeds’ are. Well I say ‘everyone’. I mean Adam. Adam, looking at a picture of a bowl of the small black seeds, becomes convinced that they’re some kind of covering for astroturf.
He calls an astroturf company, and describes what he means in detail. “What are they called, those granules? Those little rubber bits on the new kinds of astroturf?”
They’re called ‘rubber granules’, says the astroturf specialist.
Never affectionately called Nigella seeds, then, Adam checks? No. No, apparently not. It’s one of those times you wish there was a camera at the end of the people they’re ringing, so we could get that shot where the astroturf salesman looks at the reciever funny and then turns to his colleague. “Here - you’ll never guess what this tosser just asked me…”
Adam, in the car, thinks ‘they were on to something there. Really, because they also look like mouse poo. Now. Where can we get a deal on several Kg of rodent shit (as long as it’s affectionately known as Nigella Seeds - those cockerneys and their rhyming slang, eh?)
9.14: Kristina and Katie, postponing their mutual loathing for one week only, have just wandered into your average Chemist and haggled a price-labelled jar of leg wax down from 7.99 to four quid. Blimey, what a swizz. I’m never paying full price for my toothbrushes ever again. I’m never paying more than 2p for a condom, and that’s for damn certain.
9.15: Adam is the true star of the episode - and I think we all know what that means. He describes the style of negotiation he uses as quite light, jokey. And then we cut to him trying to bargain for an engine, staring at the old man in the parts shop like he’s trying desperately to make those Jedi mind tricks he’s been practicing all these years work for him.
“Are you SURE you can’t do this cheaper?”
“No.”
“You think you could perhaps give it to us for £15.”
“No, I can’t, seriously.”
“These are NOT the droids you’re looking for.”
“What?”
9.19: Things happen. People buy things. Simon wanders around like the Israelites searching for the promised land, if the Israelites were tits in suits and the promised land was a tile shop.
Jadine buys a white rabbit, and immediately shaves the shape of an eclipse on its back (conjecture).
Naomi has walked into a tile warehouse, and tried to endear herself to the warehouse manager by referring to him as ‘Boss Maaaaaaaaan!’, over and over again. Weirdly, this doesn’t work, and they end up buying a square metre of ‘factory seconds’ marble…
For the asking price. Surely that’s going to get them in trouble. Even I know that they’re supposed to get it for under the first quoted price. And I know that because the patronising voiceover keeps telling me over, and over, and over again.
Adam still doesn’t know what nigella seeds are. He’s now asking random strangers. Doesn’t anyone have a WAP phone? Not even an Amstrad one?
They sod the seeds and set off in search of a bin. You know the things you put RUBBISH IN.
9.22: Adam, the project manager, asks Katie and Kristina - who are almost through their list - to help he and Ghazal for the search for the elusive nigella seed. They tell him to bugger off and put the phone down.
I know this is a competition, but surely teamwork has SOME part to play.
Oooh! Simon has found out what nigella seeds are!
9.25: Nigella seeds are found in naan. Tre points out that all Turkish shops should sell them.
A matter of seconds later (well, by edit) they’re phoning around cash and carry supermarkets. In an attempt to win people over, Tre slips seamlessly out of his normal midlands angry drawl, and into a warm, freindly South Asian patter.
Simon is well impressed with this, and does an impression of Tre doing an impression of an indian people. It is arse-clenchingly hideous, like your boyfriend’s dad drunk at a curry house, shouting at the waiter.
9.27: Given different names for nigella seeds, Ghazal suddenly knows what they are. But not where to find them. This is understandable, as she’s Scottish, and can’t be expected to know where to find an international deli in East London. Apart from the 12 on every block, obv.
They find one supplier… but it’s near Stanstead. Adam rings Katie and Kristina and asks them to go, as they are nearer. They tell him to bugger off, and put the phone down.
9.30pm: Love a DUCK! I’m either slow tonight or they’re damn fast - 9.30 and we’re back to the boardroom already? Cripes, there must be one hell of an argument coming up.
Let’s see, their negotiating powers have pretty much all been bollocks, apart from Katie and Kristina, but their team didn’t find the damn I’m-not-typing-that-word-again seeds.
Ooh, they’re in there.
Act five: The bit in the Boardroom.
9.33pm How very unusual. Surallun’s walked in and opened with the money. “One of you”, he says “has won by 97p”
Surallun tells Simon’s team off for being terrible at negotiating, and Adam’s team off for not being able to find well, you know. Knowing there’s only 97p between them, the tension in the room is high. I think Adam’s face might actually explode, one pore at a time.
9.35: So who has won and who has lost? By 97p? Adam has lost. Sorry, Adam’s team has lost. Stealth. Or Eclipse. Or whoever they are. Adam’s team.
Well, no, let’s face it, Adam.
9.38: They go home for the night, to come back for the firing in the morning. That’s drawing it out unneccessarily, though it’ll make for a better argument when they get there.
Katie is very, very self-assured. She’s sorry about having to go into the boardroom ‘because it’s a bit of a waste of a day’. And because she wants to get rid of Adam. Obv.
Adam, in the other car, is visibly deflating, like a balloon with a grumpy face drawn on it in marker pen. He’s miserable, AND the other team got to race cars. He Wuvs Racing cars and it’s Not FAIR and blah blah blah. They get home. They all drink.
Then we see the other team, racing cars, having fun. Ooooh! Hang on. Need remote…
Quote of the week?
Jadine: “It was a big fish bowl. And lots of the fish have died.”
Now that, my freinds, is poetr… NO! Hang on!
9.41: Mouth drops open in horror.
Katie: “I would like to be the person who secures Adam’s exit from this, and secures his route back to The North and his Northern Chums, where I do feel he rather belongs.”
She’s not only nasty, she’s a snob of the highest order, and come the revolution, she’ll be first against the wall.
Now it’s not often I come across all militaristically northern, mainly because I was born and bred in London, so it wouldn’t be terribly fitting. But having spent a third of my life in The North with Northern Chums, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of them all, to tell This dreadful horse-faced woman to fu….
Oh! We’re back in the boardroom. Talking about nigella seeds…. Sigh.
Act 5.1: The other bit in the boardroom
9.43: Much conversation is had about nigella seeds. Surallun is concentrating his venom mainly on Ghazal when grumping about their inability to find them, I assume because she is Asian. And, as previously mentioned, Scottish. So…. Um…
9.45: Interestingly, Surallun seems to be very unhappy with Katie indeed. And it’s not just the ‘canoodling with Captain Mainwaring’ (Bravo, Surallun), it’s the fact that if they’d gone to Stanstead to buy the seeds, their fine for being late back would have been less than their fine for not getting them at all.
Ha! Slamming the phone down not so clever NOW, eh?
Who’s coming back? Adam, Katie and Ghazal.
9.49: Blimey, we’re getting personal!
Katie, blushing like a virgin bridesmaid that’s just been caught shagging the vicar, has said that if HE’s going to get personal, bringing Paul up (which, arguably he didn’t, Surallun knew about it from Kristina), she’s going to make accusations of alcoholism. Basically.
Yes, well, we did see a shot of him with a glass of wine in his hand in the night-between shot, I was wondering what that was there for.
She also, according to H in the comment box, claimed that she ‘frigged herself raw’ during the task. Um…
Is that a common phrase for anything other than I think it is?
We’re moving into the countdown, the one on one. The ’someone’s going to get fired in a minute’ Bit…
9.53: He’s a bit ‘meh’ on the issue of Ghazal. Maybe it’s because she’s too dull, maybe it’s because she’s basically invisible.
Adam, well, we all know what the issues are there.
And he REALLY doesn’t seem to like Katie much. Join the club.
But who is going to be going going gone?
9.55: Adam, you’re fired.
Well who else was it going to be?
9.56: To his credit, and I don’t know if this counts for anything, Adam is one of the first people (the first?) to carry his bag out. Basically - and someone in the comments was monitoring this the other week - he doesn’t have one of those pussy wheelie suitcases.
Well, we had to find something to love about him eventually. Even if it IS far too late.
9.57: In the other car, Katie and Ghazal lay into ‘that pointy-faced forked-tongued bitch’. Wow. No one here likes each other. No one at all.
I despair for my sex.
I despair for my species.
*sigh*
Over to BBC2 for You’re Fired!
(I don’t care if it doesn’t have an exclamation mark in the schedules, it’s arguably an exclamation, and therefore it stays, here.)
10.04pm: Heeeeeeeeeeres Adam!
Looking very smooth cheeked and bonny, I must say. And wearing jeans. And smiling! What the hell’s up wi’THAT?
10.06pm: Here’s williamt’s breakdown of the panellists on tonight’s episode of You’re Fiyud!, because it’s funnier than mine would be at this point.
(1) The one no-one’s heard of: Businesswoman Michele Mone, whose agent describes her thus:
“Michelle progressed from making tea at a brewery to creating and marketing the cleavage-enhancing Ultimo bra. One of Management Today’s Top 30 female entrepreneurs, she now lists several brands and licences in her burgeoning portfolio, not least Michelle for George. Broadcast includes BBC’s Mind Your Own Business.”
The first line reminds me of a proverb I know, also I liked the juxtaposition of ’several’ and ‘burgeoning’, and they don’t say who George is.
(2) Dominic Littlewood, TV presenter. I originally thought they meant Dominic Wood, of “Dick and Dom”, but apparently it isn’t, and having been under the misapprehension it was him for the last 15 minutes I’m now slightly disappointed.
Tonight’s Dom has a show on BBC1 where a stupid person who wants to be on telly is shown how to haggle down the price of something they want to buy on the high street to a price they could have got on the internet anyway.
(3) Jon Culshaw. I wonder what he’ll do.
Thank you, williamt.
Dom was also on To Buy or Not To Buy. I only know because I watch it on sick days and spend a lot of time shouting at the telly.
They’ve been discussing nigella seeds again. I drifted off.
10.15: Gosh he IS rather heavily made up, isn’t he? I wonder what that is, because it’s terribly good cover. Flawless, one might say.
We’ve moved on to conversation about Katie. Katie must be the Tre of this week, then.
And it’s clear why. She made no bones about her dislike of Adam, hoping on camera two weeks ago that he would ‘go back to his car lot and get run over’ and all that silly business this evening. And yes, of course, the audience are braying and hissing and booing and bleating like she’s the Evil Stepmother in a pantomime.
Which, you know, she is. Or will be - coming to a posh suburban playhouse near you, this November!
10.20: To back a montage of Adam being mardy, they played Blur’s ‘Wear me Down’, and now I’m led off thinking about where my copy of Leisure is and when the last time I heard it was.
Which is fine, as I only seem to be missing a testimonial by Adam’s mum while rootling through my CD boxes. From what I can hear, apparently, she likes him. She thinks he’s nice.
10.27: Who do the panelists think will win?
Dom likes Kristina and Naomi, and thinks they will be in a ‘final’ together. I put that in quotes because I’m not entirely sure it’s not a euphemism for one of his own private little bullet-headed fantasies.
Michelle (?) Likes Kristina. All these people have clearly never watched the show.
Now Jon Culshaw - oh I see. Well, he’s not had a chance to show off for the whole show (so what was the point of having him on, again? Ah, it’s this) is asked who the prime minister would like to win.
In his best Prime Minister voice he says Katie because she could eat his opponents. Or stalk them. Or trample them to death. Who knows.
10.29: What’s the thing that made Adam unique in the programme? Apparently, it’s the fact he strokes his chin. So they show 90 seconds worth of footage of that.
The audience are asked - not, as always, that it makes the blind bit of difference - whether they thought Adam should have been hired or fired and unusually, they say he should have been hired. However, as we’ve already established above, the audience is almost composed of people with the same DNA (so, most of Bolton, then, or wherever it is he’s from), so it doesn’t really represent a true viewer opinion.
And that’s it.
Well, I SAY that’s it, the last minute at least of the show is given over to cross promotion for Apprentice radio appearances (and where you can apply for next year), and the whole of the credits is given over to cross promotion of associated television appearances.
Thanks, BBC. Hang on. NEXT year? There’s one next year? Have we forward planned for this, Jason? Janine?
_____________________________
[Full post and reader comments can be found here]
Television, Minute by minute reports, The Apprentice |
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
Good god, through some heinous clerical error, someone’s booked the Red Hot Chili Peppers to perform at this block party. These ambassadors of the rock scene, it seems, are attempting to bring the funk to inner-city New York’s blackest neighbourhoods. Where they, you know, nicked it from in the first place. This is never going to end well.
This video reads for all the world like it wants to be a rap video, but with a bunch of pasty white-boys wigging out in ill-fitting sportswear at the front.
How has this happened? Perhaps RHCP never meant to perform at a Block Party after all? Maybe they misheard and thought it a “Rock Party”. Perhaps they were told they were supporting Bloc Party. They’re getting quite big in the States, I hear, so the Chilis might have got a bit excited at the whole prospect. Perhaps they just figured it’s a good 15 years since they released the Power of Equality and they wanted to prove they’ve still got big love for everybody.
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
Here we are then, episode six, ready, willing and able to watch ten bloodthirsty marketeers pull the knives out of last week’s backs, ineffectually wipe them off with crumped pinstripe soaked in tears and then prepare to stick them straight back in again.
Mid-season slump, anyone?
My personal mission tonight - to identify and grow to love one of the candidates. Just one. One of them has to have some likable human qualities, SURELY.
9.03pm: Here we are again, and here, again, is same old introduction - same clips, same everything - and the seemingly ever longer ‘previously on’ section. There’s got to be something different we can do during this bit.
Um.
There once was a man called Surallun
Who searched for a drop-dead-shrewd sales…
No
There once was a man of computin’
Who shunned conventional means of recruitin’.
He found sixteen mugs
Set them challenges of things to be flogged
And then sat back and counted his appearance fee while they all made complete twats of themselves on national television.
No, lost it toward the end, sorry.
Ah, here we are. The actual programme is starting.
9.06pm: What a swizz, Surallun is not even there. Nick an Margaret stand gravelly-faced either side of a large screen, on which Surallun unconvincingly announces that he ‘can’t be with them because he is aboad on business’. No he’s not, he’s quite clearly in the boardroom. It’s almost as if this ‘away on business thing is a ruse to announce the concept of this week’s task.
This week’s task: The candidates have to go abroad on business. Brilliant. Specifically, they must take two stalls to a French market town and sell British food to the French. Predictable-xenophobic-cliché bells are already ringing, loudly in my brain. The teams have been shuffled, with Lohit and Paul and project leaders.
9.07pm: The teams have a very short time in which to plan. They talk about cheese. And. Um. France. Simon likes to think of himself as Semi-French-Conniseur. I think that’s like a semi-detached ponce.
9.08: Favourite quote so far “The teams have a list of quality suppliers. Lohit’s team have decided to go for Smoked Fish, Jam, and Tea” (TEA?) “…Paul’s team have only decided on pork sausages”.
9.11: Kristina, Katie and Ghazal are on a mission to buy sausages. Sent to an award-winning sausage makers, they are shocked to realise they are going down a road toward a prison ‘Oh, we don’t want to go to a prison’… She rings the shop ‘So we’re currently heading toward a prison. Where do we go from here? Past the prison?…’ she asks hopefully. No, comes the reply, you come in the front door.
Kristina looks shocked and appalled. Katie explains slowly that prisoners have jobs, and the job of the female prisoners to make the sausages. The look on Kristina’s face is a thing of beauty (and not in a good way). As far as she is concerned, these must therefore contain the chopped up bodies of their victims, and several varieties of dirty protest.
Next shot, they’re actually IN the sausage shop. God knows how they got her in there. Possibly waved paper money in front of her till she moved.
9.13: Ok - believing the sausages won’t shift unless they can offer cooked samples, the women phone Paul and request a gas stove from Makro. He in turn announces that he’s bought some jelly that they’re going to heat and cook over (No, I’m not entirely sure I heard that right either, sorry) and then explains to Adam how they used to cook beans in the army.
Are we SURE he was in the army? Because he’s starting to strike me more as a cub scout pack leader now. Do they send cub scouts to war presently? More interestingly - should they? I don’t know, I’ll ask Comment is Free if we can write a post endorsing the idea tomorrow. They’ll love it.
9.14pm: The other team, Eclipse, have been busy buying smoked fish, and tea. Surallun’s hired gun, Nick, is determinedly unimpressed with the Tea idea, arguing that coffee is the preferred drink of the French. He huffs and puffs a lot. That’s a little bit of a desperate piece of television, to be honest (although to be fair, he’s right).
Interestingly, having been given a list of quality suppliers, Paul has suddenly decided to by a bulk supply of wholesale cheddar from Makro and try and sell it. To the French.
Because luckily, they don’t know anything about cheese, do they?
Little fool.
It’s like taking Makro coals to Newcastle.
9.17: After a squabble about an overpriced signage, an an attempt to make a canny deal on overpriced signage, Paul and Adam walk out of the overpriced signage shop with… the exact same price of overpriced signage at a very slightly reduced overpriced price.
People get lost, people get grumpy, and Tre announces that he doesn’t like Jadine or Naomi (oh! THAT’s her name! That’s been bothering me for WEEKS)
9.20pm: On the ferry, Kristina looks mardy about the wholesale cheese and, well, everything, and Lohit’s team have an almighty sulk-off.
Tre, in a cutaway, tries to get to the bottom of the deeper reasons of why they might all not be pulling together as a team very much. Apparently it is overwhelmingly down to the fact that Jadine and Naomi have a bad attitude and it might be ‘that time of the month’. Ah, Tre.
Tre, Tre, Tre.
Lohit acts the peacemaker. I’m beginning to like him even more. Yay! I like someone! Or, at least, there’s someone I don’t hate!
9.21: Simon and Lohit tuck up in a twin double. It’s very sweet. It’s like the Morcombe and Wise of marketting. But less funny. Or, at least, less unintentionally funny.
9.22pm: Given a pitch, the teams start setting up shop. The £110 banner is unrolled, and reads, a caption tells us, ‘Traditionals product of English man’.
Yummy. Well, I’d buy from there, not sure about you. It says something. It’s, you know, Spunky.
9.24: The army-approved fire-jelly doesn’t seem to be lighting. I could have told them that. Anyone who’s ever tried to light jelly could have told them that. And, meanwhile, their Makro English cheese seems to be going down like a concrete-coated duck.
My, aren’t we seeing a lot of team Stealth this evening. I wonder who’s going to lose…
9.25: Meanwhile, on the other team, Tre is grumpy. Why don’t I just cut and paste that several dozen times. For the next few weeks.
9.27: As for my finding someone to actually like challenge, it is not going spectaularly well. Apart from Lohit. But is he a real contender? I still in my heart of hearts believe Lohit to be the most actually likable person of the whole sorry group, but I just don’t think he’s going to have the neccesary mean streak that’s required to win the damn thing. Shame.
His stall’s doing well, though. People like the smoked fish, and the marmalade. But not the tea, Nick tells us, gravely, with a ‘SEE?! I was RIGHT!’ glint in his eye.
Simon can speak French, but only, it seems, in a voice four octaves above his normal one. This is VERY funny. ‘Squeaky Squeaky Squeak Squeak!’
Tre boasts he can bullshit ‘even in foreign’. Or something.
9.29: Surely a STRONG quote of the week contender… Paul: “So let’s recap - we’re trying to sell pork sausages… in a Halal joint. And offering the guy a taster… in the middle of Ramadan. Other than that, I think it’s going very well.” Bless. Perhaps I do like him after all. It will be slightly sad to see him go.
And oh my gosh, he’s so very going. Surely.
9.30pm: You have to wonder about the efficacy of Paul and Katie wandering off and leaving the stall in the hands of the unhappy others. I understand they’re deeply in love, and just want to be together, but seeing as they *are* the only two people who speak french, it seems a little foolhardy.
Giving up on the jelly, Kristina finds a restaurant that will let her cook some sauages, and, as a result, starts selling them, at their greed price. Off in the wilds of town, Paul is selling them at cost price, and throwing in his enormous Makro Black puddings sausages for free.
Katie seems to have taught him nothing. Whatever you so, you don’t give away your big sausage for free…. No, that’s not working. Oh dear god, Katie’s wishing death on other contestants again, hang on, where’s the TV pausing thing?…
9.31: Brilliant. Last week she holed this Adam went back to his car lot and got run over. This week it’s “Kristina has a big mouth. I’m just waiting on the day when she tries to swallow something even bigger, and that will be the end of her”.
I don’t *want* to like Katie, but there’s something about overt murderous intent that I really do enjoy. Who will she kill next? And how?
9.32: Eclipse are selling fish to fishmongers. Stealth are selling chutney, slowly.
And then, it is the end of the day.
“If we lose this task” says Lohit “It will be down to product selection. And sales”
Oh, my darling boy. So terribly pleasant, but not the sharpest pencil in the pencil tin. Isn’t that like the England manager saying “If we LOSE this world cup final, it will bedown to not scoring any goals. And also letting some goals in.”
Lohit says he is happy to take responsibility for all those things. Oh stop being so NICE, lad. Stab someone! Stab someone! Take a leaf out of Katie’s criminal record, why don’t you?
9.35pm: After arriving back at Calais and handing the collected monies to Nick and Margaret, we get gratuitous footage of Pauls team taking on ‘the one job they have left to do’, and tipping all their wrapped, perfectly edible food into the bin.
Now, I don’t want to get all Guardianista on your ass, but that’s fucking SHOCKING, excuse my French. Oh, no, that wasn’t French, that was swearing.
Oh, hang on, maybe it’s a customs/health rules thing. Well I don’t care, it’s still disgusting.
More clips of Kristina not liking Paul and Paul not liking Kristina. Yes, they’re the losing team. One of them’s out. We get it. Move on.
9.35pm: Back at the boardroom the next morning. Oh no, will Surallun be doing this via big screen because he is working abroad? Oh, no, look, Surallun’s there after all. And not abroad. What a big shock.
9.36pm: In the boardroom, The teams are asked whether they thought they had a good project manager. Lohit’s team said they did. Yay. Paul’s team say… oh look, Kristina says no. This is my shocked face. Ah. The money.
9.37pm: OOOOH! Lohit’s team made several hundred pounds of profit. Paul’s team spent - JESUS - £720 on produce and marketting, and made a loss. Cripes. Loss is bad. I’ve never worked in sales and marketing, and even *I* know that’s bad.
Oh no, hang on, I have. I was rubbish. Spent most of the day asleep under the desk.
Still. It’s bad.
9.39: The task winners get to go and play around in a ‘wind tunnel that is a bit like jumping out of a plane’. But not actually that MUCH like jumping out of a plane, as you don’t get the benefits of the view, the adrenilin etc.
In the Caff of Shame, everyone blames everyone else. As always.
Weirdly, people seem to think that Adam might go. Wow, they all REALLY hate him, don’t they?
9.42pm: Surallun is not impressed at the wholesale cheese. Surallun is not impressed at the veh expensive banner. Surallun is not impressed. Full. Stop.
9.43: When asked, Paul justifies his baked bean tin and fire-jelly burner by saying they wanted the cheapest cooking method available. This from the man who approved a £900,000 banner and bought 8 tonnes of rubbish cheese to sell to French cheese connisseurs.
9.44: Katie is asked what or who is to blame. She blames:
1. The cost of the banner (Fault: Adam)
2. Sausages not cooking (Fault: The God of Fire?)
3. People not being good team members (Fault: Kristina)
Well that’s interesting. Katie is sticking up for little Paul like there’s no tomorrow. She thinks he’s a good leader.
There we are; ain’t love grand? It seems she’s willing to stab anyone in the back apart from the one person who’s seemingly currently stabbing her in the front (off camera, obv, so maybe it is the suggestion of editing rather than the true).
Oh! Did I just say that out loud? Filthy.
9.46: Who will Paul take back into the boardroom? Adam and Kristina. Obviously.
Surallun is not pleased. He puts on his not-pleased face. “I think you’re making the choice for the wrong reasons”
It’s not said, but we all know what he means.
(I’m making VERY suggestive faces right now. In case you hadn’t guessed).
In a cutaway, Katie says she’ll miss him if he leaves the house.
Goodness Sakes. Shit, this is Sherlock, Sherlock, Shit.
Oh no, hang on, that’s what you do with Kettles and Pots and oh! They’re back in the room.
9.50pm: Paul says he should stay because he ‘gave his all’ to the task. Cripes. I’m now wondering how big his all IS. I’m thinking it’s a very small number of centimetres.
Look, this is a very sexually charged attitude, alright?
Kristina’s Really Giving-it-some. She’s brought the relationship into it now.
Is that businesslike?
Well, according to the boardroom, sex isn’t businesslike, so I suppose anything goes.
(And let’s please remember this disapproving madam is the one who sold kisses for cash…)
9.54: Surallun seems to be split between Adam and Paul. What? Really?
I know Paul has made a slight argument for himself, and generally Adam’s been a bit negative but…
Oh, no, here we go…
9.55: Bye bye Paul!
9.56: Adam, leaving the boardroom: “I didn’t just get fired, just then, did I? Did I? I wasn’t sure.”
And he really wasn’t.
Wow.
9.57: Back at the house, Katie says she wants to see Paul come back (really?!), and Simon reveals an absolutely cracking impression of Adam.
Well, who knew he had a talent? Maybe I will like Simon, instead.
And now…
Over to BBC2 for the ever-disappointing You’re Fired
10.00: Actually, over on two at the moment, a nature programme starring the common Cormorant (or Shag). What IS it with the Beebies tonight? Sex everywhere!
Updates will slow down for the next half hour.
Mainly because this follow-up programme is Very Dull Indeed.
Panel: Jean-Cristophe Novelli (chef)
Sidekick Nick (Surallun flunkie. Again. When does Margaret ever get to play out?)
Jane Moore (Meja whore. Oooh, that rhymes)
10.10pm:
Things we have learnt from You’re Fired so far this week:
1. Paul has had a haircut.
2. Jean-Cristophe Novelli has a brilliant accent, and talks in perfect little cadences, like a Hollywood French-mastermind-villain.
3. Paul is ACTUALLY even more smug, arrogant and grating in real time than they made him look in editing. I wasn’t excpecting that, I must say.
4. As always, there is little or no ‘unseen footage’, in a show that should contain very little BUT that.
10.14: Actually, comment that sums up You’re Fired so far, is Ilford Peach in the comment box below, with:
Nick Hewer’s Cheese Anecdotes, no. 43
“I was in a supermarket in France…”
Oh God. So true.
10.17pm: After a montage showing squeezes, fond glances and dry humping between Mithter Lithper and Princess Anne, they turn to him and ask whether there was anything between them.
He refuses to confirm or deny, and cannot be drawn.
What on EARTH is the point of this programme? Seriously.
I could be having my tea or something.
Grump. Moan.
Oooh, look! I’m turning into an Apprentice candidate.
10.22: Loving Nick right now:
“You’ve got Tre - face like a clenched fist, mad as a meataxe, but at least you can see him coming: Katie? Katie would slip a stiletto between your ribs and you’d never even notice.”
Can we fire Surallun please?
I think I may have found a replacement.
10.25: Ah, it’s the obligatory You’re Fired Tre-worship hour. Or, you know, minute, whatever. They really do lap that man up. And who can blame them? He’s great television (as are tigers exploding, by the way, but that doesn’t mean I want it on the television once a week)(maybe once a month, in an exploding-tiger special) and he always seems to luck his way onto the winning team.
When he does go - and he will, he’s a dick - they’re going to cry into their media-pie and wonder how to fill the empty airtime.
10.30: Does the panel think Surallun made the right decision? Yes, they all do, yes. And Jean-Cristophe Novelli would like to take this opportunity to publicise his restaurant for free on the BBC, please. Great, thanks.
Do the audience think Surallun made the right choice in firing Mithter Lithper? (Look, it’s the only nickname I’ve made up, and it’s come to me just too late, I have to use it now, and as many times as possible, as I’ll never get another chance, ok?)
Yes, they do. Of course they do.
Mithter Lithper argues with them.
They, en masse, look at him pityingly.
Yes, shut up, you posh little cockbadger.
And so ends the ballad of Katie and Paul, a shortlived and somewhat nauseating love song of wannabe Amstrad employees. Who next? I say Lohit and Simon. Eric and Ernie. They’d be a lovely couple. Also, Kristina and herself. Also a good couple. Really. They’re all now my favourites. Well, apart from Kristina. And with the omission of Jadine, Brand-Demon. Obv.
___________________________
[Full post and reader comments can be found here]
Television, Minute by minute reports, The Apprentice |
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007
Cleverly veering away from a completely literal interpretation of the lyric, the ad execs running this show have decided to capitalise on Rihanna’s obvious strengths - having legs, a face, etc - and use those in the battle to sell tinted face-goo.
“Well, we’ve pointed out that she’s beautiful, yes, we’ve clearly shown that she can attract powerful men, and we’ve done the smokin’ ass. But people, we’ve got 4 minutes here! We need to broaden the message, point out that our make-up is for EVERYONE.” And so, for the good of the brand, Rihanna is presented as quite the sweatiest Betty that ever walked the earth.
Intercut with shots of Rihanna’s pretty face looking composed and flawless are shots of her dancing with wild abandon. Every time she moves a limb, flips her head, twirls around, great showers of sweat come flying off her at every angle. You can rest assured that if there’s a clearing around Rihanna on the dance floor, it may not just be in appreciation of her moves.
[Find the full deconstruction, with pictures - the only way it makes sense, really - here]
Humour, Pickard of the pops |