All the hype and publicity prior to the new series is over, but was it worth it? The simple answer, yes! As previously mentioned, the 16 candidates are this year plying their trade to impress Lord Alan of Sugar and earn a £250k startup fund for a joint business venture with him. This raises the question, why isn't the show renamed 'The Joint Business Venture with the Sugar Monster'? Lord Sugar clearly has no idea.
**IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE YET, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T READ ON**
Now onto the episode. As is the norm in the first episode, we are introduced to the incompetent candidates who it seems have been briefed to explain why they should win the show using only a metaphor. Alan Sugar then waffles on about how he used to sell ice creams and inflatable sheep to cockneys and how his experience will be more valuable than anyone on Earth could even imagine. And finally, we are introduced to our teams, with the usual initial teams split into girls and boys (which seems to include a girl, however I have been reliably informed it is in fact a bloke with long wavy hair). The first job was to come up with team names, so while the boys ironically stumped for 'Logic', the girls chose 'Galvanize'.
Onto the task. Sir Alan gave each team a huge £250 to spend on fruit and veg to sell the following day for a profit. 'Logic' lead by Edward Hunter, who is the least proud Accountant I've ever seen, decided to make orange juice and soup. 2 problems with this idea. 1) Ed didn't know what oranges looked like. 2) No-one knew how to make soup. Bravo lads, you make me proud to be male!
"Lets make soup, like we have never made soup before"
"We have never made soup before"
The blokes ended up buying 1400 oranges, proceeded to break the automatic juicers and were left to try to squeeze them out themselves. They ended up missing the breakfast trade, before giving up on trying to squeeze them all and went out selling. The business model was sound, with a 700% profit margin, but without a team of orange squeezing monkeys it was never going to work. The girls on the other hand decided to make fruit pots, filled mainly with pineapple chunks to help fill them out. As usually happens in the first show, the men lost and it was down to Ed to shoot himself in the foot with numerous half finished sentences, comments about being short affecting his chances and generally rolling with the punches. He was consequently fired and doing the reputation of Accountants no favours, showed his substantially lacklustre social skills by walking out the room without muttering the mandatory "thanks for the opportunity".
So onto episode 2, as soon as I hear anything about it, I will let you know on the blog and on twitter @2011Apprentice.
Did you think Ed should've been fired? Let us know and comment away below.
Reminder, episode 2 is on Wed 12th May at 9pm BBC One.
**IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE EPISODE YET, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T READ ON**
Onto the task. Sir Alan gave each team a huge £250 to spend on fruit and veg to sell the following day for a profit. 'Logic' lead by Edward Hunter, who is the least proud Accountant I've ever seen, decided to make orange juice and soup. 2 problems with this idea. 1) Ed didn't know what oranges looked like. 2) No-one knew how to make soup. Bravo lads, you make me proud to be male!
"Lets make soup, like we have never made soup before"
"We have never made soup before"
So onto episode 2, as soon as I hear anything about it, I will let you know on the blog and on twitter @2011Apprentice.
Did you think Ed should've been fired? Let us know and comment away below.
Reminder, episode 2 is on Wed 12th May at 9pm BBC One.
