In addition to being a horrible project manager on a previous episode, Jenny lied and cheated (doing neither very well) and was fired in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 7. That wasn’t enough for Sir Alan, though, as he also targeted the project manager for the losing team, Jennifer, firing her for being a snake as well.

Helene is pissed off that she a) has to associate with these people and b) can’t fire them (all of them apparently). Get rid of this crazy chick already.

The subject of the task this week is weddings. They have two stands at the National Wedding Show where they will represent suppliers of wedding items.

The teams are reorganized. For the 18th time. Claire moves over to Alpha. Helene and Sara move to Renaissance.

Claire dreams of marriage and wedding dresses and so forth. Raef is anti-marriage.

Helene steps forward as project manager for Renaissance because she used to model in bridal shows (she did?) and has had a lot of friends get married.

Lucinda will again be the project manager for Alpha.

Michael and Sara first stop to see bridal designer Ian Stuart, whose dresses sell for up to £2,500. Michael couldn’t care less but pretends to be interested. Helene and Alex visit a shop that specializes in colored dresses.

Over on Alpha, Claire and Raef will be visiting wedding dress businesses, while the rest of the team focuses on other items. They also visit Ian first, and unlike the other two, who didn’t care for him, Claire loved it. Their next stop is to check out some plus size dresses.

Lucinda and Lee are going to check out other products, and they start off with cakes, though they are unclear on whether they’re expensive or not.

Michael and Sara also make a stop at a cake store. Sara believes this is critical. Alex and Helene are checking out wedding lingerie and honeymoon beachwear. Helene is gushing and wants this the most. Unsurprisingly, she shoots down the cakes. Michael says that an intelligent person would have sent two people to look at wedding dresses and two people to look at the other stuff (like the other team did at Claire’s suggestion).

Lucinda also likes the underpants, and she and Lee agree they want that over the cakes.

Claire and Raef next stop at a Big High Street retailer. Claire likes this cheaper store the most, though Raef likes Ian the most. They agree to go for Ian Stuart first and BHS second due to Ian’s brand name.

Michael pushes for Ian, but Helene again wants to go with the cheaper option and the one she saw, the colored dresses.

Both teams have chosen different dresses, but they must now convince the lingerie shop owner to choose them over the other team since they both want that. Based on the dress selection being complementary to their product line, the shop goes with team Alpha and Ian. Helene’s team opts for cake instead.

Sara and Michael are concerned about the tacky dresses Helene has chosen.

Lucinda’s team quickly has a queue waiting to try on dresses, though they’re not moving. Nick doesn’t believe this strategy will pay off because this is a mass market place. Lee is finding it easy to sell the low cost lingerie and beach items as expected, but he knows they need wedding dress sales to make it worthwhile.

Alex tries a conversational approach to selling dresses and doesn’t believe in a hard sell, particularly when it comes to wedding dresses. Unlike Alex, Michael is an aggressive seller, which looks like a turn off. Likewise, Sara also comes off as pushy.

Around 4:00, Raef is questioning the wisdom in his decision to pursue the high end dress market. Lucinda decides to let Lee have a go. And Raef gets into a bear uniform, the lingerie company’s promotional outfit.

Michael’s still not selling any cakes. He opts for trying to make a potential customer feel bad, and he believes the people he’s dealing with are dumb.

As the show is wrapping up, with still no wedding dress sales, some of the people from earlier in the day are returning to Alpha’s stand to check out Ian Stuart’s dresses again. They finally get a sale. Then another. Claire realizes something Sara and Michael failed to realize: these people are there for an all day thing and don’t want to make snap decisions.

Lucinda’s team really likes her.

Michael is quick to point out that it was an error to not have each team dedicated to one line of products.

Alpha returns with £5,752.99, £647.24 for the accessories and the rest from three dresses. Renaissance sold 5 dresses but no cakes, for total sales of £1,925.00. Sir Alan congratules Alpha on their gamble paying off, and Nick is really impressed by Claire’s selling and believes she was well led by Lucinda.

This is a tough choice. Aside from Alex, I’m not seeing much of anything from Renaissance.

Michael blames the lack of a gamble for the loss. Sara believes that Helene contributed the least to the task.

Sir Alan got the impression that Michael was already covering his tracks for the loss even before it was announced what the results were.

Helene pretends she would have gone with another route if somebody had defended their stance more passionately.

Sir Alan wants to know why Alex, who was the only one who got anything done for this team on this task, is always on the losing side. Alex wants the person who sold the least on the day to be fired, which would be Sara.

Michael and Sara acknowledge that cakes were a bad decision. Margaret brings up that both of them were pushy anyway.

Alex is safe, and Helene will be bringing Sara and Michael back with her.

Much more of the same follows in the remaining portion of the boardroom.

Helene wants Sara gone because she doesn’t like how she treats people. Both Sara and Michael want Helene gone.

Sara has been fired because she doesn’t do anything, is confusing, and has alienated customers. Sir Alan is getting more and more fed up with Michael, who remains on borrowed time but gets another shot.

On the way home, Sara basically tells us that she can’t work with other people.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 9.

Because he allowed Jenny to take control of the task and subsequently drive the team right into the ground, Kevin was fired in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 6. Michael’s team managed to win quite easily, despite having spent hours on whether or not to use an apostrophe, though Michael’s attitude in the boardroom didn’t do him any favors.

The contestants will be packing for a two day business trip to French speaking Marrakech, Morocco. They’ve got an hour to pack. It’s the item buying task, and Sir Alan warns them not to accept the first price they’re given.

Jennifer and Michael go to Renaissance. Sara goes to Alpha. Okay, this is getting just a bit silly. Stop switching the teams up every damn week. Once again, the teams are not allowed to pick team leaders, and instead managers are appointed for them, though I can’t say I’m entirely opposed to this since it does seem generally fair. Lee is the project manager of Alpha. Jennifer is the project manager of Renaissance.

Jennifer mostly just wants to get to the market and worry about everything else later.

Lee wants to take a bit of time to plan and will be depending on people who have been to Morocco before, like Raef, who first suggests they should wear local attire (nobody listens). The team starts making some calls before heading out. Lee has decided he wants Sara and Lucinda with him on this task.

Less than two hours after being given the briefing, Jennifer’s team is already set to go. That’s either really good or really bad. It’s obvious they have no plan.

Jenny and Michael don’t like the fact that they have no plan, but Jennifer’s half of the team has stumbled upon the first item, a juicer, one of the more expensive items on the list. The asking price is £75; the target price is half that. Even with the pretending that they’re dating, Alex and Claire are only able to save £1.

Lee’s team goes to buy a green plastic alarm clock. The shopkeeper wants £20. Unable to reach an agreement, they walk away.

Jennifer’s team is now after the white bedspread. This time, she doesn’t want them to follow her previous bad advice of pretending to be a couple, but she does make a move to keep Claire on a leash since it was Claire who too quickly jumped at the previous deal. The shopkeeper offers to sell it to them for 3000 dirhams. Claire again jumps into the sale, but Alex keeps it roughly under control. He gets the price down to 2000 dirhams, which is still 60 quid more than the target price.

Michael tells us he’s an extremely arrogant person. Somehow, it seems he’s proud of that fact.

Jenny and Michael go shopping for the cowhide. They get it for 825 dirhams (£50), 1/3 of the asking price. While this sounds like a great deal, Raef and Helene go to buy one from the tannery, cutting out the middle man. They say they’re willing to pay 600 dirhams. The guy offers to sell it to them for 250 dirhams. I don’t get it, and Raef asks again and again, not believing what he’s hearing. Take the deal and run.

Lee’s team heads back to the same clock guy they met with hours ago. They get it for £10. Their next stop is for a kosher chicken. They go to the Jewish area to get it, whereas Jennifer’s team is in the Muslim heart of the area. Jennifer believes that Muslims have kosher chickens as well but hands the hunt for the chicken to Jenny and Michael nonetheless. They’re made to believe they receive a kosher chicken. Doesn’t appear they have, though. Jennifer doesn’t have any better luck, as she’s gotten a white alarm clock, not a green one. Then they buy some tajine without paying much attention to detail such as the correct brand.

Michael and Jenny arrive at the tennis racket store ahead of Lee’s team and manage to get a deal. While there, Jenny agrees to pay money to sabotage Lee’s efforts, but the woman there won’t agree to her tactics.

Claire remembers the green clock, meaning they have to return the white one and get a green one instead. The store owner refuses to exchange it. So she calls up Michael and Jenny and asks them to find the clock.

As all the shops are closing, Lee’s team is in a race for the final item, the orange juicer. Word spreads they’re willing to pay good money for an old juicer. With time running out, they get one for 1200 dirhams (the other team paid 1100 for a new one).

Jennifer’s team happens to stumble upon a green clock.

Nick thinks Lee did well but that Sara and Lucinda did particularly well. It seems he did indeed pick the right trio to work together. Margaret was unimpressed with the start of Renaissance’s but says they all worked hard to try to get things together.

Alpha bought all items correctly with no penalties and spent £413.61. Renaissance spent £449.60, in addition to penalties on two items, bringing their total to £603.59.

Though there are a couple other people on this team I’d be more than happy to see go home, this task came down to bad leadership.

Jennifer acknowledges she was very hasty. The price they paid for the bedspread is also a problem. The other problem is the tanjine, which was a no name one rather than a specific brand. Lastly, it’s the kosher chicken. Jenny says she doesn’t know what kosher is, though the guy who was with her, Michael, wrote in his CV that he’s a good Jewish boy (or half Jewish anyway).

Alex acknowledges he made a mistake on the pottery but doesn’t believe he was at fault for the bedspread (Jennifer agrees with him on the latter because Claire can’t keep quiet). Michael interrupts this argument to say he did a pretty damn good job during the task. His defense is the cowhide, which he did indeed appear to get a good deal on… just not nearly as good as the first team. Jenny interjects and lies, claiming that Michael, with his Jewish roots, told her that everything was absolutely fine with the chicken. Sir Alan catches her in this lie. Just a few minutes ago, she claimed that she didn’t know that kosher was a Jewish thing.

Following the lie, Jenny (switching from the word I back to we) has to admit to bribery in attempt to sabotage. After this, Sir Alan boots them all out of the boardroom, rather than having Jennifer pick two people to come back.

Going into the boardroom, I was against Jennifer, but Jenny, who was incompetent as project manager anyway, has completely sunk herself in this boardroom and just simply has no chance of surviving. Jenny is fired, but with some time left on the clock, it’s obvious it ain’t over yet. Sir Alan asks: who’s next?

Jennifer admits she didn’t pay any attention to detail.

Sir Alan’s wondering why he hasn’t seen much from Alex lately. Alex wants Claire gone for the bedspread negotation. Claire wants Jen fired for making too many mistakes and not planning. In return, Jennifer wants Claire gone. Michael comes to Claire’s defense since he liked her as a project manager, and he wants Jen gone.

Sir Alan dismisses Alex to the house. The other three remain in the firing line.

Margaret likes Claire but thinks Jen is disorganized and Michael is a waste of space.

Jennifer’s defense is that Claire is quite destructive. Sir Alan doesn’t think she even knew she made mistakes until she was told. Now that she’s heard about the tennis racket ordeal, though, she has apparently decided that she wants Michael gone. I guess.

Michael asks for another chance as project manager. Sir Alan hopes a leopard can change his spots and that it’s just his youth that, like Sir Alan when he was young, is the cause of it. The clock’s ticking on him, though.

Jennifer continues to call Michael a liar for some reason. Lying by omission apparently?

Sir Alan tells Jennifer that Jenny went because she was a snake. We know where this is going. Two Jens for the price of one. Jennifer has also been fired. Both excellent decisions.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 8.

Despite a loss, Lucinda managed to impress some people on her team as project manager in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 5. Those most unimpressed were given the blame for losing the task, and Lindi was fired. Claire, meanwhile, bounced back from being thrown out of Sir Alan’s boardroom and led her team to victory.

The teams will be entering the greeting card business. Sir Alan appoints Michael as project manager and moves him over to Alpha. Kevin is appointed team leader of Renaissance. A good chance to get to know two of the more under the radar players thus far.

Michael’s idea is to have greeting cards for plastic surgery. Where do we start with what’s wrong with that concept?

Sara wants to again go with what she’s familiar with, rather than what the general public will be interested in buying. She eventually comes up with a pets idea, which has potential, but now Jenny’s got her sights set on her. Alex is just sitting in the middle letting them have their cat fight.

When they arrive at the card shop, the idea of supporting the environment comes up as something that they don’t sell yet. That’s either because it’s really stupid, or just nobody has tapped into it yet. Jenny really pushes for the environmental idea, and that’s what they decide to go with.

Claire believes Kevin is a pitbull terrier. He bites quite easily, is quite arrogant, too serious, and has a Napoleon complex.

Raef comes up with an idea of a singles’ day, sort of an un-Valentine’s card.

Because he does pitches over the phone, Michael doesn’t want to make the presentation to an audience. Everybody else is up for it. He chooses Raef to make the presentation.

Kevin asks his team for their input as to whether they’re confident about their ability to do the pitch. He gets suggestions of Claire and Jenny… and ignores them, deciding he’ll do it himself instead.

The irony of using a card made out of paper to preach about the environment isn’t lost on Margaret.

Helene still hates Lucinda. Not that she likes anybody else either.

Michael doesn’t know whether the word singles has an apostrophe in it. So he starts making some calls. He tries some editors. Then he tries the British Library. Ever heard of Google? The person he finally gets an answer from apparently has, deciding that there is no apostrophe in the word. So then they talk to someone else and get a different answer. Granted, I don’t know how thrilled he’d be that NSD stands for Nuclear Safety Directorate, in addition to this new National Singles’ Day acronym. After three and a half hours, Michael finally makes the call to put an apostrophe after the s.

Kevin’s team is concerned about him giving the pitch because he’s too boring. When they arrive to check out the work he’s been doing for the past 6 hours, he tells them to take a look, but once again lets them know their opinion doesn’t really matter. Having spent all that time on the card, Kevin hasn’t started his pitch. Not that he could have because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about anyway. He wants his space. They hope he doesn’t go nuts. Kevin eventually realizes he’s not qualified to make this pitch, and he asks Claire if she can do it, though Claire suggests Jenny. Jenny’s not interested because Kevin dragged his feet all day. He agrees to do it.

The first stop for Alpha is Clinton Cards, Britain’s biggest card chain. Raef will pitch National Singles’ Day, scheduled for February 13. The buyer is unimpressed with the date selection, as at that time, Valentine’s Day is taking up 40% of their stores.

Next up is #2 in the greeting card business, supermarket Tesco. Tesco also doesn’t like the date, or for that matter anything about the concept.

With that in mind, Michael decides to remove the date from the pitch.

Lastly, they will pitch to the Celebrations Group. One of the questions asked is: do you have a date in mind? Raef can’t backpedal out of this one, but Lee is able to give a somewhat reasonable answer.

It’s Kevin’s turn to pitch the environmental concept. Clinton’s doesn’t get what the motivation is. Jenny points out that she’s buying less cards because of the environmental impact the paper has. Is that supposed to help?

Celebrations also doesn’t understand the idea of buying paper cards to save the environment.

Claire gives Kevin some advice to help him seem less angry and hostile.

Their last chance is Tesco. It doesn’t appear that Tesco is opposed to the idea.

The team is pleased with Michael’s leadership. Nick is also pleased… but not thrilled with the four hour long debate over the apostrophe. Michael corrects him and says it was more like three hours.

Tesco’s bought 6,000 cards from Renaissance but only 1,500 from Alpha. Clinton’s didn’t buy from Renaissance but did buy 1,500 from Alpha. Celebrations didn’t buy anything from Renaissance, but they bought 19,500 from Alpha. Alpha wins quite easily. Both sides got their best results from pitches that were more well thought out, but it took each of them two of the three tries to figure it out. Even with the win, Sir Alan isn’t happy with Michael’s “outburst” of celebration, and Margaret looks shocked. Despite the win, Michael seems to have sunk himself in this boardroom.

Clinton Cards found Kevin’s pitch dreadful and that he was cocky and preaching.

Jenny blames the alleged lack of ideas from others for causing her to come up with the lame idea she did come up with. This leads to an argument with Sara, who was coming up with a lot better ideas than what Jenny shoved down Kevin’s throat.

Claire believes Sara should be fired. Kevin also sides against Sara. He will be bringing back Sara and Claire. Jenny, who had the bad idea to begin with and made the stupid comment at Clinton’s about how she doesn’t buy as many cards any more because of her environmental conscience, is allowed to escape.

Kevin brought Claire back because she didn’t recognize that the product wasn’t good for the marketplace. Sir Alan lets him know he would have understood more if he brought Jenny back.

Kevin blames the bad idea, not the pitch. Somehow that means that Sara should be fired. He defends Jenny for working very hard and being very creative to come up with the idea that cost them the task. Sir Alan suggests Jenny railroaded Kevin into the theme.

He may have had a prayer if he brought Jenny back, but with the two he decided to bring back, resistance was futile, and Kevin has been fired.

The fireworks aren’t done there, though. When the surviving contestants return to the loft, much arguing ensues over the decision.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 7.

Simon told Sir Alan that he was more than just a physical worker but was unable to prove it in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 4, resulting in his firing. In a pitiful victory, Helene proved she’s also not going to win the job, though she squeaked out another week. Letting Claire know she’s on thin ice, Sir Alan threw her out of the boardroom and told her he’s sick of looking at her.

Sir Alan rings the doorbell when everybody is sleeping. He wants Kevin to move (back) to Renaissance. As discussed last week, Renaissance’s project manager will be Claire. Since Lucinda has proven useless on more than one task (though in each case she had incompetent project managers), she will be the project manager for Alpha.

The task is to visit farms that make ice cream. They’ll develop flavors of ice cream to expand their business into London.

Claire’s first order of business is to tell people that she realizes she can be overpowering so they should reel her in. Jenny’s got an interesting but not particularly good concept of various liquor flavors.

Helene still hates Lucinda for proving last week that Helene isn’t a manager.

Renaissance will be making three flavors: berry mania (blueberries, strawberries, and cherries), chocolate orange, and cider/eldeflower. They’re warned they’ll need to buy and hand squeeze about 50 oranges for the chocolate orange flavor, which can be very laborious but will deliver a good flavor.

Alpha’s having difficulty coming up with their flavors. They go with cosmopolitan, toffee apple, and avocado.

Now that they’ve got their flavors, they must drum up business for a local taste testing before bringing the products to London to sell to stores and bars.

Margaret likes Lucinda, who lets her team know what she needs but isn’t a dictator. She even seems to be getting along with Helene.

After they set up the taste tests, the next job is to book appointments. Jennifer is focusing on independent cinemas and manages to score multiple bookings.

At 6:15pm, Claire’s team finally returns with their ingredients, which were necessary to complete any more than just the berry flavor. This gives them just two hours to prepare for the tasting session, which they haven’t invited anybody to yet.

Lucinda’s team is finishing up with their production at about 7:50. The cosmopolitan fails to make any impact. People like the avocado with a hint of a chili, the strangest ice cream flavor I’ve ever heard of. Toffee apple also gets the thumbs up. Good thing they only wanted to pick two.

Renaissance is still in the kitchen and 30 minutes late for their tasting. Michael decides to head into the local pub because they still don’t have anybody to taste their ice cream. The guy he gets isn’t so sure how discerning his pallette will be since he’s drunk.

Although alpha is booked with appointments, Renaissance only has two guaranteed appointments setup, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Alex is particularly unimpressed by the sales team that’s only been able to get two appointments having worked on it all day.

Jennifer is reluctant to give away appointments she’s made to the other half of her team. One appointment she does give them is at an ice cream parlour, where the guy makes his own ice cream. Lindi’s response is that, even if they have their own ice cream maker, they’re still going to buy.

Renaissance believes they’ve gotten a break. One cinema house has 18 cinemas, and they have another meeting setup to see whether they can sell them across all of them.

The other team, however, has a meeting with the same cinema chain, but they were able to secure a meeting with the head buyer already. At this meeting, they agree to buy 100 liters. Afterwards, Alex gets a call breaking the bad news that they won’t be able to purchase any ice cream from them.

Their door-to-door strategy due to lack of appointments has only managed to move 30 liters. Claire’s last hope is her second pre-booked appointment. All they’re able to get there is an agreement to fill their fridge one time. Nick thinks the shop is perfect despite the small order, but it’s too bad they didn’t have one of those orders every hour.

Lucinda isn’t happy with her poor leads from the other half of the team, so she takes a different direction and gets an order from a specialty restaurant that was just about to change its menu. Lee thinks she’s been brilliant and that she is clearly a manager.

The other half of her team gets an order of 130 liters at the agreement that this will be a timed exclusive for their pub of three months.

It’s looking like this is going to be a blowout, but there’s one last glimmer of hope at a trendy bar and grill for Renaissance. This place makes their own food but is willing to buy ice cream if it’s at a discount. It’s a nice 200 liter deal.

Jennifer and Raef downplay Lucinda’s contribution.

Jenny and Michael are pleased with Claire’s performance. In the boardroom, Jennifer is happy that Lucinda was positive for a change, but she refuses to compliment her.

Sir Alan thinks it’s funny that half of the appointments that Alpha booked were with people who made their own ice cream. He’s not surprised that this was a waste of time.

Lucinda points out that she considered mixing up her teams. Sir Alan thinks this is a great idea. She didn’t do it, though, as she didn’t want to make people unhappy since their response was negative. Jennifer, with her guilty conscience, speaks up to say she wasn’t negative.

Alpha had total orders of £1,273.64. Renaissance had £1,455.45. Based on the editing, this is not what I was expecting at all, though when I heard Alpha’s flavors, I wasn’t expecting them to have much luck. The last deal, netting £800, was the difference.

Sir Alan and his advisors are happy that Claire seems to be a changed person. Renaissance is happy to see Jennifer, Raef, and Lindi’s bragging fall short of what they’d promised.

Lee doesn’t like that people didn’t complain about the team until the boardroom. Helene was impressed with Lucinda. Now she’s set her sights on a new target: Jennifer.

Sir Alan wants to know who was the main opposition to reassigning the teams. Lucinda starts to give an answer, but just decides to sum it up in one word. Jennifer. She follows that up by saying that Helene said some bad things about Jennifer. Helene interrupts and says Lucinda is lying and that she doesn’t need anyone to speak for her and that, if she was going to be uncomfortable working with anybody, it would have been Lucinda.

Jennifer offered exclusivity to the cinema chain, without being asked, which had not been discussed prior to the appointment. Jennifer’s response is that Lindi offered exclusivity for the pub, which was only for three months and only when asked, but Sir Alan considers even that to be too much. After these exclusivity appointments, they had to cancel others because of the agreements. Had Sir Alan known about this, he would have voided the exclusive sales, which would have brought them down to almost nothing.

Lucinda wants to bring back Jennifer and Lindi.

Sir Alan’s concerned about Lucinda’s lack of control over her marketing team. He’s also concerned about Lindi’s leadership of her marketing team. Nick feels a chill between Jennifer and everybody else but thinks she’s a good salesperson.

Lucinda and Jennifer want each other fired. After a long-winded response, Lindi wants Jennifer fired based on the task but Lucinda fired overall (well, at least I think that’s what she was going to say, but Jennifer didn’t let her finish).

Because she was second in command in and in charge of the sales team (and also less likely to cause drama than Jennifer), Lindi is fired. In her application, Jennifer says that one of her worst qualities is giving idiots a second chance. With that in mind, Sir Alan’s decided to give her a second chance.

In closing, we get some parting shots at Jennifer. Michael’s not a big fan at all. Alex thinks she’s a wannabe ice queen.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 6.

Despite the shambles that was the prior week and the fact that they sucked at their task last week, the girls won in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 3. As the project manager, Ian took the bullet for his team and was fired.

Sir Alan says he’s tired of the rifts within the teams. His solution to that (instead of the obvious of firing Jenny because he can’t make a lame effort of boosting the ratings if he gets rid of her) is to mix the teams up. Jenny, Sara, and Claire move over to Renaissance (uh, didn’t Sara and Claire clash last week?). Raef, Lee, and Kevin move over to Alpha. Yeah, now I have to actually learn the team names and pay closer attention.

Teams must setup stands and get customers to pose and pay for photographs.

Simon volunteers to be the project manager for Renaissance. They don’t all jump at the opportunity, so he explains that he knows a bit about photography from his best friend, who is a photographer. He promises to keep calm and direct them, and they reluctantly agree. Simon wants Alex, who was the first to speak up against Simon leading the team, to be his second in command and lead the other team. Alex isn’t thrilled about the idea of Simon giving away his responsibility, so Simon quickly moves on to Claire and gets her to do it instead.

Helene volunteers to be project manager for Alpha. She tells us she has a lot of balls. She seems like she may have a short fuse.

Renaissance’s theme is glamour and beauty. Whatever that’s about. Simon hopes to find cheap but glamorous props. While he’s shopping, he decides he wants to get frames. He phones Claire, who tells him to just leave the product to them and forget about the frames. Alex backs her up on this. He tells both of them he’s the project manager and can do whatever he wants, including checking out frames they don’t need and haven’t accounted for in their pricing. Sara is in charge of making over women to make them more glamorous.

Alpha has a David Beckham lookalike dressed up in a soccer/football jersey, and he will pose with their customers.

Simon continues to argue with his team and doesn’t want to hear from them how he should be managing them. Claire and Alex get sick of him and walk away.

Lucinda’s the only person trained to use the computer on her team, despite the fact that she warned them she’s completely technologically illiterate. Helene doesn’t understand the concept of this being an obstacle and thinks Lucinda should just get over it.

Renaissance is falling victim to a poor labelling system, something we’ve seen once already this season. People are getting tired of waiting for them to figure things out. The good news for them is Alpha isn’t having any more luck thanks to technical difficulties, so they have to shut down their stand during the busiest time of the day.

The labelling troubles continue for Renaissance. Though they are printing off photos on products, they’re not actually giving people what they want. Claire and Alex finally get a system that works, but Simon’s not convinced they know what they’re doing, so he shuts down the stand to go fight with them some more.

Speaking of fighting, Helene and Lucinda keep going at it because Helene refused to listen to Lucinda’s warning that she doesn’t do technology. After hours of downtime, Lucinda finally figures things out.

When they get in the boardroom, it continues. Helene calls Lucinda incompetent and lazy. Yet the reason Helene didn’t do it is because she didn’t have the ability or the knowledge. So does that make her incompetent and lazy as well? Nick tells Helene she’s wishy washy and should have shuffled the team.

Renaissance spent £577.23 but only took £503.42, for a loss of £73.81, never a good thing. Alpha spent £592.93 and took £738, for a profit of £145.10. Another rather lackluster victory for Alpha, but a victory nonetheless. Helene believes that, after this task, she actually has credibility.

Claire says that Simon has a tendency to be like a missile that’s ready to explode, but she apologizes if she came off as rude to him.

Margaret tells Alex that he stepped so far back from responsibility that he was practically out of the room. She was apparently watching a different conversation than I was.

Somewhere along the way, Alex has decided that perhaps Simon’s not entirely to blame, so he points the finger at Claire. Unsurprisingly, Simon brings both of them back with him.

Simon says that Claire’s unmanageable, so he can’t deal with her. Sir Alan brings up her application, which says she’s impatient and can overpower people.

Alex and Jenny say they were completely isolated and didn’t know what was going on up front. Simon doesn’t believe it, and the link between them (Claire) doesn’t agree either.

Alex wants Claire fired. Claire wants Simon fired.

Sir Alan tells Claire he’s sick of looking at her and to get back to the house because she’s going to be the next team leader. Lucky for her that her agreement to take the spot as second in command that Alex wisely danced around didn’t come back to bite her.

Sir Alan’s still not convinced that Simon is more than just a physical worker, and Simon is fired.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 5.

In The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 2, Jenny was obnoxious. Then she was obnoxious some more. Then she added a side of obnoxiousness to this. Despite her miserable leadership skills, though, she survived the boardroom, and Shazia was fired for her mistake on the task.

The task is to boost pub business by putting on a food service. Unlike Donald Trump, who makes a “suggestion” in cases like this, Sir Alan comes right out and tells teams he’s picking the team leaders. Ian and Sara are the project managers.

Sara says she’ll be a strong leader but is worried that she may be too strong, so she tells her team to tell her if they’re having problems. The first thing she needs to do is switch to decaf and slow down a bit.

Now that they’ve won, the boys seem to be united as a group. Ian refuses to say the word that’s opposite of winners that begins with l. They agree on an Italian theme.

Sara decides to do a Bollywood night because “everyone loves a good curry.” I’m gonna have to take her word for that. They take a vote, and the traditional English food idea gets shot down. Claire, who came up with the English theme, is most vocal against the Bollywood theme because of the cost involved and the lack of a wide appeal. They head to an Indian restaurant to get an idea of how to set everything up.

Both teams get a kitchen advisor who won’t cook but is there “so they don’t poison anyone.”

Kevin’s the head chef for the boys but doesn’t really know what makes for an Italian menu. Once they figure it out, half the team heads to buy supplies. Lee expresses a concern about the pricing, but he can’t have an answer right now because they don’t really know.

The boys go for expensive printed menus; the girls make a deal and get them for free in exchange for advertising. Alex does manage to cut the price in half to £1 per menu, though.

Sara believes that Claire is creating drama because they ignored her English food idea.

Sir Alan’s given the teams a list of cut price wholesale dealers, but the guys opt instead to just buy vegetables locally. While they’re shopping, Michael calls to complain about the soup pricing, which they agree to lower to £2.95. Kevin says the £4.25 is what he would pay, and Lee doesn’t understand the reasoning behind the call.

The guys are giving away their pamphlets, but the girls have come up with the idea to sell theirs for £5, which will be given as a discount on the meal, a concept that will ensure that the people that are getting these are actually interested.

More bad news for the boys. They’ll have to pay supermarket prices since they were unable to get to the wholesalers. Despite the massive expenses, though, they forgot something and must stop food prep until they’re able to go shopping again. Kevin wants Ian to know that if they don’t have the food ready, it’s his fault for not insisting that the other group go and get what they need.

The girls have bought meat locally for less than 1/4th what the guys spent, but Sara bought the wrong spices and not enough to begin with. She’s unconcerned when the advisor tells her this.

Bollywood’s going about as well as could have been expected. Nobody knows how to cook Indian food, and they don’t have the right ingredients even if they did.

An hour into lunch, the boys are starting to run out of key ingredients, meaning another trip to the supermarket. Those who are eating already are unimpressed. Lee brings this information back to Kevin, who’s not happy with the feedback.

5 hours late, the girls finally have their food ready to go. Claire was concerned that lunch customers wouldn’t be interested in curry. The good news in that regard is that they were unable to get the lunch crowd anyway.

By this time, the boys have their act together better. Kevin wants to take the time for a pep talk. The others aren’t thrilled with this. Just get on with it already. They run low on supplies again, but Ian’s got the solution for this: cut the pizzas in half. That doesn’t go over well for one of the customers, who expects to receive a whole pizza.

This is an interesting one. The boys had trouble controlling their costs. The girls had trouble controlling… everything else. A win will come in spite of their performance, rather than because of it.

Nobody answers when asked how Ian was as a team leader. Sara gets more support from her team than he does.

Renaissance took £844.97 but spent £543, for a profit of £301.97. Alpha took £795 and spent only £170.93, for a profit of £624.07. They realize that they would have lost if the boys were better at controlling costs.

Sir Alan wants to know who was in charge of pricing. Ian points the finger at Kevin. His response is he never wanted the responsibility of being head chef. Margaret questions why they set the prices before they even knew what it was even going to cost. Ian also blames Simon’s difficult communication style, who says he didn’t stay positive because he had nothing to stay positive about.

In addition to buying too much food, they spent £272 on marketing, for margins that weren’t good enough to begin with. Michael steps in and says he made decisions on pricing because they had to get the menus done.

Ian brings back Kevin and Simon. Not sure why he wouldn’t bring back Michael, who’s a much better target than Simon. He explains that Simon’s too much about problems and not enough about solutions. Simon makes a point that the two people who are brought back are the two people under his direct control. Kevin blames the others who aren’t in the boardroom for railroading Ian into changing the pricing.

Ian is fired for losing control of the task. Kevin talks a good game but needs to do something more to survive. Sir Alan is disappointed that Simon seems to be nothing more than a physical worker.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 4.

Sir Alan Sugar returned for another round in the boardroom in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 1. The guys quickly got divided into two sides, which remained the theme throughout the boardroom as well. Ultimately, Nicholas sunk himself through pricing errors, and being pompous in his defense didn’t help him any, so he was the first person to go home.

The teams get a video message from Sir Alan, who tells them they’ll start their own laundry business. They must pitch to get as much dirty laundry as possible, watch it, and return it cleaned.

Raef offers to be project manager for the boys, hoping to redeem himself from last week. Lee’s concerned Raef’s not a natural leader, and Ian’s concerned that Raef’s different than a lot of them. Still split down the middle I see.

Jenny steps up to be the PM for the girls. She seems to have more support than Raef does.

Simon has worked with some laundry equipment in the past, and to go along with that, the guys grab all of the ironing equipment in the house.

Jenny wants to prove she’s a salesperson, so she drones on and on for the first hour talking about sales. Sara’s getting tired of her. Margaret notices Jenny’s taking charge but has her favorites. As with the boys, some cliques are starting to form.

Half of Raef’s team will go door-to-door to hunt for dirty laundry. A few miles away, the girls are also doing the same thing.

The other half of the teams will be meeting businesses and go head-to-head to compete for the business. A large hotel is first. The guys call a laundry business to figure out what to charge. The girls just guess. The job is 1000 pieces of laundry. The manager normally pays £200. The girls bid £4.99 per item for a total of £4,999. On the contrary, the boys price it at £556. Still too expensive but a lot better than the girls. The manager is willing to negotiate, and the guys’ idea of negotiating is merely accepting his price of £200. Show a backbone and try to make a counteroffer at least.

In addition to this deal, the other guys are having some luck knocking on doors, but the girls are having no luck there, so they head to various businesses instead. This strategy works for them.

Sir Alan’s sending them to a fishmonger. The job should cost about £60. The girls bid £10, which they up to 15 when he asks for ironing as well. He repeatedly tries to let them know (not in so many words) that they’re screwing themselves on this deal, but they don’t listen. The boys go in at £49.50 and have no interest in matching the girls.

The girls who were working with the businesses Sir Alan set meetings up with head out selling, but the boys who were going door-to-door are instructed by Raef to head back to the laundromat and start work on the hotel project. They warn the other guys there’s a lot of stuff to do there. Every sheet (of which there are 500) takes four people to feed through the industrial strength presser.

Jen and Lucinda get into a spat. Well, Lucinda gets into a spat while Jen tries to get a word in edgewise anyway.

Simon begs Raef for help. Raef’s in no particular hurry to get back. They want to make sure they get some coffee first. He doesn’t get what the big deal is but admits it’s going to be close when he finally does show up.

At 8pm, half the girls are back at the laundry. Their big concern is making sure the right people get the right things because unlike the boys with their massive hotel order, the girls have lots of smaller orders. The rest of the team has had good success in selling to businesses, but the problem is that they’re cutting it very close. With the 2am deadline looming, they’re down to just two hours by the time they do finally make their appearance. They’ve got a plan. Beat the boys home and grab the irons. Too bad the guys already grabbed them a long time ago.

Here’s the real flaw in this plan. Shazia was the one who came up with the idea to head back, so she left. The other girls were behind and have no idea what’s up with her labelling system that was used to keep the different customers’ items where they should be.

Now it’s Jen’s turn to snap back at Lucinda. She tells her she’s absolutely thoroughly disappointed with her behavior. Excellent motivational leadership. She uses the word stupid more than once. Lucinda tries to defend herself. Jenny doesn’t want to hear it. She would rather continue to tear into hear. Lucinda wants to discuss it in the morning. Jenny still doesn’t want to hear it. She uses the word stupid more than once again and calls Lucinda a fungus that’s destroying the team. Someone else steps in to defend Lucinda, who by this point is crying. I want Jenny fired right now. I don’t care who wins or loses this task. This woman quite clearly is incapable of being a leader.

Lucinda oversleeps, perhaps intentionally, missing the meeting the next morning. Jenny picks up right where she left off. Being a bitch.

The guys kept the irons the whole night but didn’t even use them.

At 8:30, the guys leave. The girls are still ironing for another hour. Next they have to figure out what belongs to whom.

Hoping to maximize profits, the girls aim to get some tips. The fishmonger willingly gives them a £10 tip. They’re able to get a couple other tips as well, but there’s a problem. One they should have seen coming a mile away. They’re not going to get tips from people who are missing some of their clothes. Worse yet, if they’re unable to deliver the clothes as they were given to them, they will face fines.

The girls are mixed on Jenny’s performance, but the boys are firmly behind Raef. The girls earned £195.55 profit and were fined £50 for the lost clothing. The boys earned £328.00.

Jenny’s “delighted” to be going back to the boardroom because it will allow her to get rid of what she considers weaker links.

Sir Alan questions the lack of common sense on the ridiculous hotel offer. On the opposite end of the spectrum was the underbilling on the fish shop. Margaret and Sir Alan are unimpressed with Randi’s idea of asking for tips. Shazia takes the heat on the lost clothing.

Now it’s time to beat the dead horse some more. Jenny returns to attacking Lucinda.

Then it becomes a free-for-all in which everybody tries to talk over everybody else. It’s clear they spent too much time arguing rather than executing their plan.

Jenny is bringing Lucinda and Shazia back with her into the boardroom.

Lucinda says she shouldn’t be fired because she can motivate and work within teams.

Jenny’s asked a simple question with a simple answer. Where did Shazia go wrong in the task? Rather than just saying she went home when she should have stayed and helped sort the laundry, Jenny’s response is that Shazia lied, complained, manipulated other people, and didn’t deliver on the tasks that were allocated. Aside from being a dumb, long-winded answer, is any of this actually true?

Jenny has the same plan as she had during the task. Keep talking and expect other people to shut up. Margaret’s clearly getting a headache.

Both Shazia and Lucinda want Jenny gone. That makes three of us. Jenny wants both of them gone because they have an attitude and an inability to contribute anything of any value.

After Sir Alan gives a speech about how it’s not a good thing to have people who violently hate each other on the same team, he fires Shazia for her mistake. While I normally would agree, Jenny’s utter inability as a manager is so blatant that there’s no need for her to still be around, let alone in an environment in which she will be lashing out in this manner again in the future. He leaves both of them with a warning: act more professional in the future.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 3.

The Apprentice is back with its 4th installment, and as usual, Sir Alan Sugar is returning to the boardroom with his aides Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford, along with 16 candidates competing for a £100k job.

The show starts off with a boardroom meet and greet in which Sir Alan tells the candidates his expectations. First of all, they should be nervous. Unlike previous seasons in which he questioned why people would be willing to come to work for him for what was sometimes less than what they were making already, he says the money doesn’t mean anything. It seems now he gets the point. He tells them he’s not Mary Poppins and they’re on their own two feet. It’s not time to go to the luxurious surroundings in the house he’s setup for them. Rather, business starts right away.

The first task is to sell fish on the streets of London. It’s boys against girls.

One of the first things they’ll have to do before selling is to pick a team name.

The girls pick the name Alpha, a decent name even if it’s a bit boring. A couple of the people who identify as salespeople would rather be out there selling than leading. Claire steps forward to be their project manager.

The guys come up with the name of Renaissance. I don’t get it. Raef is asked to be the proect manager, but he says he’s not really a manager. Won’t be able to use that excuse for long. With that said, Alex, a regional sales manager who oversees about 40 people, steps up to be the project manager for the boys.

They have a choice of four markets. The girls head to a local fishmonger to get his opinion. Sara takes this as an opportunity to complain about the other girls, saying she doesn’t like being interrupted. I suspect we’ll hear more of this from her.

Unlike the girls, the boys are standing around trying to figure things out on their own. They finally figure out that they want to go to Islington, where the girls already are quickly surrounded by bargain hunters before they even have time to get everything unpacked, priced, and labelled.

Lindi gets fed up with all the discussion and just starts selling, pricing be damned. Others follow this lead. The reason they needed to take their time pricing, though, was that now they’re selling below wholesale price.

The boys stroll in around noon. Alex wants to actually get setup before they start selling. Rather than wait for Nicholas to figure out pricing, Alex wants to copy the local fishmonger’s prices, then undercut him slightly. Nicholas takes the pricing and runs with it, as apparently at some point during the communication process there was a misunderstanding of the difference between kilos and pounds. One of their customers feels guilty for robbing them.

The girls are still trading two hours later… and still haven’t labelled their stock properly. Claire finally stops them to get organized and figure out what is they’re actually selling and at what prices.

Nicholas, who priced the lobster at £4.90 per unit, heads over to spy on the girls and see what they’re using for pricing. He finds out that they’re charging £23 per kilo. Rather than worrying about just fixing things, Alex quickly places the blame on Nick and wants everybody around him to know that it was Nick who screwed up.

After they’ve sold 3/4 of their stock, Sara takes the time to count the money and finds out they’re at 440 pounds, a pace that if kept up would be enough to maybe break even. They don’t want to figure out what went wrong, but Claire takes half the team to go to a more upscale market.

The boys discover another mistake. Expensive monkfish tail is mislabelled as turbot. Raef says he consulted people, including Alex, who were unable to identify it, so he pretty much just guessed. Of course, Nick, who was told it was turbot, is dragged into this for pricing it as turbot. Since it’s close to closing time, Alex splits half the team off to go to stores and sell.

Claire’s team selling at a posh market unload all of their stock for £125.

The boys find a business to buy a bunch of fish from them, which project manager Alex waiting for them expects to go for a similar amount as that. They get bullied by a guy who refuses to even budge 5 pounds, so they’re only able to get £50 on this deal. Michael says this horrible trade is on his head, but the others who are with him back him up and say they didn’t think they’d be able to sell it for more since the day was almost over.

Nick’s concerned that the guys are split into two groups competing against each other. Alex quickly backs up this point, saying that the shining stars were Simon, Lee, Ian, and himself to some degree.

Lindi is already lining up her excuses as to why Claire was a weak leader.

Sir Alan says the girls sound like a bloody mess.

About half the team for the boys say Alex was a good team leader. Rather than just sitting back and not nodding, Nicholas says Alex was a bad team leader, that he was too negative. He’s backed up by Raef and Michael, and Sir Alan quickly notices a split in the camp. Raef says it was schoolboy tactics based on friends, even though they’ve only just met each other earlier in the day.

The boys returned with £632.69; the girls returned with £753.98. Alpha manages to win in spite of their performance, not because of it, and Sir Alan’s not particularly impressed with either side.

The winning team gets to head to their home for the next 12 weeks, where they get a dinner prepared by an award winning chef.

Raef believes he got one box wrong. Margaret points out that he actually mislabelled three boxes. Then comes the question of pricing, which was Nick’s responsibility. He acknowledges the mislabelled turbot and then goes into further discussion about the lobster. Then Michael again takes blame for the final deal of the day.

Alex brings Nicholas and Raef back into the boardroom. He sends them back to the house and asks them to return in the morning.

Nicholas’ guess is that the team is split between educated versus gritty salesmen, which Alex takes offense to because he does have a business degree. So then Nicholas backtracks and says he’s really cultured and into art but finds it difficult to have conversations about football. Regardless of what happened at the task, this boardroom is where Nicholas is really damaging himself. Sir Alan is confused why that would actually matter as to why they couldn’t work together. Raef chimes in and says he gets along with prince or pauper. So who’s the prince?

Sir Alan tells Raef that if someone mislabelled one of his products, they would be fired without question. Nicholas only had to price things, and with all the qualifications he’s bragging about, he should have done it well. Alex, who runs sales teams, only had to run a very simple selling task here. Ultimately, the decision is that Nicholas is fired. Sir Alan is only happy with Alex because he took the risk of being the first project manager, but Nick was impressed that he defended himself well.

The rest of the team is happy to see Alex return.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 2.

I’ve been wondering for a while when The Apprentice UK Series 4 would premiere, and The BBC has finally let the cat out of the bag. The fourth season of The Apprentice UK will premiere Wednesday March 26 at 9:00 on BBC One.

A cast of 16 will be heading into the boardroom to win a job with Sir Alan Sugar. He will be greeting them by telling them what they’re in for. “This is a business boot camp. Mary Poppins I am not,” he warns the candidates. “I’m not going to hold your hand. I’m not going to tell you what to do. You’re on your own two feet.”

The Apprentice - You’re Fired! will be returning immediately after The Apprentice on BBC Two.

Following on the heels of the success of last year’s Comic Relief Does The Apprentice and also this year’s US version, a UK version of The Celebrity Apprentice, Sports Relief Does The Apprentice, will air Wednesday March 12 and Friday March 14 on BBC One to raise money for Sports Relief. Sir Alan Sugar and his aides Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford will all be back. Teams will be divided into boys and girls and will need to stock their shops to earn the highest profit.

The girls team consists of Clare Balding, Lisa Snowdon, Jacqueline Gold, Kirstie Allsopp, and Louise Redknapp. The boys team consists of Phil Tufnell, Lembit Opik MP, Kelvin MacKenzie, Hardeep Singh Kohli, and Nick Hancock.

As with last year, it is anticipated that The Apprentice UK Series 4 will premiere shortly after the celebrity version ends.