Category: apprentice uk series 5

After miraculously surviving firing after firing for weeks, Michael finally got the axe in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 10. Despite her survival in the boardroom, Helene proved to be the newest person on borrowed time. Their teammate Claire showed once again she’s one of the top people. The other team, meanwhile, won in spite of themselves, rather than because of any overwhelming amount of talent.

It’s interview week. The final five will be interviewing with four of Sir Alan’s business colleagues: property tycoon Paul Kemsley, ex-Sir Alan employee Claude Littner, Viglen Computers CEO Bordan Tkachuk, and Birmingham City Football Club managing director Karren Brady (I believe she’s still in that position despite her arrest in April).

Paul asks Lee to do his reverse pterodactyl impression. Lee complies with this request. Paul is unimpressed and tells Lee he should have told him no. Either way he was screwed. This guy’s just being an asshat because he can be. Lee is basically told he’s too nice and that’s about all there is to him.

Claude doesn’t believe Lucinda is employable. She essentially agrees by saying she’s a contractor, which he takes to mean she’s just an outsider. She acknowledges her stay on this show has been a struggle on both sides. He finds it really hard to deal with her. This line of questioning leads her to ask what she’s doing here, as she questions whether she actually wants to be a permanent employee.

Paul wants to know why Claire increased profit by £8 million but only earned a bonus of £27k. He calls her a poor negotiator and would like to hire her because she’s cheap.

Paul tells Alex his CV is one of the most boring he’s ever read. Alex says thank you. He responds that he’s younger and that’s why there’s not much on his CV, but Paul brags that he was running his own business at 22. Karren, likewise, isn’t taken in by the age story, since she was 23 when she was running Birmingham City Football Club. Not having any more luck with Claude, Alex tells him that it doesn’t matter what he says because he’s just going to knock it down anyway.

Helene tells Karren the story of how she overcame a bad childhood to get where she is today.

Paul questions whether Lucinda’s really a serious businesswoman who will actually stick around for more than three months. He suggests she should question why she’s here. While she’s interviewing, the other candidates are discussing this very thing. She tells him he’s asking questions but not actually listening to the answers, which is a valid point.

Claude wants to know whether Lee was ever taught spelling then proceeds to go over the highlighted grammatical and spelling mistakes on one of his questions. During his discussion with Bordan, he claims he was with a university for two years, but Bordan’s gotten confirmation that it was just four months.

Lucinda has come to the decision that she really wants this job and will fight for it, though the damage on that front is already done because not everybody is convinced of that.

Now that the interviews are over, the interviewers can discuss their findings with Sir Alan.

Bordan was impressed by the fact that Alex worked a commission only job. Paul thought the interview was terrible but that he does have potential. Karren questions whether Alex would be able to achieve anything without his charm and good looks, but she thinks he should just recognize those traits as assets. Claude is the least impressed of the bunch and believes Alex is bland and shallow.

Claude has great things to say about Lucinda… but thinks she would be a disaster for Sir Alan. Paul calls her a nutcase. Unlike prior seasons, Sir Alan has finally realized that the salary for this job is largely moot.

Despite the pterodactyl impression, Paul was impressed with Lee… until the end of the interview when he winked at him like a door-to-door salesman. Karen believes he’s a good salesman but that this is the last big chance he’ll get. Bordan brings up the lie about the university, which mostly disappoints him because it was unnecessary if he’s done as well as he’s done otherwise, although Paul says that a lot of people lie about their qualifications. Claude says that he’s a tryer.

Karren thought Claire was fantastic and a doer and tells Sir Alan she’ll give her a job if he doesn’t. Claude has doubts whether she can do anything but retail. Bordan says she doesn’t listen, but that’s not news to Sir Alan.

Claude was impressed that Helene overcame her background, but Sir Alan doesn’t want to hear the sob story any more. Karren echoes Claude’s comments. Paul didn’t see any real fire in her.

As he’s leaving the room, Paul gives Sir Alan the wink and the gun.

During the final boardroom with the candidates, Alex is the one to bring up that Lucinda said during the interview process that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be there. In explaining herself, she says she doesn’t need the job (even if everybody else does), just that she wants it.

Lucinda is a little bit too zany for Sir Alan and is fired.

Sir Alan gives Claire a hard time about the fact that she doesn’t listen, but he’s decided he will let her stay. Not only that, but he’s going to let everybody else stay and have a four person final.

They final four will be split into two teams. The team that loses will be fired. From the winning team, one person will be the winner. I like the final four twist. Not thrilled that the losing team will just outright be fired without consideration to any previous tasks or anything else, though.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 12, where we will find out who the winner is.

Raef and Michael decided to play director, and despite having done a better job, they lost the task, with Raef being fired for being full of hot air in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 9. The other team didn’t get along and didn’t do at all well, but because they hit people over the head with their ad, they were free to go.

Michael tells us he’s absolutely worn out. He should just lay down and go home instead of by some miracle surviving each week.

Teams will be renting out luxury cars. There is no team shuffle this week. That’s… new. Michael will be the project manager for Renaissance. Lee will lead Alpha.

Each team must pick two cars, which vary in rentable value from £600/day to £2,750.

Michael is not happy. He abhors cars.

Michael wins the coin toss and picks the Ferarri 360. Lee picks the Aston Martin, which costs the same to rent as the Ferarri. Michael picks the Spyker C8 as his second choice, which rents for £1,200/day. Lee opts for the Zonda, one of the rarest cars in the world, which rents for the highest rate and can’t be rented by the hour.

Lucinda wants to try a raffle. Probably a violation of the rules, but perhaps a good idea if Sir Alan’s okay with it.

Michael has forgotten what cars he’s chosen.

Alex is looking forward to selling this product, though Lucinda is less convinced by her ability to sell. Unwilling to give in to the fact that the raffle was Lucinda’s idea, Alex takes full credit for that, and Lee joins the boys club once again and backs him up. She is getting tired of being ignored (again).

Claire gets her first rental, two hours for the Spyker for £250. She then gets a second one for three hours for £375.

Lee and Alex are working on renting the Zonda. The more affordable Aston Martin sits while Lucinda is creating raffle tickets. Lucky for them, even though Michael’s trying to rent his Ferarri, there’s nobody there paying any attention to him.

Lucinda’s done with the raffle tickets and looking for some help selling the Aston Martin. Despite the fact that she’s the weakest salesperson, asked specifically to not be left alone to sell, and got Lee’s okay on that point, he refuses to leave the Zonda (as Alex suggested).

By mid-afternoon without much indication of any prospects, Lee manages to close a deal for a one day rental of the Zonda with a 10% discount to £2,475.

Michael has found a new location for the Ferarri: a fruit and veg market. After looking around, he realizes what he should have realized in the first place. None of these people can afford it. Just as he’s about to leave, though, he notices a man in a suit and tie, and he makes a pitch to him. He has a sale, but there’s a catch. This man’s smart enough to ask about insurance. Due to the thoroughly ridiculous £5,000 deposit, Michael loses the sale. Unwilling to take the hint, he decides to follow the man as he leaves.

Lucinda is ready to start raffling. Kinda. Lee tells her to just make the judgment call of whether to raffle or not based on how many people are going to buy tickets. She’s apparently supposed to be able to guess that. He’s upset that she won’t just make a decision (not that he will make one either). She decides to abandon the raffle. Then she starts selling the Zonda, or at least that’s what she’s calling it.

The teams head to their marquees. Unsure of what she’s doing, Lucinda decides to shadow Lee. He doesn’t understand why she needs to shadow him. I don’t get it either since nobody would even talk to him.

With it written on the back of his hand, Michael’s hoping to not forget the Spyker again.

Claire gets another three hour sale, but she’s having difficulty going for days.

Somehow, Lucinda manages to get a sale for one hour of the Aston Martin at £65.

With time running out, Alex manages to get another day deal for the Zonda.

In exchange for a couple bottles of champagne, Michael closes a one day deal on the Ferarri with minutes to spare.

With 60 seconds remaining, Alex gets a call from someone they met earlier in the day. They run to him and need to get his signature. They basically need him to sign without reading what he’s signing.

Sir Alan asks Lucinda if she feels like she got shoved aside so Lee didn’t have to deal with her.

Renaissance made £2,114. Alpha made £11,815. The big ticket risk paid off, and this disaster of a team wins again.

Helene is taking Lucinda’s approach: she’s not a salesperson and therefore can’t be blamed for not selling. She blames the salespeople for not selling enough.

Sir Alan can’t figure out where either Helene or Michael would fit into his organization. He does give Michael a little bit of credit as he turns his sights on her.

Helene wants Michael gone. Claire doesn’t really gives an answer, saying that Helene didn’t sell but that Michael contributed the least to the task. Michael believes he’s shown glimmers of brilliance.

Sir Alan wants to get rid of a no hoper. He asks for some more time to discuss with Nick and Margaret. During this, he brings up getting rid of more than one, which would certainly make sense because both Helene and Michael need to go and have needed to go for weeks.

Claire is obviously safe. Michael’s luck has finally run out. Helene escapes, but she’s now the one on borrowed time.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 11.

Sara got fired in The Apprentice UK Series 4 Episode 8 for alienating customers and not really doing a whole lot more beyond that. Helene and Michael, however, despite sucking (again) are given yet another go at it.

The teams are mixed up. Yes, yes, again. I’m getting tired of saying this because it keeps happening every single week. It’s nice to see how different people work with different people, but this is to the point of silliness. Raef and Claire move to Renaissance. Alex moves to Alpha and is made project manager. Sir Alan doesn’t want to let Michael be project manager for Renaissance and instead appoints Raef.

The task is a tissue television and press campaign to be presented to one of Britain’s biggest ad agencies. The ads will be mini dramas. Raef has done some acting and is thrilled to be doing this.

Lee suggests the brand name Snot. After firing out some more ideas, he gets one that may actually work: Atishu.

Claire suggests I Love My Tissues for Renaissance, who have decided on a campaign featuring little children.

Opposed to a gay-themed ad due to the potential negative public reaction, Alex wants a conventional family.

Raef and Michael believe they’re actors and, therefore, will be directing their commercial.

Claire also likes the task because she’s been a brand manager.

Raef has made arrangements to book TV weatherwoman Sian Lloyd. I’m going to assume that’s an actual celebrity worth booking. He and Michael head to a kindergarten classroom where they will shoot the commercial.

Alex and Lee want to include a sick child in their conventional family commercial, though one of the ones they get will be difficult to get a good performance out of. Lucinda again raises concerns about the approach and isn’t happy about her lack of input.

Raef is pleased with the box design his team has come up with, which is basically just hearts. Lucinda’s still displeased with her team, this time about their decision to have a girl blow her nose on a box. She hates Alex’s management style and considers him useless. Lee asks them to get a grip and work together as her blood continues to boil.

Nick is confused why Sian Lloyd is there. Not only is he confused, but she doesn’t get it either, as she doesn’t consider her image as wholesome as they do. For that matter, after they’ve paid for her and had her act, Michael is unconvinced that her scene is even necessary and wants to cut it to meet the 30 second requirement. The girls are very pleased with the press ad but can’t stand the work the boys have done on the video. Claire doesn’t like that the boys have been playing director while they developed the brand.

Claire will be doing the pitch. The video is a lot better than they’d given it credit for, though I agree with Michael the first part was unnecessary.

Before he goes on, Lee’s practicing his pitch while the others throw ideas at him that probably aren’t helping him any. Not that it matters because this campaign is completely flat and boring as Lucinda suggested. There’s no emotion from the audience.

To make matters worse, Sir Alan didn’t like Lee’s presentation style, and Nick points out that Claire didn’t have any notes and knew what she was doing. Alex calls Lucinda abrasive and upsetting. The one compliment that Sir Alan does pay is to Lee for the product name.

Despite the fact that the other campaign sucks, though, Sir Alan is upset at Renaissance for exactly what Claire said he would be upset about: he can’t tell what their ad’s actually about. With that said, despite the fact that they did much better than the other team at virtually all other aspects of the task, they lost.

Raef tries to pin the lack of a close up shot on Michael, who believes they should both accept responsibility for that.

Sir Alan doesn’t understand the point of Sian Lloyd either, and he didn’t notice her anyway because her scene went by so fast.

Raef has decided to bring back Michael and Claire.

Michael takes full credit for all the things that are good about the commercial. He says he took the lead for it. Raef jumps in to defend himself on this and contradicts himself by claiming that he was the one who made all the decisions, except when they were bad.

Raef is fired for being full of hot air. Based on this task, I’d say this was the right decision, but Michael seriously has to be getting close to expending all of his 9 lives.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of The Apprentice UK Series 4 episode 10.

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.