In the fifth episode of series 3, We saw the teams called to Christie’s in London’s, where pieces of art regularly sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Their task is to sell art photographs of their choosing in a trendy East London gallery. While the teams get the chance to meet and choose two artists’ work, it’s the actual artists who decide which team they’d like to be represented by. Both teams have very different approaches to the art business. Some candidates are left baffled by the work they view and others are quite swept away with the art vibe. Katie in particular trys to take a real suttle approach and gets quite annoyed with adam for his cut throat style questions to the artist, already the tension within each team is building. Natalie - a housewife with a business masters degree - is project manager of Eclipse. But her team are split on the best approach to selling art: should they go in for the kill or do artists and their customers prefer a softly, softly approach? On the other team we see a new side to Tre, who is offended by some fishy photographs his project manager, Kristina, has chosen. The team who raise the least amount of money had to return to the boardroom and the winning side got the pleasure of going to a health farm. On the night Kristina, who briefed her team to sell hard, pull in the sales whereas Natalie’s team struggle to cut deals. In the boardroom, Kristina’s team won by a landslide, pulling in £4,702 to Eclipse’s £1599.78. Back in the boardroom, Eclipse faced the music. Immediately Sir Alan tackled Eclipse’s choice of artist Elisabeth Hoff and was not impressed by the way she dominated the team and refused to share her contacts. Turning on a visibly flushed and nervous Katie, Sir Alan accused her of being swept away by the art and in total awe of Elisabeth. Adam and Lohit are pulled back into the final boardroom but ultimately it was Natalie who faced the chop. Although Sir Alan admired the way she combined motherhood with studying for her MBA, he felt she was out of her depth. And Natalie the housewife became the sixth candidate to be fired from the competition.
Was the hard sell the way to go? Natalie and Katie obviously didn’t think so………. what were your thoughts?
Watch Highlights of Episode Five
Apprentice contestant Tre Azam has accused producers of the show as trying to make him out to look a C*** by munipulating footage. Tre has been some what of a controversial figure during his time on the Apprentice with his arrogant, cocky and straight to the point attitude, which has ruffled a few feathers within the camp, most noticably Rory Laing who has since been fired from the show. Tre feels the cameras are not showing a true image of him and is being made out to look the ‘bad egg’ of the group which doesn’t seem to overly bother the marketing and design consultant from Essex. “I’ve been exploited like a motherf***er but it’s all good as it’s for TV”. Tre also feels the show is getting more and more like big brother and is trying to morph into the channel 4 show. “It’s entertainment and this year’s show is more and more like Big Brother. I doubt I will come out of it looking good”. But the ever confident Tre is always keen to have the last word. “Katie Hopkins and I were head and shoulders above the rest but I doubt it will be edited that way. She was the only one who had as much business experience and acumen as me. Katie was my only competition.”
Natalie Wood, a hopeful on series 3 of the Apprentice, has a secret that she hopes doesn’t sour her chances of winning the contest. Natalie a housewife from Essex has a personnal connection with Sir Alan that she hopes she can keep a secret as potentially it could scupper her chances of progressing in the competition. As to date Sir Alan isn’t aware that in fact Natalie’s uncle - a millionaire himself - has been dating Sir Alan’s sons ex wife who he recently divorced last year in acrimonious circumstances. Sir Alans son Simon had been married to Michelle for 14 years, but its fair to say her and Sir Alan didn’t exactly see eye to eye. The divorce infuriated Sir Alan, and with Michelle selling her story about the breakdown of the marriage it certainly won’t help matters and once he learns that in fact one of his contestants family members is now dating his former daughter-in-law it could spell curtains for innocent Natalie Wood. Even though Natalie has very little to do with Michelle and barely knows her she hopes Sir Alan may see the funny side of it all. “Knowing what he’s like, I think he will see the funny side of all this”. Should Alan see the funny side of this? Will he make Natalie pay?
In the fourth episode of series three, we saw the teams trying to make and sell there own brand of sweets. The team leaders were Ghazal Asif a business development manager from Glasgow and Adam Hosker a car sales manager from Blackburn. Both armed with a team of five they needed to make a product that appealed not only for presentation but also for taste. Both teams leaders knew that victory would taste sweet and as the clock was ticking the teams began to find themselves in a sticky situation. Finally Ghazal’s team came out on top winning by a slim margin of only £10. Leaving Adam (team leader) with a choice to put two of his fellow team members up alongside himself in the boardroom, awaiting Sir Alans decision for the fifth dismisal of the show.
After a firm grilling from Sir Alan and his helpers, it was clear that Sophie and Natalie were to join Adam in the boardroom based on Sophies lack of enthusiasm and Natalies blatent selective hearing when making the labels. It was a close call between the three as Adam had not helped his case as he was prancing around in a Lions outfit for most of the day and Natalie had lied through her back teeth to Sir Alan.
Finally a decision was made and after Sophie had shot herself in the foot by claiming she didn’t want to sell a product to someone if it wasn’t value for money, she was finally fired by Sir Alan.
In a world where money is the currency did Sophie let her morales get in the way? What were your thoughts on the episode?
Watch Highlights of Episode Four
During week 3 Katie and Paul became team mates which saw them getting a little closer than usual. Katie and Paul seemed to be in a world of there own as Tre was fighting to keep his troops in line and come out on top for the task in hand. Katie and Paul decided to swan off and try there hand in different areas to make some money, during which the pair looked inseparable and smitten with eachothers company. Is this merely that they both have military backgrounds at Sandhurst and have alot in common or could this be cupids arrow striking two of our Apprentice Contestants ? Watch this space!
In the third episode of series three, we saw the teams have just one day to start a business and make as much profit as possible on Sir Alan’s investment of £200. The team leaders were for the boys Tre Azam Marketing and design consultant and for the girls Naomi Lay Advertising sales manager. This time it was the turn of the girls to taste defeat as the boys managed to raise £389.39 from gardening, then in the evening a sing-a-gram service, compared to the girls £265.04 from face painting and there kiss-a-gram service. Noami’s managment skills were under scrutiny along with Jadine being labelled ‘a bad egg’ and was warned about her distruptive behaviour, but it was Gerri who was fired for her lack of contribution. Did gerri deserve to go? Also what did you make of the kiss-a-gram scam?
Watch Highlights of Episode three
In the second episode of series three, we saw the teams have two days to design a prototype of a product for dogs and pitch it to three pet stores. The boys team was lead by Rory Laing a Bankrupt entrepreneur and the girls team lead by Katie Hopkins Global brand consultant. The boys team suffered a humiliating defeat and that spelt the end of Rory Laing’s time on the Apprentice. Tre and Rory really didn’t see eye to eye and were constantly at eachothers throat.
Was Tre just as much to blame for the boys team losing or did Rory get what was coming to him?
Watch Highlights of Episode two
