After weeks and weeks without hearing much from her, single mum Jadine Johnson finally got the chance to prove yet again she is one of the contenders to take the prize and work for Sir Alan. Jadine was once again in the spotlight after being given the chance to lead team Eclipse into a comprehensive victory against the poor showing of team Stealth. Jadine was quite a powerful and forth coming figure at the beginning of the show, but some what faded into the background over the past several weeks. Many in her home town of Harrow are firmly behind the 27 year old financial advisor and believe she has what it takes to become the next winner of the apprentice. What are your thoughts on Jadine’s chances of winning the apprentice?

In the eighth episode of series 3, this week is all about branding as our contestants have to design a logo and produce a advert for a pair of trainers. The main objective is to create an advert that in Sir Alans words will ’sell kit’ and not win ‘The Montrose award for advertising tossers!’. The brave Ghazal, who after escaping the bullet last week asked to be put forward for team leader, which Sir Alan kindly agreed and let Ghazal take charge of team Stealth. Jadine also stepped up to the plate and took charge of team Eclipse.
Ghazal had the advantage as far as team selection went and had Katie who is a Global Brand Consultant and Naomi who is an Advertising Sales Manager on her side. On paper Ghazal’s team looked like it would be a breeze, but far from it. Team Stealth struggled for any ideas and failed to come up with any real concept early on. Ghazal also had the task of having Katie and Kristina on the same team, whose recent friendship has been shattered by constant bickering and differences of opinion. To stop them to going at it again was a task in itself.
On the other side Jadine and her team had made some good progress towards the task with Tre boasting ‘Branding is my forte’, with that type of confidence behind them team Eclipse seemed a lot more relaxed and even had a concept sorted early on. They decide on the name ’street’ and apparently according to branding ‘bad boy’ Tre it represents an ‘underground alternative to the mass-produced representation of their culture’ (yeah that’s what it means?).
The girls still struggling for ideas and falling short with any concept finally to Katie’s horror go for ‘Jam’ which was one of Kristina’s ideas. Ghazal decides to run with ‘jam’ and aims the trainer at the youth market, but Naomi disagrees after seeing the logo on the trainer ‘I can see a grandmother on a cruise wearing these’.
Things may not be going so smoothly on team Stealth, but on team Eclipse things couldn’t be cooler, as Simon writes and performs a rap for the advert and even busting a few breaking dancing moves. Simon seems to be growing more and stronger as a potential winner as the programme draws to the final stages.
After some chopping and changing Ghazal finally decides to go with ‘Music is everything’ rather than ‘image is everything’. Again no love was lost between Katie and Kristina over the change of name as Katie blurts ‘Kristina is a total arse coverer… It’s a shame she doesn’t do it a little better with the skirt she wears’.
Once both teams had done there pitch, Jadines team came through as winners and escaped the boardroom. But unfortunately with every winner there has to be a loser and this week yet again Ghazal and Katie found themselves up for a potential firing, as there pitch fell flat.
Ghazal called Naomi and Katie in to the boardroom with her to face the ‘music’ and it take long for the bitching to start. Ghazal was accused of being a bad leader, while Katie stupidly started to disagree with Sir Alan’s views of there advert. Sir Alan told Katie ”There was no big idea there’ which she disagreed with. Katie who has been on the losing team six times now was starting to drive Sir Alans patience, which we have found out in the past before isn’t a good idea. He labeled Katie a ‘loser’ as she had been on the losing side six times and still didn’t realize her pitch and advert was rubbish .After much debating Ghazal was finally dismissed with Sir Alan stating ‘I think you’re all talk and no do’.
Was ghazal dismissed fairly? How does Katie Keep Avoiding Dismissal?

Watch Highlights of Episode Eight

Sir Alan Sugar has revealed he likes this year’s Apprentice line-up better than the last. The businessman-turned-reality TV star said he was unhappy with the series which saw winner Michelle Dewberry leave her prize job at Amstrad just weeks after starting.

“I wasn’t very happy with the calibre of contestants last year, to be frank with you,”

“There’s a lot of regrets from last year — maybe turning up would be the biggest.”

He said it took some convincing to get him to return: “I agreed to do it after a long period of debate. I’ve had more input into how the candidates are chosen, and there’s a core of very strong people this time.”

There are suggestions Sir Alan is picking four finalists to get temporary jobs to ensure he gets the right winner next month.

“We’ve not really decided how the final will work yet,” he explained. “But there are four in the frame at the moment. I was very happy with Tim and he’s doing absolutely the right thing branching off on his own.”

The Apprentice mentor Sir Alan Sugar appears to agree with his latest sacking, Adam Hosker, that Katie Hopkins is a scary, ruthless pain.
Adam launched a stinging attacked on Apprentice rival Katie Hopkins after he had been fired by Sir Alan “Katie is a complete and utter snob. She was offended at my northernness and my working class background”.

“She didn’t think I had any right to be there. She sees me and Kristina as a threat. Kristina because she’s Irish and me because I’m northern”.

“Katie thinks Sir Alan is thick. She told me that in the car on the way back from a task. She doesn’t rate Sir Alan, she’s there to publicise herself.”

And Sir Alan commented in Wednesday’s Daily Mirror: “This week I saw a side of Katie I’ve never seen before when she exploded in the boardroom. She had the hump over Paul leaving and was livid about their affair being rumbled.

“Adam aggravated things, saying she wasn’t focusing and was pining for her beau. She tore into him. Now you know why I never really punished Paul for carrying on in the house. Getting involved with Katie was painful enough!”

“Wow - she is a real killer,” said Sir Alan.

In the seventh episode of series three, The candidates have a day to buy ten products, each of which they must not buy at the initial asking price. Simon heads up Eclipse and Adam, after surviving three weeks running in the boardroom, leads Stealth. The clock’s ticking and they have to battle against traffic and time to be back at the boardroom with their ten products at six o’clock that night. Sir Alan’s shopping list is varied, with a white rabbit, a house plant, leather trousers and a unicycle amongst the goods they need to find. There’s clearly not a cook amongst them, as both teams are baffled by the nigella seeds. ‘I’m a rotweiller that won’t give up’, brags Simon at the start of the task. Yet as the day wears on, it’s clear that his grasshopper mind leads his team down fruitless paths and he’s too hurried to make good negotiations.
On the other team, arch rivals Kristina and Katie made a political decision to work together and cut some sharp discounts. Adam and Ghazal struggle to locate the elusive nigella seeds, questioning whether they’re used for Astroturf!
In the final hour Eclipse get lucky and track down the nigella seeds, but over in Stealth, Adam, despite finding an importer, calls it a day and is prepared to pay the penalty of not getting all ten goods.
Back in the boardroom it’s misery as Sir Alan announces Eclipse has won by a 97 pence margin. This is despite the fact Simon’s team failed to negotiate much money off the goods. Kristina and Katie’s cunning plan to ignore Adam had devastating consequences. A frustrated Sir Alan muttered that it was stupidity that brought Adam’s team back into the boardroom as, if they’d read the rules, they would have won.
While the winners were off racing Formula One style, back in the boardroom, the gloves were off and the conversation turned nasty. Adam dragged out Katie’s relationship with Paul as the reason for her having ‘her head down’ at the start of the task. We saw hard-nosed Kristina squirm as Sir Alan exposed the conversation about Katie and Paul’s relationship in the previous week’s boardroom. A furious Katie concentrated her attack on Adam - calling him ‘dull’, ’slow’ and that his best friend was ‘Mr Pinot and Mr Grigio’.
It was a tough call whether to fire the troublesome Katie, the ‘too young’ Ghazal or Adam. But Sir Alan couldn’t ignore the message coming from above. Four times Adam has been hauled into the boardroom and despite Adam’s pleas that he wants to be the apprentice, Sir Alan barked, ‘your luck has run out. You’re fired!’ and Adam became the eighth candidate to leave the competition.

Was it just time up for Adam or should have Katie gone?

Watch Highlights of Episode Seven

In the sixth episode of series three, This week Sir Alan sends the teams over the channel to sell quality British food products at a local French market. Two boys we haven’t seen that much from head up their respective teams - Lohit for Eclipse and Paul for Stealth. The teams have a day to pick up their chosen food lines before catching the ferry. Paul’s team decide to turn to good old british sausage and cheese, while Lohit went down the route of an english breakfast. The next day on the market, the teams get to work. Team leader of Eclipse, Lohit with his English breakfast theme makes a shrewd move to sell fine quality smoked fish, picking tea to sell to a coffee-drinking nation is a red herring. Over on Stealth’s stall, the sausages are still raw in the pan at ten o’clock, and they haven’t sold a single packet. The lumps of cheese are proving unpopular too. Back in the boardroom, with the money on the table: Lohit’s team Eclipse spent £446 and made a £410 profit. Paul’s team were anything but stealthy and spent £741 and made a loss of £225.84. Sir Alan didn’t hide his disgust at Paul’s ultimate failure. ‘It’s a total bloody joke’ he barked.
Paul’s head was on the block and was labelled a ’shambles’ by Sir Alan and soon after was fired.

Did you think Paul was to blame? Any suggestions of what would have gone down well with the French?

Watch Highlights of Episode six