One of the great pleasures of a Sunday, apart from legitimately calling a Bloody Mary breakfast and eating huge hunks of gravy-drenched meat to stave off the encroaching, screeching horror of the Monday morning alarm, is the Sunday papers. And once you’ve caught up on which footballer diddled which model and at what level of satisfaction, you get to delve into the utopia of the cheaply-printed gadget catalogue; a heady world of tea-making barometers, painless nose-hair extraction and comfy, comfy slacks.
So how thrilling for us that it was flog-the-innovation week on The Apprentice. All the absurd gadgetry our tiny minds could handle, plus a massive dollop of smartly dressed squabbling pricks on the side!
The 6:30 sexyladyvoice phone was answered this week by “The Brand” Stewart, sleepy-eyed but resplendent in an ash-grey velour dressing gown. The Good Lord summoned the candidates to the Science Museum to chunter on about loony ideas becoming world-changing inventions. You know, like how the Amstrad dot matrix printer brought peace to the Middle East! After shuffling “Barry from EastEnders” Alex onto Apollo, SugarSugar booted the teams out to hear pitches from a variety of eccentrics, with the order to pick two inventions and sell them on to some high street giants and any other waifs and strays they can find along the way. PMs were quickly chosen – “Four-Eyed Yazz” Melissa’s attempt to do the PM double were swept away by a majority vote for “Jamie” Jamie in Synergy, and “BORING!” Chris somehow mumbled himself monotonally into the PM spot for Apollo.
Clearly relishing the chance to be Dragons in their very own Den, the teams ripped merrily into the pitchers facing them. The fencing mask supposed to remove fine lines and wrinkles which just made the wearer look like they were in Tron was tossed to the lions; the no-more-slouch harness, which was worn across the shoulders and shrieked with electronic displeasure every time the wearer dared to slump at their desk, was dismissed with derisive honks of laughter. Stewart in Synergy took particular pleasure in dismembering all comers, growling angrily even when faced with something he liked, looking at his watch when expressing his feeling that something was too expensive like some kind of brain-damaged simpleton.
Eventually Synergy settled on some kind of tediously money-saving showerhead and Apollo drooled all over a men’s t-shirt/boob tube designed to hold in unsightly gut bulges. But then, disaster! Both teams were eager to snap up the Babyglow, a heat-responsive babygro that changes colour?imperceptibly?when your baby is too damn hot, perfect for paranoid sleep-deprived new mothers and giving newborns built-in early ’90s acid-rave flashbacks (well, they already have the dummies. Why not complete the outfit?) Unfortunately, Stewart thwarted Synergy’s efforts to woo the inventor by endlessly screaming questions about dead babies at her, and Apollo swooped in to claim the spoils, leaving Synergy with a double-handled spade for effortless soil-turning or 200% more efficient garden-based cosh-murdering.
Onto pitching to Debenhams, and Synergy Melissa’s attempts to persuade them to throw away 330 years of retail heritage and start afresh with just her crappy showerhead fell on unimpressed ears. Despite Debs’ head honcho – played here by John Craven after a heavy night in Spearmint Rhino – repeatedly stating that Debenhams didn’t stock homewares, the bleach-blonde berk refused to take “Shut up and go away” for an answer, leaving her in tepid water with softly-spoken PM Jamie. “Don’t question what I do. If you’re threatened by me, that’s your business,” Melissa barked after being barred from further pitch sessions, sounding like a Big Brother contestant all hepped up on Lambrusco and self-aggrandising delusion.
Apollo, incidentally, seemed to impress Debenhams slightly more. Surprising, considering both Chris and “Foxy” Liz mumbled their prepared speeches miserably into their shoes as if they were doing enforced nativity readings at a year 9 Christmas assembly.
The next day brought more meetings and more opportunities to bicker in front of blank-faced retailers. The sniping was strong within Apollo’s girl group, “The Joker” Paloma, “Sometimes You Sulk” Sandeesh and “Llorando!” Laura. Tasked with getting sales into their own personal order books, any wisp of teamwork dissipated quickly into the cool London air. They trotted off to sell their slim-o-tron t-shirt to the sexy shops in Soho’s Old Compton Street, where Nick Hewer hung around in the background making an innocent “Why, what is this mysterious area I’ve definitely never seen before?” face. This quickly gave way to classic Hewer incredulity as Laura threw a complete shitfit on the doorstep of Boys Boys Boys (names have been changed to protect the innocent) and pretty much ruined everything for everyone. No sales for Apollo’s Angels, then.
Meanwhile, half of Synergy laughed for several days after selling 1,000 showerheads to a small village hardware shop that would never be able to resell such a huge quantity thus ensuring its eventual bankrupcy like the capitalist pigdogs they are, and charmed the pants off B&Q with their double-headed spade action. The Stewart/Melissa/”Vorderman” Stella half, however, fouled up a further pitch by trying to demonstrate the shower while it was faulty, leading to disturbing scenes where Stewart tried to fix the thing by chowing down on it like a rabid bulldog on a juicy bone.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over, and it was time to watch the Good Lord emerge saintedly from his secret steam cabinet behind the boardroom.
Much to the undetectable joy of the Lord, and the disappointment of the schadenfreude-hungry viewer, both teams made tankerloads of money. But in a shock twist, the under-reported half of Apollo – the ones who didn’t spend the day tearing each other’s faces off for the amusement of the cool kids of Soho – sold several squllion Babyglows to some gullible internet types. The team were crowned victorious and spirited away to a spa to be awkwardly filmed trying to look like they’re not enjoying their massages in any kind of sexual way.
Synergy PM Jamie brought back obvious shouty failures Stewart and Melissa back for the final slaughter. Melissa was smothered in Karren Brady’s honeyed MILF-tastic tones informing her she was annoying, to which she responded by using the words “analysation” and “professionalilty” in the same sentence. Jamie then seemingly broke into an impassioned spoken word version of Lean On Me (“I’ll be there for you, Lord Sugar!”) and was told off for putting his elbows on the table. Stewart, full of empty bluster and excuses, made the Daily Mail-baiting revelation that he recently sold yo-yos in a school playground and enabled the Good Lord to make his much-trailed “Full of hot air, shush for the sake of climate change” gag.
But for Melissa, the only way was down, and she received the Sugar fingertip of doom. Was it her insistence that she was the best seller on the planet in lieu of ever actually selling anything? Her veiled threats of violence towards teammates? Or her use of the phrase “no room for manouveurment”? All that and more. Cab fare home jangling in her pocket, she muttered darkly about conspiracies against her and stated “Karmically, they will be retributed.” Quite.
Farewell, Melissa! Go and do your manglisation of the English languagatration elsewhere. We hear Live at Studio Five is hiring.
Harry Hill TV Burp moment: Flailing PM Jamie describing Melissa’s pitching as a “cashashrophe”.
Next week: The Apprentice brings London fashion to Manchester, the lucky beggars! Glass-less specs and fixie bikes up to their Manc earholes!