And the Winning Apprentice Idea Is … New and Improved Grot

Mrs Chortler and I often find ourselves bemused by the Apprentice. Though the show makes for compulsive viewing, there are some holes in the plot, and the Apprentice does have a rather questionable premise: that a titan of the technology industry would employ a candidate based on how well he or she can collect junk or sell umbrellas.

Actually, in the latest version of the Apprentice (Series 7), Lord Sugar is doing more than just employing someone to be his apprentice; he is going into business with him or her. A 50-50 partnership with some lucky young man or woman, fuelled by a 250,000-pound capital injection from Lord Sugar.

One could be forgiven for thinking, however, that as we head into Week 11 of the series, some clues might be presented as to what the prospective ventures may be. All we know thus far is that one contestant makes a wicked biscuit and another gives fantastic massages. In the meantime, some of Britain’s “entrepreneurial elite” have shown they literally cannot run a fruit stand.

Lord Sugar states emphatically at the beginning of each episode that he is “not looking for bloody salespeople.” Fair enough. But why then did the people vetting contestants choose two salesmen?

Another curious aspect of the show is Lord Sugar’s habit of reading a contestant’s résumé (or reh-zoo-meh — depending on your pronunciation) right before he is about to point the firing finger at him or her, and then feigning shock that they have no entrepreneurial experience: i.e., “It says here on your résumé that you’re a former Honduran warlord who now works as an oak tree.” (Switch to smug Sugar smile, followed by awkward look on candidate’s face, then to smirks from Nick and Karen.)

On the last task Helen, who had gone a stellar nine wins out of nine shows – not to mention being responsible for some eye-popping, Apprentice-record-breaking sales figures – was brought back into the boardroom after flubbing the tenth task. Lo and behold, Lord Sugar pulled out her CV to discover she has only worked as an assistant to a CEO instead of being a CEO herself.

“You don’t just wake up one morning and decide you want to start a company,” he bellowed at her. That may very well be true … though we did wake up one morning (very hungover) and decided to start this website. Still why wait until week 10 to tell the poor woman, a theretofore outstanding candidate, you are solely seeking those who possess not only extraordinarily enterprising instincts but experience in setting up their own businesses as well?

The reason is of course that Lord Sugar doesn’t have time to remind people of little matters such as this since he is off doing whatever a multi-millionaire businessman does between takes. Someone involved with the Apprentice, though, should have bothered to inform the “non-entrepreneur” candidates about this issue, say at about the time they were choosing from thousands of would-be candidates – even if it risked jeopardizing some of the more entertaining elements of the show.

On Wednesday the candidates are off to invent the latest craze in British fast food. Then on Sunday we will finally get a chance to learn about Tom’s time machine and Natasha’s elocution app (yeah).