The Apprentice 2023

[Blackpool Rock]

Brutal interviews as always. Karen Brady reduced a couple of them to tears  I would love to know how she has got so far in business considering she started out working for a couple of porn barrons in Gold and Sullivan the Daily Sport  and porn shop owners. I remember reading how when Steve Bruce was manager of Birmingham City and she was CEO at the club they didn't see eye to eye . Bruce said she knew fuck all about football and would stick her oar in all the time.

Bit rich coming from him 

And yes a bit disappointed in Baroness Brady only getting 2 of them to blub, good to see she had the tissues ready 

The boxing gym woman was a good shout to get into the final as she's quite savvy already getting loans etc set up including an interest free one.
Didn't think the Belgravia hair salon had legs and can see that location being dropped as a condition of him investing, I wanted the last one to get fired in the final

[mr.bluesky]

Bit rich coming from him 

And yes a bit disappointed in Baroness Brady only getting 2 of them to blub, good to see she had the tissues ready 

The boxing gym woman was a good shout to get into the final as she's quite savvy already getting loans etc set up including an interest free one.
Didn't think the Belgravia hair salon had legs and can see that location being dropped as a condition of him investing, I wanted the last one to get fired in the final

Perhaps I should have said Karen Brady knew less about football than Steve Bruce. It made me laugh when at the end of one of the interviews one of the women got up at the end and said " thank you Karen" and she replied " Baroness Brady to you, only my friends call me Karen"  Ouch.
My money is on the boxing woman. When she was shown doing her skipping I thought her titties were going to bounce out of her top.  Perhaps she would have been better off doing a sports bra business  I would love to see the other finalist skip ( Rochelle Anthony) there is no sports bra designed to keep her magnificent chebs under control

[silverspoon]

absolutely awful the whole interview process,paramount to bullying for a TV audience,researchers have hand picked these 5 young Lady's into the final and then seen them destroyed by Sugar's mercenaries ,i've had a fair few interviews in my life and if spoken to like that it would be " fuck off Karen you old tart "

[RandomGuy99]

absolutely awful the whole interview process,paramount to bullying for a TV audience,researchers have hand picked these 5 young Lady's into the final and then seen them destroyed by Sugar's mercenaries ,i've had a fair few interviews in my life and if spoken to like that it would be " fuck off Karen you old tart "

It's just an act for the cameras. Remember it's a TV show.

In a real interview you'd do the full interview process for everyone even if you know you're not going to offer them the job. If you didn't they could possibly give you a hard time legally and your HR department might give you a bollocking too.

[silverspoon]

It's just an act for the cameras. Remember it's a TV show.

In a real interview you'd do the full interview process for everyone even if you know you're not going to offer them the job. If you didn't they could possibly give you a hard time legally and your HR department might give you a bollocking too.

YES i know it's a tv show (entertainment ) not to publicly humilate people,it's a show i've watched from series 1,i like to see people compete and then gain possible reward,I question the ethos of this show now

[RandomGuy99]

YES i know it's a tv show (entertainment ) not to publicly humilate people,it's a show i've watched from series 1,i like to see people compete and then gain possible reward,I question the ethos of this show now

The US one was better even if it did have Trump in place of Lord Sugar.

[akauya]

Just hope he keeps Victoria in as very pleasing to the eye

She is but IMO she'd be even more pleasing if she wore a little less make up and didn't brush her stupid eyebrows up that weird way. Great body though.

[mr.bluesky]

Let's be honest, all of them had flawed business plans. It was just a case of picking out the least worse  . The one who was a flight attendant is probably already back flying " please put your seat in an upright position and fold away your tray as we are about to land " 

[jackdaw]

The US one was better even if it did have Trump in place of Lord Sugar.

Maybe heavily scripted, because I remember the Donald coming across as very intelligent?

[RandomGuy99]

Maybe heavily scripted, because I remember the Donald coming across as very intelligent?

I remember Trump coming across as an egomaniac.

[contentguy]

Dani looked brilliant, I'd love to stuff her on Sugar's boardroom table while he's out for lunch 

Shame she didn't do Love Island: External Link/Members Only

[jackdaw]

I remember Trump coming across as an egomaniac.

I agree with that..and have same feeling about Lord Sugar, maybe typical of business leaders?

But can still be intelligent egomaniac as opposed to thick egomaniac

[mh]

Let's be honest, all of them had flawed business plans. It was just a case of picking out the least worse  . The one who was a flight attendant is probably already back flying " please put your seat in an upright position and fold away your tray as we are about to land " 

Flawed is far too kind. Not only were the ideas bad, the business plans were dire too. E.g. one with no staff costs, no stock costs and supposedly a ‘kiosk’ rent of £300K under the real cost (not that I believed that). Excuse me? You took someone’s place in this competition and they only cared what you looked like and how you sounded for TV. But that wasn’t an outlier.

[RandomGuy99]

Flawed is far too kind. Not only were the ideas bad, the business plans were dire too. E.g. one with no staff costs, no stock costs and supposedly a ‘kiosk’ rent of £300K under the real cost (not that I believed that). Excuse me? You took someone’s place in this competition and they only cared what you looked like and how you sounded for TV. But that wasn’t an outlier.

It's all fabricated for the TV. At keast nobody said "my dog ate my business plan". The ome drom Hull was close and said she had been too busy to do a decent job of her plan and clearly they were given a template as one said the confidentiality agreement was in the template so she left it there.

[catweazle]

It was picked up that Victoria  has 32 spelling or grammatical errors on one page of the business plan. Now I accept that not everyone is a potential Shakespeare   but at work at least we run documents through Grammarly first ,( other proof reading aids are available).

[petermisc]

clearly they were given a template as one said the confidentiality agreement was in the template so she left it there.

It was in the template she used, but I doubt that template was given by the producers. I suspect that she found it on the internet somewhere.  If they were given a template by the programme, I would expect them to be much more consistent.  I seem to recall in a previous series, one of the plans consisted of little more than logos!  Iirc, they produce their draft business plans before the process starts.

I have to admit that I was beginning to think that this could be the first series where he fired them all.  I still cannot believe Sugar is about to invest in either a provincial hair salon or boxing gym.  What is novel about either of those concepts?  There must be hundreds of provincial hair dressers and gym owners who day dream of making it big.  What have either of the candidates got that lifts theirs above the rest?  Okay, they will get a bit of publicity, but that will soon fade.  And the quarter of a million investment is chicken-feed these days - apparently it wouldn't even get you a sweet stall in a shopping centre for a year.

[petermisc]

The US one was better even if it did have Trump in place of Lord Sugar.

The trouble with the US version was that you knew who was going to get fired - almost inevitably, Trump would fire the project leader.  The Aussie version was fun though.

[Mr Sinister]

It's all fabricated for the TV. At keast nobody said "my dog ate my business plan". The ome drom Hull was close and said she had been too busy to do a decent job of her plan and clearly they were given a template as one said the confidentiality agreement was in the template so she left it there.

They no longer care about viable and scalable businesses or true innovators anymore, of course they also know any competent businessman can go the VC route or if they're desperate dragons den. There's been a lot of talk from disgruntled viewers across the internet obviously know it's 'fixed'. People are fired like Simba the other week because he had a business with a lot of social responsibility something I doubt Sugar would want to get involved in being in the public eye, especially if it goes tits up.

It's much more palatable if it's another pick n mix or dessert cafe . Think the show needs a big refresh from top to bottom

[mh]

And the quarter of a million investment is chicken-feed these days - apparently it wouldn't even get you a sweet stall in a shopping centre for a year.

That was ridiculous, wasn't it? A "kiosk" operator would need to clear £1200 in margin every single day of operation after all other operating costs just to pay the rent. Even with the massive margins on sweets, that's likely a gross sales value of £2,000 every day or 20 customers every hour spending £10 each, even on a wet Wednesday morning in school term time. Someone got their numbers wrong and it wasn't the candidate.
 

[Blackpool Rock]

That was ridiculous, wasn't it? A "kiosk" operator would need to clear £1200 in margin every single day of operation after all other operating costs just to pay the rent. Even with the massive margins on sweets, that's likely a gross sales value of £2,000 every day or 20 customers every hour spending £10 each, even on a wet Wednesday morning in school term time. Someone got their numbers wrong and it wasn't the candidate.
 

Yeah the numbers were clearly wrong, can't remember what was quoted but I think she was using the monthly cost but quoting it as the weekly cost so about 4 times more than she actually needed to pay a year.

At the end of the day if her maths and attention to detail was so shit then she didn't deserve to get into the final

[RandomGuy99]

Good news is that Trump gets arrested tomorrow

[RandomGuy99]

Well it wasn't surprising that he went for the one with the most thought out business plan.

Lord Sugar has said he is up for another 5 series to take him to 25 years of The Apprentice.

Apparently the Welsh.guy didn't make it back into the series as he got too drunk on the way to Dubai, so he wasn't safe to participate in the filming.

[mr.bluesky]

Both business plans were well shakey, there is a story in one of today's papers saying Marnie the winner is going to be investigated over a £50,000 loan she received to help her firm through the covid lock down period , there is a question as to whether she was eligible to receive such payment.  A bet Lord Sugar was not aware of that skeleton in her cupboard

[catweazle]

Well it wasn't surprising that he went for the one with the most thought out business plan.

Lord Sugar has said he is up for another 5 series to take him to 25 years of The Apprentice.

Apparently the Welsh .guy didn't make it back into the series as he got too drunk on the way to Dubai, so he wasn't safe to participate in the filming.

He was Scottish.

[RandomGuy99]

He was Scottish.

External Link/Members Only

[catweazle]

External Link/Members Only

Like I said, he was Scottish , and the article you quote confirms it  so not sure why you linked the article.