Reviewing the first episode of this year’s The Apprentice (BBC1) last week, Christopher Stevens suggested here that the class of 2024 might be the dumbest ever. I’m pretty sure tonight’s second episode wouldn’t have changed his mind.
This week’s task was based on what Lord Sugar rather implausibly claimed was ‘one of the biggest trends’ in Britain today: the unstoppable rise of the mini cheesecake. Each team had to make two batches, one to sell to a corporate customer, the other to the general public – with the team that made the biggest profit being the winners.
For a while the girls got a little bogged down in the argument about how many grams are in a kilogram. But having worked that out, they headed off to meet their customers in London Dungeon, where they managed to negotiate a suitably gruesome price of £13.80 per small pie, promising (not entirely truthfully) that the end result would be worth the effort. would be worth.
Less successful were the boys, whose business clients included the smoothie company Innocent. Innocent’s commitment to healthy eating – not a big secret, by any means – was hard to miss from the fruit and vegetable-related decorations that adorned almost every inch of their headquarters. Nevertheless, the boys’ chief negotiator, Paul, missed it and recommended something more chocolatey instead.
“We don’t want chocolate,” said the customers – and said it again when Paul scorned the whole silly ‘five a day’ thing and urged them to indulge in some pampering.
This week’s task was based on what Lord Sugar rather implausibly claimed was ‘one of the biggest trends’ in Britain today: the unstoppable rise of the mini cheesecake
Each team had to make two batches, one to sell to a corporate customer, the other to the general public – with the team that made the biggest profit being the winners
For a while the girls got a little bogged down in the argument about how many grams are in a kilogram
Only after three rejections was he willing to compromise – by offering them chocolate and (itals) fruit. Meanwhile, his original price of £9.95 per pie was casually discarded in favor of £6.
Not that Paul appeared to be completely devoid of self-knowledge. After the meeting, which his teammates accurately described as “a car crash,” he admitted that “there may have been some things I hadn’t noticed.”
And with that, the boys set out to make their fruit and vegetable cheesecakes, with dragon fruit, apricot and, er, avocado. These were also so misshapen that the team decided it was best to call them ‘artisan’.
Strangely enough, the people at Innocent were not impressed. “Avocado seems a bit strange,” one person said with commendable understatement. “It’s an acquired taste,” Asif replied on behalf of the boys – the problem was that the customers showed no signs of acquiring it and drove the price down even further.
But at least the boys’ sales to the public went slightly better, with the cakes sold in a pop-up cafe for £6, £6.50 or £7, depending on which team member sold them and when. The only problem came when a customer said she was a vegetarian and so couldn’t eat the gelatin. At that moment she was offered the cake for a fiver.
Each team had to make two batches, one to sell to a corporate customer, the other to the general public – with the team that made the biggest profit being the winners
Once again, Tim Campbell MBE stuck to his policy of helping us understand exactly what happened, by repeating exactly what we had just seen happen.
Compared to all that, the girls did indeed seem like members of Mensa. Yet their victory was almost as easy as the chores performed by Lord Sugar’s two assistants.
Once again, all Baroness Karen Brady had to do was lurk and raise an eyebrow every now and then.
Once again, Tim Campbell MBE stuck to his policy of helping us understand exactly what happened, by repeating exactly what we had just seen happen.
And so to the boardroom, where the girls beamed and the boys threw each other under Tooting’s number 94.
To his credit, Lord Sugar did a pretty good job of pretending to be concerned about who should be fired.
But of course it wasn’t long before Paul was sitting in the back of the cab wishing he hadn’t spent so much time ‘talking about chocolate’.
To his credit, Lord Sugar did a pretty good job of pretending to be concerned about who should be fired
It wasn’t long before Paul was sitting in the back of the taxi wishing he hadn’t spent so much time ‘talking about chocolate’