The Apprentice 2023

[Sexton Hardcastle]

[Stopharage]

Another top-tier car crash of an episode, with the crowning glory being Tim’s ‘thank you for that Avi, it’s really appreciated’ finishing it all off with aplomb. 

[Laters]

20 hours ago, K said:

The snake thing is fucking mental. It’s like the version of Sex Panther they sell down the market. 
 

This season’s really gone to town on humiliating designers by forcing them to work on these terrible ideas and showcase their worst work. The brief must be to engage in malicious compliance at all times. 

I once worked with someone who appeared as a designer on it a few years ago. She was told not to give any input or feedback, just do as asked. More fun that way.

[Fierce Poodle]

Why does everything they design in this show look like actual excrement? In this case, a dog food that resembles diarrhoea.

[Sidewaysbob]

If ever there was a band of experts who quite clearly did not want to waste an hour of their life, listening to people taking part in the 2023 equivalent of the generation game. Those three dog food ladies were the very definition of "No, fuck off".

 

I remember back in the day they had to take other peoples, quite good idea and then sell them to the high street.

All this series has told us is that you need to talk to the focus group first, pitch a couple of rough old ideas at them. then design your product with that information.  

Not show them your hastily knocked up shite and try to bullshit your way past people clearly not interested. 

 

Next week.

 

The apprentices have to dress up as mascots and carry water from the bottom of the building to the top, whilst Karen and Tim throw footballs at them. And answer question about the works of Hans Kristensen Anderson. The winner get to have Sir Alan wipe his arse with their CV. 

[Haribokart]

This is always the best episode due to how OTT dickish the interviewers act combined with how incredibly bad the business plan details can be and this is delivering, laughing my tumours off at how terribly cringe this manufactured shit is 

[sofasurfer]

I know that the show is ridiculous, but this season has been appalling. I usually look forward to the interviews but apart from a couple of stand out moments it’s been dull. It’s turned into a pantomime version of an already, obviously scripted show with only Claude being entertaining whilst Karren is being cast in the role of villain. Insisting they call her Baroness is properly cringe inducing.

 

The candidates in the final five have awful business ideas and plans and I’m sure a previous winner had a pick’n’mix idea. It seems as if they’ve run out of ideas and are just regurgitating previous ones in the hope we don’t notice.

 

The BBC seem to have given up as well, as unless I’ve missed them, there are no supplementary shows such as The Final Five where we actually find out about the candidates.

 

The actual final should be entertaining in a properly toe curling way if the trailer is anything to go by. 
 

 

[Fierce Poodle]

It really is preposterous that we got down to the final five and there were still candidates who didn’t know the difference between profit and turnover. Even I’ve worked that out by now and I’ve got all the business sense of Clive Sinclair.

[Fierce Poodle]

The whole Baroness thing was weird too considering she has been referred to as Karren throughout the series.

[Sidewaysbob]

It's weird that they got all the way through the series, made it to the final 5 and then were shown reading their proposals. And not once did any of them spot the flaws, missing numbers, basic accounting errors. 

 

It's like they explained over the phone to a BBC researcher what they wanted, which was then typed up by a team of students and handed back to the candidates on the morning of the interview. 

 

Because at no stage did any of them act like they knew want was written in those proposals!

 

And then the interviews consisted of the candidate sitting down, being told this proposal was absolute shit, cut to a smiling candidate saying "Thank you" and walking off. 

 

This is the last series I watch. Its been total shit from day one.

[Fierce Poodle]

I bet you say that every year.

[LeighCb]

Avi will return next week and destroy both businesses. 

[Mr Do 71]

8 hours ago, Fierce Poodle said:

The whole Baroness thing was weird too considering she has been referred to as Karren throughout the series.

She would’ve got a fuck off from me if she had said that to me.

[sofasurfer]

I can always tell an appalling year of candidates as I struggle to remember any of their names once each episode has finished. This year, zero remembered, apart from Avi who was a legend.

[Sidewaysbob]

The only one I remember is Piella Bakewell. 

 

 

[glb]

Watched the interviews this morning. That Leopard Witch or whatever her name is was downright rude to the candidates, especially Victoria, who would have been well within her rights to tell the old bat to get in the sea.

 

That said, shonky business plans are pretty inexcusable. Know your numbers seems to be the key to any scale of business, but even that basic element appeared to be missing from most.

 

Dragon’s Den is infinitely more enjoyable now, with the shysters rightly pulled apart while keeping some genuine aspirational qualities as smart small businesses get the chance to shine and, potentially, grow.

[LeighCb]

 

[Fierce Poodle]

Wouldn’t mind seeing that as a future task.

[Sidewaysbob]

Obviously the sub team has to go off and design the semiconductor from scratch of course. .. With a pickaxe and a handful of sand.

Whilst Karen stands by and shakes her smug head. "They don't even know that the silicate layer has to be less that 10 thousand microns. How will they make money with just a hand full of sand and 2 AA cells?!???!?!?" 

[McFly]

On 18/03/2023 at 08:52, Sidewaysbob said:

The only one I remember is Piella Bakewell. 

 

 

My dad was saying that too

[Fierce Poodle]

Final tonight. Everyone super jazzed?

[GwiDan]

So much for creating their businesses, this episode is just an exercise in advertising. 

[Art Vandelay]

I can only presume they were sniffing glue in the car park before the final wash up of their shit ideas as they all seemed genuinely deranged. 

[glb]

A hair salon. A hair salon made the final two.

 

Next year Alan faces the tough choice of investing £250k in a vape kiosk or a coffee shop.

[Fierce Poodle]

It could have just as easily been the pic n mix in a “posh” box idea.

[Art Vandelay]

All of the ideas we heard were so low level it was a bit embarrassing. It's obviously not easy to make a boxing gym or a salon work in the actual real world, but the barrier to entry is self evidently very low as there's literally tens of thousands of them. A lot of the time founded by that idiot at school you can all now vividly picture. The penny mix-up idea could barely be classified as an Etsy account to be honest as again the world and its wife are putting a selection of Cadbury bars in a shoe box and charging £25 for it. It annoyed me too as she said she had an order for 5,000 she couldn't fulfil when any lender would be more than happy to front the cash if you had a p/o. That immediately struck me as red flag as she's either very dim or telling porkies. 

 

Mad too how the final is always the exact same format and these two rocked up without an idea in their heads beyond "emotion". Like they've had 14 and 3 years respectively to ruminate on this business idea and one names it after herself and the other is brainstorming things like The Fist and Ring or whatever. She never did thrash out how these trainers were getting paid beyond free use of the punch bags and good vibes either. 

 

I dipped in and out of the You're Hired thing and the interactions with Sugar were like a frustrated grandson trying to get a conversation out of someone in an old folks home.

[Sidewaysbob]

It was exactly the same as buying Tom and his nail file in the end. He bought the boxing lady (still no idea what here name was) simply because she'd got a shit ton of funding in place to go the moment she had an investment partner to front the rent money on a bit of office space in the city.  

Because i cannot believe for one second that she doesn't have a team behind her doing all the grunt work and this isn't all meticulously planned out. Because Sport UK and and all those banks don't lend money to saucy blondes with a passionate idea about a vibe. 

 

There is no way she didn't already have a name and brand for any of this before hand !!!

 

So has she now rebranded the whole thing ? Who or what are Sport UK investing in ?

 

Complete shit.

 

[Art Vandelay]

The funding thing was so fishy and removed any credibility from the whole thing. I couldn't quite square off why anyone putting a gym there for the clientele of Threadneedle Street would be eligible for funding anyway as it seems completely outside of any expected remit. A cursory glance at the papers this morning suggests she incorporated a company called Bronx Boxing – a name in which I'm certain I heard mentioned at some point – in 2019 and got a chunky Bounce Back loan despite having no turnover. It stinks I tells ya. 

[glb]

1 hour ago, Art Vandelay said:

The funding thing was so fishy and removed any credibility from the whole thing. I couldn't quite square off why anyone putting a gym there for the clientele of Threadneedle Street would be eligible for funding anyway as it seems completely outside of any expected remit. A cursory glance at the papers this morning suggests she incorporated a company called Bronx Boxing – a name in which I'm certain I heard mentioned at some point – in 2019 and got a chunky Bounce Back loan despite having no turnover. It stinks I tells ya. 

 

Imagine Baroness Brady - Karen to her friends, not you oiks - will be able to pull a few strings among her peers to secure all the necessary paperwork and ensure the business launches smoothly.

[tomakasatnav]

Love that Alan can't be bothered turning up for the final show.