This weeks fairly simple task was presented to the teams, bizarrely enough, amidst The Wallace Collection in Marylebone. Not the High Street shop, Wallis, as somebody thought on hearing the news - Tsk! I guess our budding apprentices were to draw inspiration from the vast array of renaissance art, for their mission the following day was to set up a portrait photography stand in the shopping Mecca of Bluewater - Can't stand the place, personally.
The teams were shuffled by Sir Alan, and Simon, who tells us without the slightest hint of irony that he has an IQ of 170, proffered his I-did-laundry-in-Bosnia 'b*ll*cks on the chopper' for the role of project manager whilst Helene, who tells us she 'has a lot of balls', volunteers to lead the other team. What is all this talk of testicles about anyway, even from the girls...?
Simon's team, Renaissance, decided on a glamour theme and set about hiring props to woo the good people of Kent and Essex into having their snaps taken on a chaise longue with glasses of cheap fizzy wine and naff jewellery - Revolting.
Helene's team, Alpha, chose to hire a celebrity look-a-like and lined up five potential characters to interview. I have absolutely no idea who the first one was meant to be, a rotund old heifer with a drab looking Victorian dress, looking like she'd just crept out of page 147, paragraph 3, line 2 of a Charles Dickens novel. We were then treated to a vaguely credible Del Boy and Cherie Blair followed by a frankly embarrassing Britney Spears - great outfit, terrible execution and a sh!t George Clooney. They decided on the David Beckham in the end, who sported more than a passing resemblance to Golden Balls himself.
Both teams set up early in the morning and drew a different demographic of customers, taking plenty of pictures. However, administrative and technical hitches left both teams seemingly unable to print and deliver the photographs, so much time and money was lost throughout the day. Poor old Lucinda, a self confessed technophobe, was chosen by Helene to head up the technical side of things for Alpha - Bad choice. 'You've put me in the wrong skill-set' she quipped and continued using the computer as though it were one of Einstein's space-time equations...
When the verdict was given... Simon's team made a loss of about £50! Helene's team made a profit of about £150. So,let's get this straight, a dozen of the country's supposedly brightest entrepreneurial talents manage to make a total of £100 from two days work... I reckon they worked around 10 hours each day, so that's 240 hours work in total, which means as a group they made less than £2.50 per hour. I reckon I could make more than that begging in the street, so what's going on? Anyway, Simon picked Claire and Alex to come back into the boardroom and face the music, whilst Sir Alan adjourned. 'I'm going for lunch with the Prime Minister, then I'll see you back in here.' he barked - Legend!
Alex and Claire never really warmed to Simon's managerial style and stitched him up a bit with a shabby effort in the processing side of this task. Harking back to my pre-series post, I can't help but recall a soundbite from Simon: 'I'm too soft at times - I fall for the little old lady factor.' That's 'loser talk' as my friend, Jonny, would say and with a whimper, Simon's hopes of becoming Sir Alan's next Apprentice were dashed.
