The Apprentice!

2009 winner - Yasmina Siadatan

Ah, the apprentice. Compulsory viewing as always, well for me anyway :) So onto this year’s contestants then...

Both of this year’s final two, Kate and Yasmina did want to win for genuine reasons as opposed to becoming famous. However Sir Alan felt that Kate Walsh was hyped up, preferring Yasmina and I am pleased that she won. Kate Walsh was definitely a worthy opponent and also her blossoming romance with fellow contestant Philip Taylor was a constant source of gossip this series. I initially quite liked Phil to win as he was a good contestant but the ‘Pantsman’ episode (LOL!) changed my mind. It was probably the funniest moment of the series! The crazy person this year was Lorraine Tighe who I’m sure is a good business woman but towards the end of the series seemed to constantly be arguing someone in each task. Evil person of the series was Debra Barr who actually not that much older than me. Unfortunately she had this incredible ability to rub everyone up the wrong way including Sir Alan and the time she told Margaret off the boardroom... well Sir Alan was not amused. Two types of idiots this year – the annoying kind would be Ben Clark, he got a scholarship to Sandhurst if you didn’t know (!) I mean I think it’s great that he got the scholarship but the point is that he never actually went and yet he never failed to mention his scholarship in every task! Bloody annoying or what?! The other idiot (of the lovable kind) was James McQulian, who was such a sweet guy. I don’t think he even realised the things he was saying half the time, which often made Sir Alan smile and that is not an easy thing to do! After the interview stage, the time had come to choose the final two and it was down to Kate, Yasmina and James. I think everyone cried when James got fired, including Yasmina and Kate. He was a genuinely lovely guy and his exit interview with Adrian Chiles in ‘You’re Fired’ was the best one yet.

Overall, I did enjoy the series but I felt that something has changed with the apprentice this year and I’m not quite sure what. Maybe it’s because this was the last year that we saw the Nick and Margaret team in action as Margret Mountford is leaving the show to pursue her studies in papyrology at University College London. I wish her the best of luck but her presence will be missed on the show. Perhaps the level of people in show is different to previous years or maybe it is just not very exciting anymore more. Who knows? I wonder if there even will be another series next year as Sir Alan Sugar has now been appointed the business tsar by Gordon Brown so things may have changed. I guess we will just have to wait next year to find out.