The Apprentice: Naomi nobbled

This week on The Apprentice, Naomi Lay was laid out cold after picking stickers to sell on TV. I thought that was an unfair decision after Simon Ambrose failed as a producer although he tried hard bouncing up & down on a mini-trampoline. He also grabbed the solo limelight for himself when a better combination would have been him & Naomi together - I'm not sure the shopping TV audience is ready for cross-ethnic TV couples and Tre Azam on his own, with his brand of straight talking sales.

The Apprentice: JJB - Jadine Johnson Begone

In tonight's The Apprentice, Jadine Johnson was fired for missing her daughter and going AWOL for a couple of hours. I thought that was a harsh decision especially as Simon Ambrose, the PM, gave Lohit Kalburgi a poor list of leads to phone for appointments. Many of the numbers were wrong or were for garden centres. He also chose badly, with the electric shock torture device / air filter being hard to sell.

Jadine joins Ifti Chaudri as the 2nd ethnic minority candidate to go because their missed their children. What does it say about ethnic minorities and their devotion to their kids versus the relentless devotion to business that Alan Sugar is looking for.

She looked a more relaxed & beautiful in "You've been fired" as did Adam Hosker, last week, on BBC2 after the main event. You can see how the fired candidates are exhausted & stressed during the challenges. Perhaps being fired and getting away from the pressure is what they needed & wanted.

On the BBC website, both Katie Hopkins & Kristina Grimes are both described as single mothers. Is this going to be an issue that eliminates them? Interestingly, the men who are left are not listed as single or married fathers.

On "You've been fired", there was speculation that Katie is trying to be The Apprentice but her contreversial remarks to camera are a launchpad for a media career. With her being so quotable, she looks set for comfy sofa chats, glossy magazine interviews and perhaps her own tabloid column or cable TV programme, followed by a 6 figure book deal.

The Apprentice: Ghazal's gone

After being on the losing team in last week's The Apprentice, when Adam Hosker got fired, Ghazal Asif volunteered to be PM and got her wish this week. Alas, she came a cropper when she didn't use her brand & advertising gurus, Katie Hopkins & Naomi Lay, effectively. Her team failed to promote a brand and get over the message that they were selling trainers.

Up till this week, their were 4 ethnic minority candidates out of 8, Ghazal Asif, Tre Azam, Jadine Johnson & Lohit Kalburgi. This 50% contingent is far higher than previous series and is much higher than the proportion in the country. I wonder if the BBC went very-PC & OTT in getting so many on the shortlist, not forgetting Ifti Chaudri, of course.

The Apprentice: Adam's 'ad it

Alas, Adam Hosker was fired in The Apprentice tonight. He mis-calculated the penalty on getting the Nigella seeds so it was worth arriving late to get them.

I was shocked & disappointed that Ghazal Asif, being of Indian origin, didn't realise what they were earlier in the day.

Adam made a tactical mistake in letting Katie Hopkins and Kristina Grimes (his 2 sworn enemies) go off together and plot against her. He should have kept one of them, probably Katie, in his car. She wished he would be run over!!

As a character, I liked his straight-talking and exploration of the flaws his PM's plans. I thought he took a lot of flak for his so-called "negativity" but he was right most of the time.

The Apprentice: Paul's Poor Performance

In this week's The Apprentice, Paul Callaghan was justly fired for trying to flog cheap cheese to the French, buying sausages that he couldn't cook and wandering off to sell the raw sausages with his flirt-friend, Katie Hopkins. With those 2 being the only French speakers, he left the rest of his team on their stall without a French speaker. He also didn't give Adam a budget for the sign so it cost 2x as much as he wanted.