Alan Sugar has revealed that he turned down the chance to star in the upcoming series of Celebrity Big Brother.

The TV star and technology boss admitted that he ‘politely declined’ the chance to join the lineup of the reality TV show, which let’s face it is not a surprise to anyone.

For one he is way too famous to appear on the typically z-list lineup and secondly, let’s face it, it’s not as if the multi millionaire, with a plush London pad and American mansion needs the cash.

We just can’t believe that Channel 5 bosses even approached him! What were the chances?

View the original post Alan Sugar turned down Celebrity Big Brother 2012 on Unreality TV

Young Apprentice: Not enough people for a full Halifax advert

We’re back, baby! After missing last week’s Young Apprentice (shame on us!), we’re back and live blogging tonight’s episode with a vengeance! And, to make matters even more crazy, we’ll be trying to tweet things as well! This can only end badly!

Tonight’s installment of junior-sized entrepreneurial hijinx involves the two teams starting rival floristry businesses. For once, we’re grateful for the ridiculously extended recap, though we’re guessing if you watched the show last week, this will seem a bit excessive. Interestingly enough, some spud-faced chap got fired. I honestly don’t even remember him from the first episode. Was he in The Risk?

Lord Alan of Sugar appears to the teams via iPad, just to prove how damned hip he is. He gives them their instructions – to make as much profit as possible flogging flowers. We already know that this task was picked to give Our Alan an opportunity to quip about “everything coming up roses”. Wait and see.

Hannah leads Team Atomic, and she quickly divides the team into buyers and people who’ll pitch to the clients. Lizzie Magee takes control of her team and has trouble getting people to do the flower arranging. Everybody wants the glory of pitching. Haya’s not happy about being classed as “the designer”. And James is on their pitching team. Instant disadvantage!

In true Apprentice fashion, Lord Sugar has set up three big industry leads for the teams to pitch to. If they can win the big corporate contracts, it means a massive lead on the competition. If not, they’ll be forced to hustle to offload their stock at the end of the day. You know the drill by now.

James and Harry are the first to pitch to an upmarket hotel, but instead of waiting for actual pricing from Lizzie back at base, they decide the best strategy is to pluck a random number out of the air. Lewis and Zara hit a West End theatre and price for bouquets for the principal actors in a stage production of Ghost. Zara adds £20 to the official pricing, to Karren Brady’s obvious dismay, but the producers seem happy with their pricing. James and Harry make their pitch to the theatre shortly afterwards and undercut them at £35 per bouquet. Uh-oh.

James and Harry of course secure a deal, but we see James in the car saying they should make the bouquets out of “cheap shite”. Charming.

Zara and Lewis embarrass themselves in a business meeting when they can’t silence their phone. Miraculously, they get good feedback from the client before they leave. After a successful meeting, they’re extra thrilled when they secure the theatre contract as well! James and Harry wander into the same pitch, but turn their clients off by wittering on about “rainforest chic”. Nick Hewer is not impressed with their ability to interprete their customers’ needs. Score another contract to Lewis and Zara.

Delivering the goods

Day two, and our intrepid entrepreneurs have to make up their corporate orders and sell their additional stock on the streets of London. Things get frenzied for Zara’s team as they stop production for their stalls in order to complete their corporate orders. On the other side of the city, Lizzie’s team is making up some dog-ugly floral displays. Really disappointing stuff.  The other team present their incredibly professional orders to their clients and get rave reviews from everyone they meet. This being The Apprentice, I have a sneaking feeling they’re going to fail!

There’s much hilarity as James and Haya try to pass their anaemic displays off as high art to the hotel chain. Honestly, the bouquets they’ve created look like they’ve been stolen from a cemetary.

After all that, it’s down to street vending as both teams get down to flogging their overstock. Some of the feedback on Hannah’s team’s flowers is that they’re selling them too cheaply for London prices. And in an inexpected display of business accumen, James’ crew start selling to businesses in their area. Harry is desperate to sell something from Little Shop Of Horrors. Otherwise, it seems James is actually doing a good job, despite his awful rhyming sales patter.

And in a happy postscript, Harry manages to sell the ugly-ass jungle plant to an unsuspecting restauranteur.

Boardroom

Team Atomic seem to be presenting very well in the boardroom. They explain away the faux pas with the pricing in the hotel, and there are plenty of success stories about how well they satisfied their other clients.

James, on the other hand, disgraces himself almost immediately by telling Lord Sugar that “there’s not a lot of numbers in economics”. And there are plenty of other horror stories about how the team lost clients.

Atomic made a profit of £450.96 while the other team made £463.52. Shocking! And it confirms that, despite the much more successful business strategy of Team Atomic, the higher price strategy clearly works. It’s worked in previous episodes. And in the last series too.

Elimination

This is going to be a tough one, because everybody actually worked together quite well and they presented incredibly well. Lewis takes some flack for not participating in the pitches fully, whereas Zara takes some blame for putting up the price in the hotel pitch. It’s clear that Lord Sugar blames the loss of that pitch for the team’s failure to win the task. Hannah chooses to bring Zara and Harry (shockingly not Lewis) back into the boardroom.

She explains that Zara went against her pricing scheme, and tells Harry that he’s simply not a team player. Zara responds to the criticism by saying that the exact same strategy worked with another client, so it was a purely hit and miss thing. All three argue their respective cases very well. However, Hannah comes across as very professional by the start, but by the end she’s lost a little bit of our respect.

Lord Sugar wastes no time in telling Zara that she’s safe. And she shouldn’t be in the boardroom. Harry’s in the frame. He’s been warned in the past about his teamwork skills. But Hannah’s at risk for pricing too low. And then she’s eliminated. Sugar tells her that she might have been safe if she’d brought a different set of people into the boardroom. I think he means Lewis. Such a shame Hannah had to go since there was only a profit difference of £12.

If you enjoyed this week’s Apprentice liveblog, you might also want to check out Tim’s How to win the Floristry Task post on Slouching Toward Thatcham. He points out some of the places where the candidates went wrong in this episode!

Next week: Having tackled the mother and baby market last week, the teams are being sent to select products to sell to the Over 50s next week. Looking forward to it!

View the original post Young Apprentice 2011 Live Blog: Week 3, The Floristry Business on Unreality TV

Young Apprentice: Not enough people for a full Halifax advert

Alan Sugar’s back with another Junior Apprentice. Sorry, what’s that, they’ve renamed it to Young Apprentice? Right, just got the memo. Thanks Sir Alan.

Welcome to the first episode liveblog for the new series of Young Apprentice. We’ll be watching a bunch of upstart kids dressed in borrowed suits try to navigate the stormy waters of big business.

Tonight’s first episode is all about flogging ice-cream. Given the recent weather, I think we can assume that this episode wasn’t filmed in the last week or two! We’re five minutes in and the teenaged candidates aren’t remotely as annoying as their fully grown counterparts on the main Apprentice show.

21:11: The teams are settling on names – suggestions floated are Kinetic, Atomic. Nick Hewer is already practising his world famous grimace! Just like the school disco, the teams have been formed along gender lines.

21:13: Hayley Forrester has assumed team leader responsibilities for the girls’ team. They’ve decided to do fruity flavours with a “traditional twist”. The boys will undoubtedly choose to go solely with vanilla. Yep, the idea’s out there.

21:15: The boys agree on a cookie-based strategy, but James immediately sets himself apart as the group naysayer and gets quickly brushed aside by everybody else. Way to let the side down, Northern Irish lad! James goes on to suggest a baffling range of pirate-inspired catchphrases. Yes, his speciality is economics not marketing.

21:17: Back to the girls, and there are two main ideas on the go: one is “Treat the lips, trim the hips”, the other is the dreadfully cliched “I scream…” Bleugh.

21:22: Instant anarchy as GCSE maths teaching fails our intrepid businesspersons! Ingredients are mis-measured, and kitchen disasters abound as the apprentices  start to bicker and shift the blame. A whole batch of ice-cream mix is thrown out because of the horrendous error. At this point we’re wondering how Nick Hewer keeps quiet and let’s them make such massive screw-ups!

21:25: Boy team heads to the seaside with their treasure chest of treats and ridiculous pirate catchphrases. Outspoken James tries to change the pricing structure to £1, but Karren Brady thinks that even £1.50 is too cheap on such a hot day. Elsewhere, the girls’ team has passed on the cost of their screw-up on to the customer – an extortionate £3 per scoop.

21:28: Ouch! The girls are even charging extra for the cone. What if you don’t want one – will they just dumpo the ice-cream in your hand?

21:31: Captain Vanilla (aka James) is really annoying. We’re from Northern Ireland and his voice is cutting through our heads! Luckily, more sensible heads prevail and the boys go directly onto the beach and start selling the ice-cream to sunbathers.

21:33: The girls discover that they’ve got a lot of excess ice-cream in their van. Oops! Someone’s going to get a roasting for this gaffe! Both teams seem to end the day with all their stock sold – but whose pricing strategy will have reaped the biggest profit? Will the girls cover their losses on the wasted ice-cream mix?

21:36: The boys are surprisingly together in the boardroom. Well, until James disagrees with Mahamed on who came up with the awful pirate theme. In fairness to James, he stuck to his annoying pirate theme right to the end. The girls have to admit to their “out of control” manufacturing process, which Lord Sugar says “Never mind Ben & Jerry, it’s more like Tom & Jerry”. He’s even aghast when he discovers the girls charged for the cone.

21:40: Boys make a profit of £559.29. The girls made a profit of £708.34. Ripping off your customers for the win! And this’ll see the boys’ team at each other’s throats!

21:44: No messing from Harry Hitchens – he accuses James of being like a bulldozer throughout the task. Muhamed – who had no apparent talent through the task – seems to be particularly adept at defending himself from criticism. James is taking criticism for trying to undercut themselves at the start.

21:49: Lord Sugar turns his attention to the Watermelon and Apple ice-cream flavour. Which mentalist came up with that one? James, Muhamed and Harry are coming back to the boardroom. James tries to pull a Tim Campbell stunt, but he’s simply not likeable enough for it to work.

21:51: James might as well paint a giant target on his face. He has an alarming ability to irritate everyone around him. Muhamed however shows a startlingly bad attitude – he’s incredibly arrogant and aggressive when provoked. But Sugar keeps us guessing right up to the end – he points out the flaws with each candidate, but ultimately ejects Muhamed from the process.

21:56: A final word of warning from Lord Sugar to James: “Watch it. Cos I’m watching you.” I’d say Sugar will have a low tolerance for egomaniacs like James. And on the flip side, James has managed to piss of everyone in the group, which means any wrong move will have him straight back in that boardroom next week.

Next week: The candidates are tasked with creating an innovative new baby product. Recipe for disaster…

Other takes: I was blown away by the wonderful rival liveblog (or “rivelog” as they put it!) on Tellysquawks – their Apprentice liveblog post is thoroughly recommended if you’re in need of a laugh! You can also follow them on Twitter @tellysquawks is you like that kind of thing!

View the original post Young Apprentice 2011: First episode liveblog! on Unreality TV

Nick Hewer has admitted that his famous boss Lord Alan Sugar likes to beat him on a regular basis.

The PR guru has worked with the Apprentice star for decades but admitted that despite their long running business relationship, the Amstrad boss takes “absolutely no notice” of what he and Karren Brady tell him about the contestants hoping to land a chance to go into business with Sugar.

Nick explained: “He wants to know every single b****y thing. When we brief him, he won’t have seen anything and we’ll have to know all the answers otherwise he gets out his rolled up newspaper and beats us up. And then he takes absolutely no notice anyway.

“I might say, ‘The blonde chap is a complete space cadet and must be ejected at your soonest convenience’ and he’ll just grunt.”

Nick also admitted that he also came close to fighting outside the boardroom once, when former co-advisor Margaret Mountford confronted some ‘Apprentice’ fans who tried to take a photograph of her.

Nick added to heat magazine: “We were in Canary Wharf in London after a long day and two guys, who were obviously p****d, were trying to take our photograph.

“She lunged at them and shouted, ‘Give me your camera’. I said, ‘Let them take your picture otherwise it’ll turn into a brawl’ and she said, ‘You’ll protect me won’t you?’ I said, ‘No Margaret, ‘I shall jump into your rather large handbag and hide’.”

View the original post The Apprentice 2011: Alan Sugar likes to beat Nick Hewer with a rolled up newspaper! on Unreality TV

Tonight’s episode of The Apprentice had the two teams creating, branding and pitching new pet food products. Unusually, the success in the task wouldn’t be determined by sales figures, but at Lord Sugar’s discretion based on what his various advisors told him about each team’s work.

Once again, the candidates were split into groups. Vincent Disneur was assigned by Sugar to be project manager for Team Logic (later to be dubbed Team Tragic), while the abrasive Glenn Ward led Team Venture. Vincent’s team were told to develop a pet food product for dogs while Venture were given cats.

Early failures

Arguably both teams were led to early failures by their project managers. Vincent’s team had already decided that they were creating a ‘universal’ dog food product that would suit every type of dog. However, in a focus group meeting that included a vet, they were told that nutritionally a one-size-fits-all solution wouldn’t work for every dog. And it may alienate and upset some dog owners.

How do you deal with discovering bad news in a focus group meeting? You simply ignore the stupid vet and steamroller on.

Likewise, Glenn steers Team Venture down a blind alley. Despite Leon having a quirky and fun suggestion of “Lucky Fish” as a product name, Glenn makes meditation noises as he gets into his “designer zone”…and comes up with an embarrassingly bad pun on cat’s eyes. Not content with the inexplicable “Cat Size” as a brand, he throws in the awful “see their light” as a slogan. Good lord.

There’s not really that much to report on this episode though. For the most part, the teams work rather well on their tasks. There’s good co-operation between everyone for the most part, although both project managers are frustratingly dismissive of their subordinates. Except…

Vincent and Jim’s Bromance

Yep. It’s Nick Hewer who warns us that Vincent is leaning a little too much on Northern Irish businessman extraordinare Jim Eastwood. And it’s kind of true – Vincent seems to defer a lot to Jim.

Until they get into the boardroom. When Lord Sugar asks Vincent whose idea the product name was, Vincent mumbles, trying to find a way to explain the name as a team effort. Jim takes no crap – he puts his hand up and takes credit for the name. It’s typical of Jim’s take-no-prisoners attitude in the boardroom. But more on that later.

Team Venture Win With Cat Size

You could say that Lord Sugar “saw their light”, but the overwhelming feedback from the industry experts was that Team Venture’s product and campaign was the best realised. They had praise for the advert, which was managed and shot by Natasha Scribbins, and said that the product itself “could actually go out on the shelves”. However, Glenn’s one big point of input – the brand name – was frequently ridiculed, the play on words being utterly irrelevant for the kind of product it was.

Jim gets a little overconfident

He’s been a favourite of ours since his boardroom confrontation a few weeks ago, but Jim Eastwood may have stuck his neck out too far tonight. Jim clearly knows how good he is, but he vociferously defended himself against criticism tonight, even sniping back at Karren Brady and Lord Sugar. And while being a little bit hard-nosed can be entertaining and show Sugar that he means business, I doubt I was the only one shouting at the telly tonight: “Jim, sit down and shut the hell up!”

Surprisingly, he inspired enough loyalty from Vincent that he avoided being brought back into the boardroom, despite being at the heart of the flawed plan. Instead, Vincent brought Ellie Reed and Natasha Scribbins back.

Natasha saved. Vincent and Ellie fired

If one thing about this daring move angered Lord Sugar, it was the fact that Natasha’s advert had been singled out for praise by an advertising agency and Vincent had brought her back regardless.

However, Sugar had harsh words for Ellie, whose input in recent weeks hasn’t been obvious. And surprisingly, she’s fired. This was quite shocking, because this task showed a clear failure of the project manager when Vincent decided to ignore the valuable feedback from the focus group.

Except…Vincent got fired in a shocking double-elimination that we didn’t see coming! Sugar was still incensed at Vincent’s decision to protect his mate Jim and put other candidates in the firing line. Plus, Vincent’s been on the losing side too many times for that to be ignored. And so instead of one despondent candidate going home, we have two.

I’m definitely a little bit worried about Jim Eastwood’s chances now. Hopefully he’ll wind his neck in (to use familiar Northern Irish slang) and toe the line a bit more in future. Nothing wrong with standing up for yourself, but I get the impression Lord Sugar thinks throwing someone else out as a sacrificial lamb isn’t a nice thing to do.

View the original post BBC Apprentice Double Firing Shocker! Vincent Disneur and Ellie Reed fired! on Unreality TV

Cheryl Cole beat Katie Price, Susan Boyle and Dannii Minogue in the book charts this Christmas, with her release being the most popular celebrity autobiography during the festive season.

The X Factor judge, 27, climbed to the No 1 spot with her autobiography Through My Eyes, which sold an amazing 15,000 copies in just six hour.

Cheryl’s success pushed Katie Price’s You Only Live Once into second position.

Third in the chart was Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle’s ‘The Woman I Was Born to Be’, fourth was comedian and new Britain’s Got Talent judge Michael McIntyre’s ‘Life and Laughing: My Story and Sir Alan Sugar, 63, came fifth with ‘What You See Is What You Get.’

‘We can’t get enough of celebs,’ Asda’s Melanie Ellison told the Daily Star, ‘biographies are once again proving to be a huge hit.’

View the original post Cheryl Cole’s autobiography beats Katie Price, Dannii Minogue, Alan Sugar and Susan Boyle on Unreality TV

The 22-year-old entrepreneur – who lost out on the chance to work for the business mogul at the semi-final stage of this year’s show – has every faith in his abilities to succeed, despite not winning ‘The Apprentice’.

He said: “Will I be as successful as Lord Sugar? Yeah, absolutely. I definitely see myself as uber-successful and y’know, I certainly will be or I’ll die trying. I suspect I might die trying.

“But I absolutely see myself as a multi-millionaire or a billionaire by that age.”

Stuart also predicted he will one day take a seat on the panel of ‘Dragon’s Den’ – which sees successful business figures invest their money into new ventures – and expects it to be sooner rather than later.

He added in an interview with heat magazine: “When I’ve earned my first million pounds, I’ll definitely be a Dragon. I think I’ll make a million pounds by the age of 25, realistically. You know, you have to be realistic.

“I’ll have a million pounds in three years time. I’m well on my way there now – I’m just giving myself that grace period, just in case.”

View the original post The Apprentice: Stuart Baggs thinks he will be as successful as Alan Sugar! on Unreality TV

Lord Alan Sugar revealed on Daybreak this morning how ex-Apprentice advisor, Margaret Mountford, originally refused to join Sir Alan and Nick Hewer on the BBC show!

Speaking to Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley ahead of the new series, Lord Sugar said,

“Margaret – I couldn’t convince her anymore! After 5 years she said, ‘No I’m not doing it anymore’. I originally only asked her to do it once and she said to me, when I first told her that I’m doing the television programme, I remember saying to Margaret, ‘Would you do it for me?’ And typical Margaret she said, ‘Certainly not!’”

Accepting a peerage from the Labour Government last year, Lord Sugar expressed his doubt on the current spending cuts announced at the Conservative Party Conference this week. He said,

“I don’t think they’re doing the right thing cutting as dramatically, and as fast, as this coalition government wants to do it.”

He continued,

“I think dramatic cuts are going to cause some problems, I think a gradual cut so as not to create more unemployment or panic, is the way we should go.”

The business entrepreneur went on to reveal that due to the announced child benefit cuts, he would not be having anymore children! “My dear lady wife and I, I’m 63 and she’s 61, it was the final straw that broke the camel’s back – we’ve decided we’re not going in for a new baby.”

The Apprentice launches tonight, Wednesday 06 October, 9:00pm – 10:00pm BBC1

View the original post The Apprentice 2010: Lord Alan Sugar admits that Margaret Mountford never wanted to do the show on Unreality TV

Apprentice boss Alan Sugar has claimed that he is “far superior” to Simon Cowell and called his X Factor format ‘old fashioned.’

The tycoon was talking to The Sun, ahead of the launch of his new series next week, when he claimed that his business based show is nothing like Cowell’s sensationalist juggernaut.

Sugar said:

We are completely different. We are a business programme which is also quite entertaining.

“Cowell’s got a great entertainment programme. It’s an old-fashioned format. A nicely jazzed-up singing talent competition.”

And he added: “I tried to sell Simon my knighthood on eBay but the Queen won’t let it happen.”

View the original post The Apprentice 2010: Alan Sugar claims ‘I am far superior to Simon Cowell’ on Unreality TV

BBC One’s The Apprentice returns for a sixth run on Wednesday 6 October, as a new line-up of corporate contenders face Lord Sugar as they battle for boardroom supremacy.

From all corners of the country, 16 aspiring tycoons have come to London to face the biggest challenge of their careers to date – embarking on a 12-task job interview from hell with multi-millionaire tycoon, Lord Sugar. Selected for their entrepreneurial flair and burning passion for business – Lord Sugar has spotted something in all of them, but only one can succeed in becoming The Apprentice.

As Britain begins to recover from its toughest economic conditions in decades, for this year’s prospects it really is “crunch” time as they face a series of gruelling tasks designed to push their skills to the limit. They are risking it all by leaving what they know behind and venturing in to unfamiliar territory as they fight to become The Apprentice.

Failure is not an option and mistakes will not be tolerated as Lord Sugar wastes no time in telling them who is boss and laying down the rules: “I’ve read all your CVs and on paper you all look very good. But then again so does fish and chips… I need someone who is dynamic and ambitious and is not scared to take a risk. I’m not interested in any Steady Eddies or Cautious Carols. I’m looking for someone who is exceptional.”

Aided once again by no-nonsense adviser Nick Hewer, Lord Sugar will also be joined by top businesswoman and Vice Chairman of West Ham, Karren Brady. Karren knows first-hand the scrutiny the candidates will be under having taken part – and subsequently won – Comic Relief Does The Apprentice in 2007. Both Nick and Karren will be keeping a close eye on the proceedings and helping Lord Sugar to sort the wheat from the chaff to find his next Apprentice.

The candidates’ CVs reveal: an investment banker, a surgeon, an ex-Marine Commando, a cleaner, an unemployed graduate and two candidates who fell victim to the recession. The diverse line-up also includes an international candidate who hopes to eclipse her British counterparts, a candidate who once sang in front of President Bush Snr and a current Ironman 2 contender. All of them think they have what it takes, but can they prove themselves when the pressure is on?

Episode one follows the candidates as they set about making and selling sausages on the streets of London under the strict scrutiny of Nick and Karren who act as Lord Sugar’s eyes and ears throughout the process. Whether they opt for gourmet creations or cut-price, bargain bangers, only one factor will be considered in the first boardroom showdown – profit.

Series six will see egos collide and tempers soar as the cut-throat competition gets tougher with every task. The budding apprentices will open a fashion boutique, run a bakery, flog crisps in Germany, design and market a new cleaning product, treat unsuspecting tourists to open-top bus tours around the capital, and invent a new beach product in a string of merciless missions with no second chances.

With this year’s applicants desperate for a chance to reach the top of Lord Sugar’s empire, rivalry is fierce as the 16 challengers vie for a shot at Britain’s most sought after apprenticeship with a six-figure salary, on offer from one of the world’s most respected business moguls.

Lord Sugar pulls no punches as he makes his intentions clear to this year’s competitors: “It’s sink or swim, and you’ve probably picked up by now that I don’t do life jackets.”

Although the candidates will live in a luxurious London house and be given a taste of the high-flying life they dream of, the weeks ahead will be anything but glamorous as they roll up their tailored sleeves and embark upon weeks of hard graft with only one of them emerging victorious.

For these elite professionals it is make or break time in the most daunting challenge they will ever face. With gripping boardroom showdowns and ambitious candidates, this series promises to be the most tense and unpredictable yet.

One job. 16 candidates. Lord Sugar’s search for his Apprentice is about to begin…

Tune in at 9PM on BBC One, Wednesday 6 October

View the original post The Apprentice 2010: Alan Sugar is back! on Unreality TV