Sir Alan Sugar becomes so angry with his apprentices in next weeks show, that he loses his temper and fires TWO of the incompetents.

This is a first for the show and The Mirror reported today that Sir Alan fires the first loser and then says to the remaining pair: “I’m telling you now – as unusual as it is – one of you is still going to get fired.”

He reportedly adds to the unfortunate team members: “I told you never to underestimate me. And don’t try to second guess what I’ll do.”

I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes at that meeting!

Sir Alan Sugar has very publicly blasted the contestants from last years series as being ill prepared and not up to scratch. In fact he told the Daily Star that he only agreed to take part in a third series if the Apprentice’s were of a much higher calibre.

He said of the contestants: “You’d have thought…they’d have done their homework, seen every programme, looked out for certain things to do and not to do, in certain tasks.

“(But) in the second series, they didn’t even know who I was, some of them, or what my business was: what I do, what I’ve sold, what I make, so there you go.”

I am looking forward to The Apprentice staring later this spring. More people being fired by Alan Sugar….who wouldn’t love it?

But I’m not sure how the celebrity version will go as ‘Sir’ Alan Sugar brings his abrasive business style to Comic Relief.

In Comic Relief Does The Apprentice, 10 top celebrity candidates will battle to build businesses that must raise as much money as possible for the charity.

Over two gruelling days the high-profile stars toil as two teams under the watchful eyes of Sir Alan’s sidekicks, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford.

The backdrop is London and, for the celebrity candidates, Sir Alan sets a tough, streetwise, hands-on task that calls for discipline, teamwork, creativity and sheer hard work.

If they succeed, the show climaxes in a star-studded commercial fight to the finish.

If they fail, their celebrity status won’t save them, because, the following day, the teams are called to Sir Alan’s infamous boardroom to defend their performances.

Whatever the outcome, one team wins and one team loses. Sparks will fly. And in the losing team, a celebrity is going to get fired.

The Apprentice winner, Michelle Dewbery, has resigned from Alan Sugars company less than a year after winning the coveted job. She is leaving to set up her own business.

Rumours are flying that Sir Alan was fed up with Michelles private life interfering wih her work, although the pair both deny that this is true.

Sir Alan commented, “She leaves with my blessing, and there is no question that I would consider using her new company to work with her again on special projects that need evaluating.�

I’m disappointed in Alan Sugar (do we always have to call him ‘Sir’?).

He seemed to have plenty of background information on Jo Cameron’s antics during the negotiations task, yet he gave her a reprieve. “She’s mad”, he said “a bit like me.” Self-praise being some kind of recommendation, no doubt.

Jo was a terrible project leader on tonight’s show. She nominated herself – against the wishes of everyone else – as leader, then let the whole effort descend into anarchy because she couldn’t control the situation. She dumped the final part of the task on Ruth Badger’s team because Jo, Karen and Alexa had faffed around most of the day. Her performance was just terrible.

Then in the boardroom, she stabbed Karen in the back by suggesting that she was responsible for the screw-up with the tyre. Karen, of course, looked incredulous at the very suggestion. But Sugar fired her anyway, leaving the utterly inept Jo in the show! Unbelievable!

Who would you have fired this week?

The Task

Cracker task on The Apprentice this week – the girls and boys teams were taken to the London Stock Exchange where the venerable Sir Alan gave them a speech about negotiation skills and how buyers never accept the first price they’re given.

The creepy crawlers were given a list of 10 items and £1,000 spending money. They had to buy everything on the list, but everything had to be bought at a negotiated discount.

The Girl’s Team

What smart-arse decided to call the team ‘Velocity’? Whoever it was should be fired. Immediately.

Oh, but the girls were terrible. Firstly, HR Manager Jo Cameron nominated herself dictator for the day, then spent the rest of the task pissing off her team and achieving nothing herself. Doesn’t HR stand for Human Resources? Did she take an aptitude test to get into that job?

Jo’s low points included insisting that Ruth’s team check in with her before they closed any deal. The girls really didn’t like that idea, but Jo continued to micro-manage them until they hung up on her. I would’ve done too… Also, when it looked like Jo’s group weren’t going to find a tyre (the last object on their list), they passed responsibility to Ruth’s group right at the end. Dirty tactics…

The Boy’s Team

The boy’s team got off to a much quicker start, but I’ve got to ask what the hell Syed thought he was playing at taking everybody to East London? Numpty. He obviously didn’t know where he was going! Anyway, at least they got everything on the list.

I’ll cover the losing team and the firing in the next post…

OK, I’m decided. I’m going to start watching The Apprentice.

I saw a few episodes last year before we started doing Unreality TV and loved it! Alan Sugar pulls no punches with the wannabe entrepreneurs, and it’s entertaining to watch some of these folk sweating as they try to excuse themselves or backstab a colleague or whatever.

Anyway, in preparation for the next episode tomorrow night, I did a bit of scouting about the blogosphere to see what other folks thought of the series so far. Yep, investigative journalism at it’s finest….

Freeman has a commentary on the opening episode of The Apprentice which is funny and he was apparently in the auditions for the last series. Rob Buckley isn’t impressed by the jargon-talking, self-fellating arrogant business types who don’t apparently have any real clue between them, but isn’t that the beauty of the show?

Martin Little thinks that Jo Cameron and Syed Ahmed are plants, purely for comedy value. Interesting. I don’t think Sir Sugar would go for a stunt like that, would he? Finally, Lady Muck has another great commentary on the early episodes.

Well, that’s enough for tonight. I’m sort of looking forward to tomorrow night’s Apprentice now! If you’ve been watching The Apprentice so far, let me know what you thought of it.