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.