The Apprentice 2024 – Week One

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder but even though we had to wait an extra month to meet this year’s batch of entrepreneurial mercenaries, the spike in emotion felt upon finally seeing them was not fondness, it was a very very long way away from fondness.

We’re into the 18th year of The Apprentice now and Sugar kicked things off with remembering the world the way it was.  No TikTok, no iPhones, Tim Campbell was on the other side of the table.  His muscle-memory of laughing like a tickled hyena whenever Alan made a funny was still there though.  Some things never change.

Week one then and the candidates, once they’d finished aimlessly dragging their wheelie-cases in front of big buildings, lined up to hear the first challenge: Corporate Away Day in the Scottish Highlands.  I visited the Scottish Highlands last year and while it was spectacular, I did remember thinking that the one thing it needed was 18 immaculately-presented chancers ruining some fishcakes.

The women’s team, led by Onyeke, opted for water-based shenanigans, despite Onyeke’s thinking that no one would want that because she can’t swim (dig, dig, keep digging – there’s logic down there somewhere).  This actually went largely okay, despite Flo’s tortuorous Q&A where the damned clients just wouldn’t ask the questions she knew the answers to!  There was also a highland games experience where they cut costs by sacking the expert instructor and just rented his kit instead.  Again, this went about as okay as throwing rocks and cabers can go – acceptably underwhelming.  Which was good, because it set the expectations for dinner…

Leading the boys this week was event planner Virdi, who told his team what they’d be doing without giving them a chance to throw in an opinion.  Abseiling and survival training would be the activities overpaid for – but there was an ace up his sleeve in the shape of him and Tre being actual international superstar DJs!  The Chemical Toilet Brothers sold this to the clients like they’d actually care.  They didn’t.  All they really cared about was having a drink back at the base – but there was no prosecco available because Phil thought the £9 price-tag was per glass and not per bottle so they didn’t order any.

There was food though.  Tepid toad-in-the-hole and mash that was probably okay when it was fresh out of the oven but Virdi was 45 minutes late bringing the guests back, resulting in Phil’s (pretty solid) job of managing the kitchen being all for nothing.  They didn’t even have time to try Oliver’s second attempt at a chocolate brownie.  The icing on this big old cake of failure was the four minutes of Scottish dancing the guests got to grumpily ignore before they had to leave.

To secure the win, Onyeke’s team just had to deliver a meal that didn’t hilariously crossover fishcakes with rhubarb crumble.  The most optimistic side of me hoped that they might have stumbled onto a new culinary concoction that went on to take the world by storm (let’s be honest, we’ve heard of weirder combinations – if Heston Blumenthal had done this, we’d probably be calling him a genius) but it was not to be.  The guests, a collection of four and five star hospitality owners, were not impressed.  There would be refunds.

Back in the boardroom and both teams were able to declare a profit before the refunds were announced.  40% was demanded back from Onyeke’s team, leaving a small profit but 52% was demanded from Virdi’s.  Asif, in a moment of adorable naivety, started celebrating because he thought the 52% was taken from the profit, not the revenue.  Bless.

Virdi brought Oliver and Steve back as his human-shields.  Steve was a surprise since he didn’t do a lot wrong and Virdi seemed to be gunning for Phil.  Sugar agreed and quickly removed Steve from the firing line.  Oliver, despite baking what might have been the greatest brownie in the history of food (we’ll never know!) just wasn’t forceful enough in pushing his strengths forward at the start and wound up a background player – never where you want to be in week one.

He knows a lot more about spoons now though.

17 remain…

For more blogs and ramblings, follow me on Twitter: @Arron_S_S

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