Having watched the first few episodes, I thought I'd give my initial thoughts on how the teams and some of the candidates are doing.
First of all I feel sorry for Lord Sugar - as I think he's going to lose the £250,000 he's about to invest in one of these people. There is noone there that strikes me as someone who will be able to deliver what Lord Sugar is looking for. He'd be better buying £250k worth of premium bonds!
Both teams made a bit of a mess of the last episode - buying for the Savoy hotel. In particular, they fell into the trap of trying to buy nearly everything at retail prices. This was made worse by the fact that they shopped in London's most exclusive districts such as Mayfair and Covent Garden. Disaster!
For the Fillet Steak they should have headed for the wholesale meat market (where we bought the meat to make our sausages in week 1 last year). Instead, they both paid over £40 per kilo in shops set up to feed the hungry bellies of rich Russian Oligarchs.
Natasha thought she had it all sussed out - I'll just ask for the procurement list from a rival hotel, she thought. What a load of old cobblers - good luck to her!
Team Logic hadn't even identified all the items after 2 hours - and Vincent couldn't even pronounce ‘Physalis’, never mind go shopping for it. For the completely uneducated, the Physalis is a fruit also known as the Cape Gooseberry - I've been eating them since I was 6 years old. Thinks-she-is-royalty Melody also didn't seem to know either!
I really liked Susan in the last episode - she struggled to bag a discount on the top hats - and result, a ONE PENNY discount! Well every little helps....
Susan was direct and showed real authority - and I respected that.
Gavin on the other hand was all over the place - he showed no leadership and couldn’t run a bath (never mind a team of people) as someone pointed out.
He deserved to go!
Alex and Edward were both rightly fired too – Alex because he didn’t really seem to get involved and Edward because of his uncanny David Brent mannerisms.
I’m enjoying the series and looking forward to tonight when we'll get the next instalment. Bring it on...
Alex
