And after all my “hard work” I somehow managed to miss last night’s final. Maybe something to do with the BBC hiding the fecking thing on a Sunday night!

So I’ve been trying to catch up on the completely unsurprising news that Spivvy faced school of hard knocks salt of the earth Joseph Valente and his outsourcing of tradesmen to come round to people’s gaffes and do backwards whistles whilst working out how to charge people shed loads of money on MASSIVE CALCULATORS has somehow beat New York Street Smart Daughter of Architects but never mentions it eyeliner addict Vana and her dating service for desperate socially inadequate nerds (who had about as much chance of beating Joe as Tyson Fury had of becoming a new presenter on Strictly Come Dancing).

The candidates are summoned to a big building in the city where rather than the usual convoluted link crow barred in to a spurious task – they both have to make their business plans happen, and present branding and ads to a roomful of corporate twots. The winner gets half a million of Sugar’s hard earned readies (and their future career and credibility completely screwed).  But first they have to pick a team, based on who is the least loathsome and incompetent from their previous colleagues. Joseph chooses poorly with Corporate Gary, Enthusiastic but dim Mergim, useless Elle and TA Brett amongst his team pretty quickly rather than being last to be picked along with the chubby spotty kids.  Vana wisely gets Tricky Dicky and Charleine on board (horrid as they are they do have some skills) as well as brilliant Ruth of the power clown suits. Nobody gives a monkeys what the teamnames are now I presume? (Like we ever did).

Anyhow Vana comes up with “Play Date” as a brand name for her game driven dating product, despite it sounding like a condom name or some sort of sex cream. (“Game for a Date”?) and Charleine puts together a photoshoot that appears to be advertising Saga sex workers (“A lonely old man… and a lonely girl… have a lovely moment together”). She also comes up with glow in the dark jugglers for her advert (maybe florescent willy “hoopla” would be more appropriate for an app that allows people to play games whilst they decide if they want to shag?). “It represents them passing data” she explains (rather than bodily fluids – boring!). Joseph comes up with Prime Time Plumbers (they turn up during the World Cup Final or when you’ve just started eating your tea) and creates a porn flick advert featuring Brett in his plumbers overall coming to the aid of a housewife (it’s all a bit “Schtop! This plumbing porno is not ready yet”).

Vana’s told the £250k wouldn’t be enough for start-up for a dating app despite her promising high returns, but she delivers a slick presentation complete with academic research via Oxford Uni’s “Doctor of Desire” (who sounds like someone who needs her app).  Joseph’s crapping himself but manages to talk falteringly about plumbing for a bit – so does what his rather dull branding says on the tin.

Back in the Boardroom and “Prime Time Plumbers” and the retro logo that took Joe and Brett hours to come up with are slated, but Joseph points out the name and logo doesn’t matter, it’s about knowing the business (OK let’s call it Flange Plumbers then Joe).  It transpires that Joe used the presentation as an opportunity to network with the industry bigwigs and picked up 6 or 7 business cards and possibly an STD, and his chutzpah impresses Sugar. Whilst Sugar thinks Vana is a very “clever lady” I’m not sure that’s a compliment from him (and he’s certainly not impressed by her repeated references to “venture capital”) and sure enough he picks honest to goodness Joe and his hard luck story (“Since the day I was expelled from school I knew I was going to do something big with my life.”) to be his new Apprentice.

So goodbye and see you all next  year. Merry Christmas and sleep tight by remembering, in The Apprentice, cor blimey honest to goodness jellied eel barrer boy values will always triumph over slick US glamour.

 

Winner: Joseph Valente