Finally the candidates are given a day to whip their business plans into shape, as though they haven’t written them. It’s a happy day for Camilla sticking nuts into a blender (“Oh it feels so good to have nuts back in my life!”). She insists there’s “nothing like it on the shelves” – apart from all that nut milk.
Getting into the spirit of physically embodying the business plan, Sian wriggles around a shocking pink skinny swim suit that you’d need to get a Chilean wax to wear (long and thin). She insists she’s “just a girl from Leeds” (that famed jewel of the maritime).
Daniel, perhaps unsurprisingly claims to have created a soluble hangover cure. I foresee problems with the word “cure”. My bets pre-show for most Business Plan bullshit were Dan and Sian by the way.
Sabrina looks like she’s just chilling outside playing swingball, but apparently her business plan is to do with tennis events and this is the best the producer could come up with.
Khadija draws the short straw, demonstrating her business by cleaning the house and saving the Beeb a few bob (“Pink for Sink!”). “I might come across in the wrong way.. but since then I’ve not been aggressive.. I say what I think!” she says aggressively.
Next day they pretend to wake up at 6am and Camilla pretends to sleep with a teddy bear. It probably vibrates.
At the Leadenhall Building, Sugar greets his candidates and reveals he’s invested £2m in the last 8 winners – possibly more if he paid any to sign Non-Disclosures and gets them to hand in their scrawled dreams/business plans to Claude and Karren.
First interviewer is media mogul Mike Souter. He’s up against Sian who lists key magazine contacts. Unfortunately Mike publishes one of the named magazines and the two people she listed don’t work there anymore. Nice research Sian.
Another media megaboss Claudine Collins interviews Daniel next, forcing him to read a Joey Essex-esque extract from his business plan aloud – it’s all about getting drinks and sparklers and girls and being awesome. I’m wincing too much to spot if he looks sheepish. “You sound like a prize imbecile” Claudine summarises.
Next Camilla is interviewed by regular rottweiler Claude Littner. “Yoo hoo!” she exclaims on the way in. Claude pulls a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle “Yoo hoo?” Camilla looks embarrassed “Sorry!”. Good start!
Claude has an issue with Camilla’s brand names such as “naughty love juice”. “Your ideas are all based around sex” he claims. Camilla does a shocked sex face in response. Camilla shows Claude round her sprawling business plan. It has lots of pictures in but unfortunately she can’t account for £20k of her takings. “Let’s face it” Claude deadpans. “One of us left out 20k and it’s not me”.
The final interviewer is Lynda Plant (not that one) and she asks Khadija what she thinks the average net profit is for cleaning businesses. Khadiha reckons 12% , Lynda reveals it’s 5% yet Khadija’s Business Plan claims it will be 30%. Whoops! Khadija’s also claimed that she can move from her impressive (from £20 in 3 years) current turnover of £72K to over a million. Lynda’s not sure it’s realistic. “MAYBE THAT’S SLIGHTLY AMBITIOUS” Khadija responds. It’s a good thing she hasn’t got aggressive. She’s also budgeted for a London office. “Why?” laughs Lynda, “You haven’t conquered Peterborough yet?” Khadija shouts back at her and Lynda is all talk to the palm “I’ve heard it all before thank you”.
Khadija shimmies back to the Waiting Room of Tears Before Bedtime. “Me and Lynda have had a whale of a time” she announces blythly. “That’s what I aspire to be like one day”. I honestly think they should both feature on a Daytime TV show solving crimes and going on adventures together with there always being a will-they-won’t-they-lez-up frisson? I’d watch it anyhow.
Camilla armed with this knowledge goes to see Lynda next – whispering “She’s just a woman” in the lift up like it’s Ripley’s “Lucky Lucky Lucky” mantra from Alien. Lynda is also evil to her – but she has a point. Camilla’s only been running her business for 3 months and only within 20 miles of Blackburn. And she’s only sold just over a grand’s worth of nut milk ( that’s a lot of nuts though). She wants to get tetra-packed and has a quote on 90k units. Lynda isn’t convinced she can make that many but Camilla does have a kitchen at home. Camilla fires back that it’s a huge market and she has “expertise” but Lynda’s there with the burn “That’s like me saying I am a caterer if I made a stew in the kitchen – you are a long way from the supermarket”.
Khadija goes to see Claude, accompanied by spooky music. “Do you think you’re difficult to work with?”. She denied this (“They all seem to like me”) and Claude points out he was there and saw it all ha! By way of example he asks if she was rude to tell Sabrina to “shut up” which she denies claiming instead she “eradicated that input” (shudder). He describes her business as “domestic cleaning” which riles her up (“ It’s NOT just domestic cleaning – there’s a building here I could clean!”, Claude “No you couldn’t”). Khadija insists she knows what’s she’s talking about after 3 whole years in the cleaning business and Claude’s got his head in his hands “Oh please no no Khadija no no!”
She flounces back to the Waiting Room of Perspiration. “How was it?” they ask. “Intense” she retorts. “Oh no” exclaims Camilla. “I was counting on Claude being nicest”. Have any of these people ever watched the show.
Mike pulls Daniel up on his product’s claims to provide “hangover relief with rehydration salts and lost vitamins” and the fact there are two different brand names – overseas it’s called “hangover cure”, here it’s “revival shots”.
Dan claims the laws in the UK are “draconian” in fact much more draconian than those fluffy liberals in the UAE (!) as he can’t make spurious medical claims in the UK. Fancy! Mike asks how many he’s sold and Dan replies 47k. In that case, Mike wonders why the product page on Amazon claims that over 1 million have been sold globally. Daniel gets transparently cagey, wondering how that could have got there. “I’d rather you didn’t lie” Mike suggests. “Er its highly likely I wrote that” Dan chances. “Maybe 90%”. “Would you say 100% ?“ Mike suggests “You wrote it”. “Yeah” says Daniel. He doesn’t even look ashamed. Mike is “disappointed” (really?).
Dan swaggers back to the Waiting Room of Fear with not a hint of guilt ( “”Yeah it was easy!”). I know he’s a bullshitter but he’s very likeable.
Claudine quizzes Sian about suggesting her swimwear is affordable for students. “Not at £50” she insists. Sian says she’d buy it as a student – making the worse case for alleviating student debt ever.
Claude points out to Sabrina that no matter how great her “mini tennis events” are (and if we want to win Wimbledon more I’d give them a go) that she’s reliant on other peoples courts meaning she has to cancel events. I feel for her as an event organiser.
Claudine holds a picture up to Camilla “What does this say to you?” It’s a picture of a hungry female mouth drenched in nut milk. It’s fucking filthy to be frank. Claudine thinks no supermarket would go within miles of it (Anne Summers however).
Mike points out Khadijas has ten billion logos for her business and it turns out this is what she does at night on her mobile. She’s mad, and as Mike points out it renders her trademark worthless.
Dan meets Lynda and gets confused as to whether he’s launched in 3 countries or 3 continents. “Whereabouts in Asia?” she asks. “Erm is Australia in Asia?” retorts Dan.
Claudine asks Camilla about her zero costs for staff and Camilla admits she’d like to employ her out of work family members, which is really nice but surely it’s nepotism and you can’t do that. Oh Claudine’s just said that.
In the Waiting Room of Confidence Collapse Sian wonders “Maybe he’s gonna fire us all this year” – and let’s face it that would be a great last show ever.
Sian’s business plan insists she has passion and fire, but Claude states he hasn’t seen it (“I don’t know you after 11 weeks. You’re like vacant”). That is the meanest thing to say isn’t it? It turns out part of Sian’s plan is to spend the whole prize money on celebrity marketing (like she has enough – she couldn’t even afford Harry Redknapp to model a swimsuit now). Claude worries that could blow LordAlan’s prize money, but Sian “believes in it”. “That’s what’s so sad” sighs Claude.
Mike Souter manages to inveigle Sabrina into answering yes or no questions rather than talking about her plan – she tries to explain on return to the Waiting Room of WTF but they all laugh her (clearly she’s a bit wordy in real life – how dare she!?)).
Claude gets to meet Daniel “So it’s the final 5 – are you surprised you made it?” “Absolutely not!” retorts Dan. “I am” says Claude, who points out Dan has missed a lot of competitors from his plan. “A few may have been omitted” Dan admits. Claude concludes that Dan is “SO BLOODY UNTRUSTWORTHY” but he does make it sound sexy. Dan tries to be a grown up and says with Sugar’s money he’d get a packaging machine to take the cost per unit down and then look into global expansion.”That’s the type of serious business man we really want to see” Claude deadpans. The pisstaking swine!
Lynda is mean to Sian by pointing out that her swimwear is basically designed to fit bums fannies and boobs so like anything else. Why beaks hunchbacks and vestigial tails are not catered for is beyond me. To be fair she has a point – as it’s hard to tell the difference between Sian’s stuff and anything else from the highstreet. Maybe its shark repellent? Lynda is again worried about scalability (“You produced less than 400 garments then want to go to 17k in the first year?”). Sian claims to know manufacturers, but Lynda is unimpressed. However she makes it all worse by being nice. “I was once told you can’t build a brand in Leeds – well I did it and you can… er stop crying and just be realistic”.
Claudine meets Khadija and says she’s been told she’s aggressive. Khadija tears up as she’s just hungry to do well for her kids. Claudine advises her well “”You’ve got a law degree, you have a huge amount to be proud of. You have to channel that passion and not be aggressive – it will be your downfall”.
By now it’s become the Waiting Room of tears and false hugs. Daniel just raises his eyebrows at all the emo women “I’m feeling fresh – you look like you’re defeated”. Nobody is impressed.
Claudine accuses Dan of profiteering on heavy drinkers. He claims it’s about moderation which makes the “cures hangovers” part of his marketing a bit bollocks says Claudine. “I make no such claim” insists Dan. Oh Dan. She reads “I have designed a product that cures hangovers”. “That’s possibly worded badly” he tries. She tries to find something about Daniel beyond the bollocks. He says he gives clothes to the homeless and reveals he’s very Dad driven (imagine!). “My Dad said it’s not about what you can do for yourself – it’s what you can do for the world” Daniel reveals. I don’t think his dad was talking about fake hangover cures. Claudine asks him lots of questions about his need for Dad’s approval and he’s on the edge of tears which make his return to the Waiting Room of tears more amusing (“It was emotional”). He realises the danger and gets all cocky again – but we know.
So LordSugar gets his henchies to grass up the candidates and the main concensus is Dan’s a blagger, Sian’s too expensive and can’t “upscale”, Khadija is shouty (Lynda “Don’t worry I shouted back at her” – aww). Camilla is too sexy but her market is the fastest growing one (hmmm!). Sugar thinks Sabrina talks too much but Karren likes her.
Anyhow the candidates are back in. Whilst the name “Hangover Killers” was banned in UK under what Dan calls “draconian laws” – Sugar’s keen to point out the positives of advertising standards) At this point almost everything he says will make
him look dodgy. And it does.
Sabrina gets stick from Karren for having no assets (Oh come on love! Only Camilla’s got a kitchen!) Despite Sabrina mentioning lots of scalable uses, Sabrina is fired which makes me wonder if she was only kept in to confuse me or fuck off anyone who bullied her who was fired earlier.
Camilla insists she wants to change the “sex” thing she’s being hit with. “I don’t think any of your visuals have done that!” nips in Karren always the first to hit a sister when she’s down.
Dan’s insisting his product USP is “rehydration” and not “endorsing a drinking culture” as Sugar worries. He doesn’t worry that much as Sugar keeps him for now for having shown “business acumen”.
Whilst Khadija has impressed everyone with building a shouty cleaner business from only £20 – she’s regretfully fired as Sugar wants his nuts milked.
Sian gets the arse on as her dad “didn’t build me a kitchen” and it’s almost same class war (as usual) as Camilla’s all “My DAD BUILT ME NOTHING!”
We used to DREAM of a kitchen!
Camilla is pretty smart suggesting to Lord Sugs her product is in the early infancy of product and she can mould it to market together with him. He does a big “Hmmmm”
And sacks Dan.
So it’s a Sian vs Camilla Northern Girl nut crusher of a final. My money’s on Camilla. She’s got the most interesting product. And it’s Sugar here – how many blondes has he let win so far?
We get Dan’s taxi of doom (unfair on the women but hey?) – “I’m gutted” he says, blaming Sugar’s decision making “He’s probably going to wake up with a hangover tomorrow as aconsequence but best of luck to the girls”,
Should win:, Camilla Queen of SEX
Should not win:, Sian
Bye Bye: Sarah, David, poorFrank, Alex, (p)Rick, Kurran, Kayode (sob), JasmineBot 3000, Tom, Jackie, Sarah Ann, Sabrina, Khadija, Daniel
View From The Funny Farm 