[Red Moon]

Apprentice Watch: Ian was as likely to succeed as Kermit was to serve up frogs' legs

The Tate Modern, said S'ralan Sugar, at the start of the potential apprentices' latest task, has 'the world's biggest collection of modern art'.

OK, S'ralan, name a work. Would you have even known which side of the Thames to go, if you hadn't had a chauffeur to take you there?

We stand about as much chance of Sir Alan Sugar revealing his cultured side during The Apprentice as we do in seeing last week's boys' team leader Raef take a razor to his head (this is a man who would need a pre-med combine harvester, were he ever to undergo a frontal lobotomy).

There is only one thing of any importance in the tycoon's life, and that is: Money. The aim in business is, simply, to make as big a profit as you can.

Why, then, has S'ralan succeeded in bringing together a group of dumbos who couldn't hold on to money if you force-fed it to them foie gras style?

And surely the premise of the programme - giving up well-paid jobs to be humiliated by a man with a beard for three months - shows that you have not the slightest inkling about making a dime.

Anyone worth their salt could surely have spent these three months of hell elsewhere, easily earning double the hundred grand on offer for the winner.

The Tate experiment (just another excuse for another of those escalator shots, of which the programme is so fond) was a preamble to each team taking on a pub and offering a food service - with a theme.

The boys had the Duke of Hamilton in Hampstead; the girls, the King's Head in Islington.

Having appointed Ian and Sara as team leaders, S'ralan then sent them away from the Tate Modern to choose a theme.

Raef was keen to keep it up there: They could all fake Italian accents, he said, during one of his many one per cent moments.

One problem: Lee, who was taking notes, declared: "I don't know how you spell accent."

Heaven help them when it came to the leaflets advertising the bolognese and carbonara.

The girls decided upon a Bollywood English theme, with Sara being opposed most vociferously by Claire.

"If I was project manager, we'd be doing this completely different," said the senior retail buyer, who has yet to read Fowler's English.

Claire quickly upped the ghastliness stakes to join last week's team leader Jo at the top of the table.

Throughout the task, she bullied and tried to undermine Sara, but craftily declared that, after a "difficult start", the leader had been "great" on the day.

The boys spent their time (and profit) running back to the supermarket for more ingredients.

Given that S'ralan had given both teams the names of wholesalers before the task, why didn't the boys use them?

And why on Earth did they spend £272 on marketing?

"A terrible waste of money," said S'ralan's male sidekick, Nick, in that familiar tone that makes him a dead cert to play the Grim Reaper in his next, or rather ex, lifetime.

Ian brought back Kevin and Simon to answer for themselves.

I rather like Simon, who seems to be the only person with an atom of organisation and backbone, but then he was in the army for a decade.

S'ralan wants to see Simon do something more than peel onions, but still chose him and Kevin over the hapless Ian.

Last one back to the house, Ian, is a L . . . No, I can't say it.

Source:Daily Mail