Lord Sugar's gruelling interview process 'The Apprentice' began its fourteenth series last night, as sixteen new candidates entered the process to win Lord Sugar's £250,000 investment. At the start of this year's process, Lord Sugar told the candidates "Make me money and don't p*** me off," in his typical straightforward manner.
Of course, like all the candidates before them, series fourteen of The Apprentice offered up a new batch of overly confident, business savvy entrepreneurs. One stand of this year's stand outs was Kurran Pooni, The Independent quoted one of his claims “I’ve got self-confidence oozing from my skin," the unemployed Film extra also made the bold claim that he would never be in Lord Sugar's firing line.
The oddest business plan award may also be awarded this series, as nut enthusiast Camilla Ainsworth entered the process. Although we have learnt little about her from the first task, The Express quoted how she described herself as a "Bundle of energy and creativity," but as we all know candidates often fail to live up to their overly confident claims.
Foreign first task
The new series began with a twist as the candidates were sent abroad for their very first task, as the Candidates were sent off to Malta. Despite Lord Sugar's helpful hint that the destination was "In Europe," the girl's team were still unsure of where in the world they were. The teams were given a list of items, a map and a time crunch and sent off to complete the first task of series fourteen.
Perhaps the best moment of the series came from the boy's team, who were led by motivational speaker Kayode Damali who zealously put himself forward as the first team leader. One of the items on the list was an Octopus, but the specs of it needed a "14-inch hose," made even viewers question if Lord Sugar was looking for a Mollusc.
The boys ignored owner of a tree surgery firm, Tom Bunday when he said, "Not being funny but we're not actually looking for an actual Octopus here are we?" and were greeted by a confused fishmonger as they took out their tape measure and held it up against a real Octopus.
Meanwhile, the girl's team, led by Jasmine Kudra a learning and development manager spent their day arguing and talking over each other rather than focusing on the task.
Team communication's hit a low when for the first time in Apprentice history a team ended up with two of the same items, after the main and sub-team both bought a Hasira.
Boardroom spoilers
As usual Lord Sugar was left less than impressed by his potential business partners. The Independent wrote "Sugar enjoyed humbling the excessively well-groomed young pretenders in front of him by asking them “What’s got eight legs and is bloody useless?”, very possibly the best line of his entire career."
Ultimately it was the girls who lost the first task of this series, a win for the boys who reacted overconfidently with Lord Sugar reminding them "Don't go patting yourself on the back, this ain't no great win," but his advice fell on deaf ears as the boy returned to the Apprentice accommodations praising themselves on their win.
As is usual for Apprentice candidates the girl's loss meant the beginning of the blame game, but in the end project manager; Jasmine chose to take sponsorship consultant Jackie Fast and Sarah Byrne, the owner of a children's acting academy into the boardroom.
The bottom three got even cattier as their time in the process looked like it was coming to an end, and each candidate was determined not the be the first to be fired. Although it seemed that Jackie, dubbed the negative one of the group was set to go home, but Lord Sugar made a surprising firing when it was Sarah who faced the finger and heard the first "You're fired," of the series.
