Don't you just love flatpack furniture? All that jolly messing about with screws, allen keys, washers and nuts, pieces of wood that are far too heavy for one person to hold AND fasten at the same time, and of course all those interesting little bits left over afterwards. A real bane of the twenty-first century, and this week Lord Sugar decided that what the world needs is .... no, not love, sweet love! More flatpack furniture. Oh yes, our little candidates are tasked to come up with a "unique design" for a piece of flatpack furniture, which they will then have to pitch to potential buyers, and guess what? The team that gets the most orders wins! Now, where have we heard that before? Why does Lord Sugar feel the need to keep outlining this surely easily understood concept, week in, week out, season in, season out? Can we live in the hope that one day he's going to throw a curve ball and decide the team that sells the
least will win? But before we get to that, let me just wash out --- perhaps gouge out --- my eyes, as we're treated to the wholly unnecessary sight of one of the guys wearing a thong! I've gone blind! Seriously: with all those lovely women running around in their skimpies, the camera has to focus on one of the men's flabby behinds? Well, I guess the female fans enjoyed it. Maybe. But the question must be asked: a
thong? Anyway, locking that soul-searing image away in some dark recess of my mind, where no doubt at nights when sleep won't come it will jump back out to scare the bejaysus out of me like an axe murderer (what do murderers have against axes, anyway?) leaping out of the darkness, on with the show. There's a little wave of luck from the Chinese Lucky Cat from the first episode --- yes, we think we get it, guys! Lord Sugar warns the girls that losing three times in a row will not impress him: they have yet to get a single victory together. Team leaders this time are Natalie for the girls and Jordan for the boys, and it's vampire Alex who comes up with the idea for Endeavour's, er, endeavour: a chair that folds down into a table. Or, if you prefer, a table that folds out into a chair. They think about names for a while, finally coming up with, um, "Foldo". Yes, quite. Mind you, it's better than Kurt's idea, which Nick describes as the most revolting idea he's ever come across: a chair that doubles as a recycle bin! Urgh! Still, the girls are not doing so well, with the stunningly original idea of a cube, which can be used for storing stuff. And as a table. And as a laptop tray. And for sitting on. Right. Just what the world needs. So off they go, the girls splitting into a subteam to do some market research, the boys the same. Oh and look! It's that guy Shaun off Channel 4's Four Rooms who's giving them advice, and he should know: the guy's a millionaire, with a real eye for the creative and beautiful. No, it says so on his intro to the programme. He gives them some pointers which they duly report back, including that a "cube shape is boring" and that it needs to be higher, to allow for legspace, and Natalie does what many a PM has done and lived to regret, and completely ignores the market research. Page one, Natalie! Page one! Well, maybe page three, but definitely near the start, anyway. Confusion then reigns as the girls go through something of a crisis of confidence. Despite Louisa's plea to "keep it simple", the girls go exactly the other way. Rebecca is the other voice of reason, declaring she doesn't even think the cube idea is a good one, but she's ignored. The girls are in full flight now, discussing their "multi-functional" idea. It needs the top to be upholstered. There's no time to do that: how about a cushion? Oh but we can't find one the right size. Never mind, this one will have to do: time is running out. The boys are happy though; everyone congratulates Alex on his design, and he's well pleased with it. Big laugh as posh Jason gets stuck in the exit from the factory, a sort of big catflap: well I say! Where I come from all the doors are proper sized! Grotty little thing! The next morning the designs arrive, but unfortunately the cushion hasn't been attached as it's too big. Never mind, let's just tear out some of the foam --- rip, rip, tear --- there you go! That'll fit! Yeah, and look like exactly what it is: a cushion thrown in at the last minute. It doesn't even match the colour scheme of the cube, for goodness sake! And Zee does not let us down on the boys' team this week either! He's already had a fight with someone in the last two episodes, now he excels himself, having a fight with TWO people, the PM and the ex-PM, about who should pitch. This guy has anger management issues. Or a persecution complex. Or something. Lord Sugar has as usual laid on meetings for both teams with two huge multiples, but the boys make something of a
faux pas when presenting to Argos. Er, presenting is a very apt term, as while assembling the "Foldo" Alex has his fat bum almost sticking in the executives' faces! And one of the other guys makes a quip about how they must be enjoying it! Does he think the guys are gay? Really bad move, I would have thought. One of them certainly does not look amused. Argos though don't seem terribly impressed by the girls' "Tidy Sidey", proclaiming it, as indeed it is, a "box on wheels". Louisa makes the most predictable response yet, talking about thinking outside the box --- oh ha ha, tee hee! Nevertheless, I again deplore the death of chivalry, as the girls struggle in carrying what is obviously a heavy enough carton, and neither of the two men in the shop even move to help them! What has happened to the world? Where have all the gentlemen gone? John Lewis is the other retailer laid on by His Lordship, and look distinctly unimpressed with either item. The boys make something of a further gaffe, admitting that the Foldo is aimed at the 16-40 market, and are asked do they believe that a sixteen-year-old student would have the requisite £75 to buy this? Zee then makes a total hash of one of the pitches; the woman is clearly not interested and says so, but he pushes her, almost arrogantly. Needless to say he does not get any orders, and yet he argues to take the final pitch! Is he from this planet at all? So, with the teams on the way back and the girls crowing about 174 orders --- no, not 174,000: just 174 --- sales are all done for the day and it's Boardroom bound tomorrow. Rather surprisingly, when Lord Sugar enters and says "Good afternoon" he is greeted by a stony silence! Never saw that happen before. Weird. Anyway, it's time to trot out his few "jokes" and he of course is not averse to plundering the old "think out of the box" for Evolve, and does mention that the boys' Foldo is a little high, remarking that he himself would be hard-pressed to sit on it without his legs dangling! He has a lot more to say about the Tidy Sidey, although initially he applauds them for having a product with no screws at all, but that does not last long. He does point out however that Jordan may have dropped the ball by not going to the pitches to the multiples, leaving that to the other subteam. Natalie, on the other hand, went to the multiples but decided not to pitch, as she said she had much better people to do that on her team, and so played to her strengths. Nick quips that the Foldo looks like an electric chair! But when the orders are totalled up the girls fall far short, with no orders whatever from the two multiples. The boys on the other hand have over three thousand orders to the girls', er, one hundred and seventy-four, and are the clear winners. And it's time to bring out the big guns for the treat as ... oh. The boys are off to the O2. Hmmm. Guess Lord Sugar blew the budget on last week's trip to Belgium. Oh well, c'est la vie, as they probably don't say in Brussels. The girls of course fall upon each other, everyone distancing themselves from the design of the now-hated Tidy Sidey, and the blame seems to be shifting towards Uzma, who was after all the design professional. Natalie tells her she always passes the buck, and indeed it does seem like that. As the main designer involved Uzma has to take some of the responsibility for the failure of the task, but rejects any suggestion that she do so. The Tidy Sidey is now renamed, courtesy of Lord S, to the Poxy Boxy, perhaps a more appropriate name, and as often happens with the girls' team they descend into shouting and bitching and screaming and accusation, as Lord Sugar again quips that rather than being "glueless" the product is "clueless". Get some new gag writers, Yer Lordship! It's always fun to see the team turn upon one of them and tear them apart, and here it's Uzma who's on the menu. Lord Sugar does acknowledge the fact that Rebecca was against the idea from the start, but wonders why the design went ahead in that case? He also notes that ignoring your market research is a bit pointless. Sophie, however, has been very quiet for the whole three weeks, and things like that do not escape the Boss's attention. She is in fact one of the two Natalie brings back, Uzma of course being the other one. Lord Sugar says he doesn't want to see the girls in the Boardroom again, and that they should be embarrassed with themselves. Mind you, he falls foul of Karren when she mentions that the girls all had issues with Uzma and Lord S grunts "Well, you know what women are like!" That does
not go down well with his advisor! Uzma and Natalie are screaming at each other with such passion that Lord Sugar has to allocate them time for each to speak. "Speak, and then you can speak". Class. Uzma tells him she's in the "looking good industry", in response to which Lord Sugar offers her a shovel. It's looking bad for Uzma, but rather unexpectedly, as we're waiting to see if it's her or Natalie going, he points the finger at Sophie, and she's out. Of course, it's not totally surpising --- she has mentioned that she doesn't do design and she doesn't pitch --- but I didn't see it coming. I guess it was based on the three tasks, not just this one. So that's three losses, three for three for the women, and they must be feeling pretty depressed by now. Confidence has to be at an all-time low, and they had better use that feeling to galvanise themselves to pull out all the stops and win the next task. If they lose again, they're going to find it very hard not only to get motivated, but they're going to be reduced to too small a number to compete with the boys. Of course, by then Lord Sugar will probably have mixed up the teams. Final word must got to His Lordship who declares, after the candidates have gone, and in answer to Sophie's claim that it wasn't fair that she be brought back into the Boardroom, "the only fair that goes on here is the cab fare home!" Zing! Take
that, candidates! Oh, and it seems that the double episode was only a once-off, so week four will be in, er, week three, next Wednesday night. So, till then, I want to see a vast improvement in you people or you'll all going to be fired! Toodles!