The Apprentice: series five, week seven

Posted by Stewart Turner

Cheap package deals to Spain, a chronic lack of investment and holidaymakers staying away in droves – the last thing the drizzly seaside town of Margate needed to hammer a final nail in the coffin of its faded seaside glory was the attention of the remaining eight Apprentices.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a credit crunch on, and rather than treat this year’s budding business tycoons to a trip sourcing mosque-shaped alarm clocks in Marrakesh, Sir Alan packed them off to the Kent coast, presumably where he used to hang out with a handkerchief tied over his Brillo-like hair in the days before he could afford to snort foie gras from the walnut veneer dashboard of his helicopter.

After Evil Debra bulldozed the entirely reasonable attempts of Howard to head up Empire by teasing him with the hallowed position of “sub-team manager”, they hit upon the idea of rebranding the town as a gay resort, despite local girl Mona’s protestations that homosexuality “isn’t such a big thing in Kent”. To aid them in their quest, they roped in a couple of sacked Littlewoods catalogue models to drool at each other over a 99 flake and drape a rainbow flag over the wet sand.

Over on team Ignite, restaurateur Yasmina took charge, and after some furious brainstorming they decided to target families. Mind you, we were talking buff families with near-perfect washboard stomachs, as the casting session made clear. At one point, a visibly hot under the collar Margaret Mountford even cracked a smile as they asked a succession of male models to lift up their shirts to see if they had what it takes to bring the punters in.

Despite Ben spending, ooh, a couple of days making a photo frame with his hands to demonstrate how to capture “more of the sea, less of Margate” for the camera, Ignite and co actually managed to turn in a half-decent campaign – the kind of thing which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the wall of a British Rail waiting room in 1979, for example.

Debra and Empire, on the other hand, turned out a half-finished leaflet and some posters boasting a font which made Comic Sans look like it was meticulously scribed by pious 10th century monk. Or as Sir Alan said back in the boardroom, while channelling a pubescent boy whose voice hadn’t quite broken yet: “It looks like it’s been produced by a bunch of LOONies.”

Naturally, Empire lost out, and after a “Punch and Judyesque” (yeah, good one Sir Alan) slanging match, Devious Deb brought Mona and resident lummox James back into the prune-faced philanthropist’s firing line. And of course, because the project manager was completely inept, an autocratic bully and talked down to everyone, she was kept in, and poor old Mona Lewis got the boot. Honestly, all this injustice is getting a bit exhausting.