Imagine Chav Candidates on The Apprentice

The Apprentice is, of course, a reality TV show in which a group of aspiring young businessmen and women compete for the chance to win a £250,000 investment from Alan (Lord) Sugar who is estimated to be worth approximately £1.1 billion, making him the 145th-richest person in Britain. It’s well known that he started his career selling car aerials and any other electrical goods he could get his hands on out of a £50 van in East London, and that he rules his empire with an iron fist. He also went to school with Marc Bolan. I bet you didn’t know that did you?

Anyway, you know the show. The candidates in this ‘job interview from hell’ are split into two teams and given a series of business-themed tasks designed to test their skills in negotiation, salesmanship, teamwork, esprit de corps, camaraderie, team morale, leadership and organisation. And they are selected for the show from a possible cast of thousands because they are absolutely abysmal – to the point of being tragic - at all these life skills yet possess astounding arrogance and an over-inflated sense of their own worth.

The combination of being desperate, totally pointless yet surprisingly pompous is extremely watchable, as Sugar – along with his no-nonsense sidekicks Karren (Baroness) Brady, the first lady of football, and business executive Claude Littner -  hand out bollocking after bollocking every week.

Actually, I quite fancy Karren Brady, in a dominatrix kind of way.

Anyway, every week we all say to ourselves, “Well, if this is the future of business in Britain, we’re all in trouble.” But of course, it isn’t. They’re picked because they’re soft in the head or have strikingly beautiful eyes, both of which make great TV.

Now the bollockings, of course, are really what makes the show so watchable, and are structured into four stages;

Stage 1: Each team is invited to comment on their own performance, and especially the performance, leadership and strategies of this week’s Project Manager. Karren and Claude generally jump in here a few times, criticizing their efforts and handing out the odd reprimand. The results are read out, and Lord Sugar arranges for the winning team to have a special ‘treat’ whilst the losing team look on all crestfallen and down in the dumps that their efforts have come to nothing and worse, very soon one of them ‘will be fired.’ The final shot of Stage 1 is of the winning team high-fiving each other, hugging and no doubt trying to cop a crafty feel of the girl with beautiful eyes’ arse.

Stage 2: The winning team enjoy their ‘treat’ and the losing team sit in The Bridge Café in West Acton drinking cold tea and generally slagging each other off, working out who fucked up the task, who got the sums wrong, who didn’t sell anything and whose idea it was to try and sell e-books on the web in competition with Amazon, or sell cat leads for walking your cat, or create a website to blackmail all your friends, or to sell coats made out of tattooed skin, or who knows what.

Stage 3: After they’ve all blasted each other in front of the cameras and they’re pretty much sick of the cold tea, they head back to the ‘boardroom,’ where Lord Sugar moves up a gear. He analyses their performance and subjects them to a comprehensive – and often humiliating – review. The Project Manager defends his/her case, casts blame left, right and centre and is generally shit upon by the rest of the team. Forget Camaraderie, esprit de corps and team morale now. This is dog eat dog. They trade zingers and bicker and squabble like a bunch of six-year-olds and hardly befitting of the country’s future business leaders at all. Eventually Lord Sugar has to step in, tell them he’s heard enough from all of them and ask the Project Manager who he/she is bringing back into the ‘boardroom’ for a further round of interrogation, and two are chosen to join the Project Manager. They’re sent outside while Sugar confers with Karren and Claude and then brought in to find out which one’s got the tin-tack.

Stage 4: And now these three are fighting for their lives, for the opportunity to receive even more public bollockings and to hopefully have Lord Sugar invest £250,000 in whatever stupid business venture they’ve thought up. He used to offer the winner a £100,000 position at Amstrad as his ‘apprentice’ but I guess he figured it was cheaper to invest £250,000 in their business, with the possibility of actually making some money out of them than pay them a hundred grand a year when they weren’t even capable of running a bath. The conversation between the three lost causes now heats up, with each blaming the other, remarks becoming increasingly hostile and cutting, while at the same time trying to cast blame away from themselves. Lord Sugar weighs his decision as to who to fire based on who’s the most irritating, who’s got the prettiest eyes and who’s a complete fucking weirdo. These must always be kept in the show for they ensure viewing figures are kept to a premium. It’s the poor sod who looks …. well, normal, who has to go first. Regardless of whether he’s the brightest out of all of them he’s got no TV value, so he’s fired.

He gets in the taxi home and generally issues a warning to the whole country that Lord Sugar hasn’t heard the last from him, and how one day he’ll be richer than the 145^th richest person in the country. While the other two – who despised and detested each other two minutes earlier - are all big hugs and high-fives and head off back to the house to be greeted by smiles and American-style whooping. These two also-ran deadbeats are now the centre of attention as they relate their adventure in the ‘boardroom’ to the eager survivors, who hang on every word as if they’ve never, ever watched the show before.        

So if you’ve never seen the show that’s basically the format, but I think they’ve missed a trick. I think instead of this bunch of washouts masquerading as Britain’s brightest young business entrepreneurs they should have the cast of The Jeremy Kyle Show.   

So allow me to introduce the cast for the next Apprentice, and you tell me if this would be more watchable or not. In the boy’s team we have Spliff, Lol, Hood, Rage, Pirate John, Burrito, Pfizer and Hamlet. And in the girl’s team we have Savannah, Mourinho, Stefaknee, Areola, Khloe, Nick’coal, Beautiful South and ۞. 

Hood and Stefaknee are recently divorced, so there’s already a little friction there. But we join them in ‘the boardroom’ as the chavy candidates file in to get their bollocking after completely failing in their tasks, which this week were to run fun nights in a couple of East End boozers. Already Alan Sugar looks pissed off.

Lord Sugar: Good morning

Contestants: Aw rate, Lord Sugar

Lord Sugar: An interesting task. A fun night in an East End boozer. So, how was Burrito as a team leader?

Silence

Burrito: Ya got sommin to say, innit?”

Silence

Lord Sugar: You’ve got a solemn look on your face, Pfizer

Pfizer: I iz bangin in de ghetto, and nobody can hear me, Lord Sugar.

Lord Sugar: What does that mean?

Pfizer: It means that Braaaaaaaaaap, Burrito was a shite project manager, innit?

Lord Sugar: Hmmm, Burrito, tell me how you set about dividing your team and who did what.

Burrito: Look dats ol me bledrins, Lord Sugar! Bunch of fuckin' wankers they is. Spliff stepped up to do the cooking, innit? And the others was in the pub. 

Lord Sugar; And, Pfizer, what did you do?

Pfizer: Aw made the Cornish pasties, Sir Alan. Aw was in the kitchen, innit? 

Lord Sugar: I get the impression, Pfizer, that you’re one of these people that likes to get on with the physical side of things. If you’re delegated a task …..  

Pfizer: Safe. When I was in prison I had to do just as I was told, but with Burrito he’s wastin’ his time innit?

Burrito: Yo Yo Yo, I have no beef with you, Dawg.

Lord Sugar: Hmmmm, not a glowing report, Burrito, but we’ll see when the numbers come out. Ladies, Stefaknee? Good team leader?

Areola: Well she was like, brap brap, training a pit bull to jump through her earrings

Lord Sugar: She was … what are you people talking about? Forget it. Claude tells me you were selling tickets for £50. So you sold tickets up front?

Stefaknee: Innit

Lord Sugar: What would they do with these tickets?

Khloe: And then I was like …. We sold the tickets for £50, so guarantee, innit?

Lord Sugar: Did they all turn up

Khloe: No, but then I was like ….

Lord Sugar: So you got £50 for nothing in some cases. More fool them. How many did you sell up front?

Khloe: Five. But then I was like you fuckin' mosher like. I'll smash you up proper like fuckin' wanker innit

Lord Sugar: Yes, alright, but you had money before you actually kicked off, is that right?

Nick’coal: Yeah, we’d made profit, innit, Sir Alan?

Lord Sugar: Really? You’re in profit before you’ve poured your first pint? Result!

Khloe: Yeah, Sir Alan, braaaaaaaaaap, we didn’t pay for no printing neither

Lord Sugar: Really?

Khloe: Yeah, we ordered the printing, like, and then we went to get it, innit? And we was like blinging, and as we went in the shop Mourinho gets her tits out, and the printer guy was like ‘Caaaaaaw you ffffiiiiiiitt.’ and then ۞ hitched up her skirt and she had no knickers on. He was like ‘Dats bangin' mate’ and she grabbed his hand and put it there, innit? And then ۞ took him round the back and went down on him like a dog eating hot chips. She was like lapping away at him, innit? Mourinho was rubbing her tits in Dawg’s face and while they was servicing him we robbed the printing, innit?

Lord Sugar: I see

۞: And then after I’d sucked him dry, he was like Ooooeeerrrr, so Mourinho hit him on the head with her right tit, and he was like Ooooeeerrr Oooeeerr, so I left her hitting his head with her tit and went out and robbed the till. We got £235.19 and we is well in profit!

Lord Sugar: I see. Good work ۞ and Mourinho then. But how many servings of food did you do in the pub?

Stefaknee: Well, we couldn’t do lunch, innit?

Lord Sugar: Don’t you think you missed a trick there?

Stefaknee: Braaaaaaaaaap, there was too many dishes ….

Lord Sugar: Well, that’s a bit of a disappointment with the opportunity lost here

Stefaknee: Well I was like …. Brap brap

Lord Sugar: Well, I think it’s time we get down to the money here.  Karren, would you read out the boy’s figures for me?

Karren: Well the boy’s team took £864, but they spent £178, so they’re profit was £686.

Lord Sugar: Claude?

Claude: The girls’ team took £757, but they spent in total £276, so they’re profit was £481

Big smiles from the boy’s team

Claude: But they also earned £235 from boosting the printer’s till after performing oral sex on him, so that brings their total profit to £716

Big smiles from the girl’s team. Sour looks from the boy’s team. Fist-bump handshakes all around the girl’s team and Mourinho, who’s standing in the row behind, gets her right tit out and bounces it off Beautiful South’s head.

Lord Sugar: So the ladies won. Good. Okay, I’ve laid on a treat for you, and it’s quite interesting. You’ll be going to Possilpark in Glasgow, which is ranked one of the poorest areas in the UK and is the epicentre of Glasgow’s heroin trade. 86% of the residents are on benefits, but those families that do have wage-earners in the household bring in a combined annual income of just £12,400. Derelict, graffiti-covered buildings make up most of the scenery, although in the syringe-littered park itself you’ll find that dodgy drug deals can be carried out with ease.

Big smiles from the girl’s team: Safe! Blinging! You is propa aw rate, Lord Sugar

Lord Sugar: Now I’ve rented a small flat, which you’ll be sharing with a resident family, and I’ve hired an excellent chef who’ll be teaching you how to cook scrambled eggs on toast and frozen pizzas.  

The girls: Safe innit? Sorted!

Lord Sugar: Okay, have a nice time. Off you go

But suddenly there’s a disturbance from the boy’s team. Hood (who hasn’t taken losing to the girls very well) directs his comments to his ex-wife Stafaknee: I declare Jihad on yo ass! I'll fuckin' bang yer owt!

Stefaknee: You fuckin' mosher like, we might be divorced now, but I’m still you’re fuckin’ mother. I brought you into this world and I can take you out. You should fucking respect me!

Hood: Now den …

Stefaknee: My name’s not Den. I’ll break your fucking neck!

Pirate John: Yo yo, Hood, see who wears the tracksuit bottoms in your house, innit?

Lord Sugar: Alright, alright, alright, I’ve heard enough. Hood, you keep quiet, and Stefaknee, you go off with the girls. Now Burrito, you lost, and do you know what annoys me about this? You actually took £757, you actually worked hard, but who was in charge of the pricing? Can you walk me through that?

Burrito: And then I was like nuff said. Pfizer was cooking, innit?

Lord Sugar: Pfizer, what I’m trying to understand here is what went wrong? The girls won this task because they showed the initiative to give a blow job to the printer guy and then while Mourinho was whacking him over the head with her tits, they robbed the till. Why couldn’t you have given a blow job to someone!

Pfizer: Yo yo yo, Lord Sugar, I ain’t no burnt zebra. I’ve got leprosy and black death.

Lord Sugar: Burnt zebra? Well, if you’ve got leprosy and black death don’t you think you should have mentioned that when Burrito put you in the kitchen?

Pfizer: Lord Sugar, as Head Chef I had to steal some Cornish pasties from a corner shop ‘cause Burrito was a shite project manager, innit? And then I was like cookin’ the Cornish pasties to a high standard, innit?

Lord Sugar: Not a high standard. You had complaints, innit? DAMN! You’ve got me talking like it now! You had complaints, didn’t you?

Pfizer: Yeah, but I come out the kitchen and I’m like, wot you looking at, yo fuckin’ nobhead?

Lord Sugar: Burrito, why didn’t you take control of this situation?

Burrito: Sir Alan I was like... an' she was like.... an' 'e was like ….

Karren: How did you deal with costings, because from my recollection you fixed the prices of what you were going to sell before you had any idea at all of the quantities you were going to sell or what you were going to need to buy. Is that the way costings are normally done when you’re buying and selling narcotics?

Burrito: Nah, tha’s safe, innit? But Pfizer ….

Lord Sugar: You keep bouncing it over to Pfizer. You’re the boss, right? And I want to know why you didn’t have some form of control and understanding of the costings. Just tell me, will you?

Burrito: Sir Alan, Rage needs to learn be''er English blad

Rage: I’m a bang u out dick'ed. I’m a brapage you!

Lord Sugar: Hmmm, you might have a point. So you think Rage’s poor grasp of the English language is responsible for the failure of this task. As the boss, why couldn’t you go ….

Burrito: Yo yo yo, I was the boss, right. Me bledrins coulda sucked someone’s dick and I woulda robbed them

Lord Sugar: Yes, well look, enough about sucking dick. Who specifically do you think is at fault here? And don’t say Pfizer again. Who else?

Burrito: Hamlet

Hamlet: Ya wat!

Lord Sugar: We’ve got several problems here. One is that you overspent on marketing, and two is that you stole too many Cornish pasties, but the third one, which is ridiculous, is that the margins weren’t good enough anyway

Pfizer: Yo yo yo, Lord Sugar

Lord Sugar: No! Don’t yo yo yo me, Pfizer. Look at the state of the lot of you. You’re wearing cheap tracksuits with brand names that you’ve cut out of magazines and stuck on with glue. You’ve got dog shit on your trainers, and your baseball caps are stuck on your heads with chewing gum. You’re wearing jewellery made out of fool’s gold or, I don’t know, plastic, which for the most part is stapled to your ears, and for some reason you all seem to drive Vauxhall Novas. Is it any wonder you lost this task?

Pfizer: Yo yo yo, Lord Sugar, but I do all my dealing from my Vauxhall Nova

Lord Sugar: Well in this task you seem to have the put the price down and damned whether you could make it or not. Is that how you deal crack cocaine?

Pfizer: Mint

Lord Sugar: Is that clever? Hold on, what do you mean by mint?

Pfizer: Yes! No!

Lord Sugar: Do you know I’m starting to worry that I have in front of me seven people who tell me they have business acumen, but I can’t see any on the table here today. None whatsoever! This stuff is simple so far, especially if you deal narcotics for a living. Business acumen should come naturally to you. I am so bitterly disappointed looking at you seven here. And you haven’t got a bloody clue. Fajita, Burrito, Enchilada, whatever your name is, you tell me which two people you’re going to bring back into this boardroom. 

Burrito: Pfizer and Hamlet

Lord Sugar: Pfizer and Hamlet. Right, well you other four go back to the house. You three go outside and I’ll call you back in shortly.

Lord Sugar (after they’ve left the room): Not one of them seems, on this particular task, to have any business acumen whatsoever. It’s unbelievable.

Karren: I think Pfizer was largely responsible for the over-stocking. He stole far too many Cornish pasties. But I don’t think any of them sat down and thought, “Let’s cost this.” They picked their menu based on what they could steal, they decided what price they’d sell it at based on absolutely nothing but what they thought they’d get away with, and they worked out what they’d need to steal again to keep it going. There was no proper organisation. They’re no better than a bunch of chavs.

Lord Sugar: Claude?

Claude: Well I must say, Mourinho’s got huge bangers, hasn’t she?

Lord Sugar: Yes, she certainly does. Did you see her lob ‘em out and bash Beautiful South on the head with them? I wouldn’t mind ….

Karren: Ahem  ..….

Lord Sugar: Ah, right, yes, well let’s get them in and we’ll decide which one of them has to go.

The three chavs swagger in, swinging their bodies from side-to-side whilst bopping up and down, Burrito keeping his arms straight down at his sides, Pfizer and Hamlet swinging their arms about. Hamlet’s pulled his hoodie over his head and placed his Burberry baseball cap on top.

Lord Sugar: The frustration, as I said earlier on, is that you took the most amount of money. That’s what annoys me. 

Burrito: Sir Alan, dats ol me bledrins! Bunch of fuckin' wankers they is

Lord Sugar: Why have you brought Hamlet in here? What has he done wrong?

Burrito: Now den, Sir Alan, innit? I was like ... an' 'e was like … he’s a fucking mosher like. Innit?

Lord Sugar: Listen Hamlet, it’s all very well acting like a mosher, whatever that is, but I want to know what you would have done different. What would you have done?

Hamlet: Lord Sugar, wait a minute. Burrito, me and me crew gonna bang u out blud, so jog on.

Burrito: Oi y'startin, y'startin, I'll spark ya'out cold

Hamlet: Im’a bang u out dick'head

Lord Sugar: Alright! Alright! Hamlet, why do you think he’s brought you back in here then?

Hamlet: Coz he’s a wanker, innit?

Lord Sugar: Pfizer, head chef. You say, “No, I said I’d cook. I didn’t want the title of head chef.”  And you don’t feel that the responsibility of working out the components or the ingredients that go into the product were down to you?

Pfizer: Innit? I stole the Cornish pasties

Lord Sugar: So, you designed the menu. You stole Cornish pasties instead of Scotch eggs or doughnuts or frozen chips.

Pfizer (proudly): Yeah, innit, Lord Sugar. I designed the menu. But Burrito …..

Burrito: No, but yeah ….. 

Pfizer: I'll fuckin' bang yer owt

Hamlet: Braaaaaap!

Burrito: You fuckin' mosher like. I'll smash you up proper like fuckin' wanker innit

Hamlet and Burrito square off, “Whats your problem? Wanna make sommin of it? Bling Bling.” Hamlet jumps on Burrito and the two wrestle each other across the boardroom table. Hamlet’s swinging punches ineffectually, and Burrito’s trying to head butt him.

Pfizer: Sir Alan, ah’ll blow these two out wicked blud. That’s well dog has it bluddd.

Hamlet and Burrito have knocked the table over and crashed to the floor.

Pfizer: Sir Alan, yo Geez!

Hamlet and Burrito are still rolling about on the floor, snarling into each other’s faces, but that’s about all. They’re pretty knackered by now, so Lord Sugar’s finally able to speak.

Lord Sugar: Right the pair of you, have you had enough? Pick the table up ….

Hamlet: I need a fag, Lord Sugar

Lord Sugar: Well you can just bloody well wait. Burrito, why shouldn’t I fire you?

Burrito: I is blinging, Lord Sugar. I is proud of me bledrins

Lord Sugar: Well, they’re not very proud of you. Hamlet, why shouldn’t I fire you?

Hamlet: Yo Yo Yo, I have no beef with you, Lord Sugar, dawg

Lord Sugar: Let me re-phrase it. Can you do anything which is inspirational? Who can you inspire?

Hamlet: Braaaaaaaaaaap! I is blinging too, Lord Sugar

Lord Sugar: Burrito, some very, very strong arguments have been raised about your poor leadership skills, and that’s why I think that possibly there is no smoke without fire. Hamlet, you speak a great game, when I can understand you, but I just wonder if it’s all smoke and mirrors. Pfizer, I’m looking for somebody who’s not necessarily good at stealing Cornish pasties. I’m looking for someone who’s got a little bit more ……

Pfizer: Lord Sugar, I is safe ….

Lord Sugar: I’m talking now. I don’t want to hear anymore from you, okay? Hamlet, you’re staying. You can’t fight, but there may be a use for you somewhere. We’ll have to see. Pfizer, this is difficult. Burrito, this was a total disaster. Quite frankly, I think you lost it. Burrito, you’re fired!