So, I watched most of Tuesday night’s Panorama investigation into English football financial skull-duggery while barely stifling my incredulity. To think that we could be hoodwinked in this manner by a bunch of so-called professionals, who are out to make a quick buck while the going’s good. And that there are people out there who value a bit of cash over integrity, thoroughness of thought and deed, and a sense of fair play. Who knew?

And the football agents aren’t much better either!

Boom-boom!

C’mon Panarama, you have to do better than this. Sure there’s corruption in football. Sure there are some shady operators. Sure I wouldn’t trust Harry Redknapp or Sam Allardyce to run a charity match, but that, and the secret camera footage shown does not make them the arch crooks you’re making out. Sam comes off worse, I have to say, but what did Harry do? When asked if he would be interested in player x if player x was available, and you never know player x might be available, nudge nudge, Harry leaned back, twitched a little, and just said “yeah he’s a good player, of course I’d have him”. Uh-oh Harry! Perhaps you should have said he’s a donkey with spoons for feet, then no-one would have minded, eh? P’raps you’ll be more street-wise next time.

And Sam’s son, Craig. Fancy him bigging up his links with his Dad! Lord. What. Do. You. Expect. Him. To. Do. You’re offering him business, and he’s trying to impress you. You’re suggesting that you could be interested in deals with Bolton, and whaddya know, he’s the son of the manager. And strike me down if he doesn’t mention it a little in the hope of getting some business. Did you think he wouldn’t?

Yeah, yeah, alright, so he’s probably just some talentless feck who’s coining it off the riches and skills of others, and for that, I say let him swing if need be. But the whole programme just missed the mark. Here’s my favourite moment: about two-thirds of the way through, we get to the part where Mike Newell, the Luton Town manager, goes public with the news that he knows of people in the game on the take. Newell, it should be pointed out here, isn’t in on the BBC’s little game, and is just acting apparently out of priniciple, and perhaps frustration. The voice-over in the programme makes the following remark, or words to this effect:

This is disastrous news. Now it’s going to be even harder to persuade anyone to take a bung

Now please jump in any time, here, but isn’t the editorial stance of this programme that football is rife with bung-taking, backhanders, brown envelopes, etc? Hardly the sort of situation in which you’d say it would suddenly be “even harder” to get anyone to act corruptly?

Actually, I lied, My favourite bit was when the moronic agent at the center of it all realised the undercover hero’s button had “went all red”, but was apparently too soused or short on slices to work out that he was being set up. Especially when all our hero could do was mumble something, say he didn’t know what it was, and fumble nervously with a pack of B&H. I won’t lose any sleep if that guy gets it, I must say, but let’s not think that it any way has Panorama exploded any lids off the modern game.

September 20th, 2006, posted by Neil in Vague rants and Football and Television · No comments

I’m all Apprenticed out. Can’t write about it for love nor money. (For love, anyway).

It’s been three weeks now since I last covered it, and there’s been tantrums, tears, lost opportunities, intense staring, leching, and general all-round rubbishness. The upshot of which is that Mani, Jo, and Samuel have all departed the Sugar Block (pause for laughter to die down); in Samuel’s case in a bizarrely oversized raincoat that had me thinking he was about to break into a Jake the Peg routine. As performed by Inspector Clouseau. Which wouldn’t have been out of place after the bizarre Frenchique outfit he donned while trying to lure Oxford St shoppers into his concession. As it were. His luring device, sadly, was a bottle of water for anyone who wanted one. It took him longer than any reasonably sentient being should to work out that if someone offers you a bottle of water outside a shop, you might take it, but your first thought is going to be to bugger off into the distance, not to follow a sinisterly effete bloke into a ladies fashion outlet.

The week before, Jo was finally, and sadly, we all agree, given the old heave-ho by a fairly reluctant Sugarman. She even gave him a second chance, which was sweet of her, but the big man’s mind was made up, and out she went. I don’t think she did an awful lot wrong in the task itself. Other than not sell any cars in a task that was all about selling cars, I suppose, but as always she was no doubt harshly edited by those BBC backroom boys, who were all too happy to show her cavorting around the car lot, one skip short of a cartwheel, buffooning her way about with all the subtelty of a Mani presentation. Shame she’s gone, in a way, but by this time it was just clear that she wasn’t capable of winning this contest: I can understand that these people are under pressure with the cameras and the competitiveness and all (although hang on, Mark Frith, who’s comment in defense of the candidates I’ve stolen this sentiment from, shouldn’t they be able to handle a bit of pressure. They are all, after all, we are told, successful business people) but there’s enthusiastic and there’s just plain loopy. Sorry, Jo.

And what seems like nearly a month ago now, Mani and his bullshit bingo were taken away from the tellybox and bottled up ready to be sold like poppers at the next young business minds conference. You see, Mani, our lives have gone from a convergent phase, to a divergent phase. In other words, you’ve been fired. I was glad, after watching Mani slide through the door, and down the exit stairs, I watched the You’re Fired programme on BBC3. If you want to end up with a slightly more balanced view of the candidates, you could do worse than see them in a less stressful environment, in the care of the more gentle Adrian Chiles. Mani, it turned out, wasn’t all that bad. Like all of us, he has friends, and family, and like all of us, they backed him up, and mentioned that we didn’t get to see all sides of Mani. And in his job, I’m sure he impresses the people he needs to impress: it’s just that he had no idea how to adapt to the new and strange environment that is The Apprentice, or how to align himself, his attitude, and his pitches, to the new sell.

With the possible exception of the recent Green Wing reruns, there’s still nothing to touch The Apprentice right now. Except maybe Footballer’s Wives. or maybe Planet Earth…

April 7th, 2006, posted by Neil in The Apprentice and Television · No comments

Pizza anyone?

The task? To run a food marquee during the “Festival of a small stretch of the Thames”, or something. Whichever team made the most would win. Bleedin’ simple, you would think, given that as with all tasks there seem to be no associated costs whatsoever. This is the Apprentice, a world in which hired help magically appear - just snap your clamshell mobile shut three teams, while saying “there’s no time and materials cost like at home” - when and wherever needed. Only trouble with all the unhired help is of course that they’re all competent, and are therefore all eminently more employable than any of the candidates themselves.

Because if these are among the best business minds we have, then we’re all headed to recession central in a chicken-shaped taxi. OK, so maybe my brain is addled by the absence of its usual chemical intake right now, but I could spoon out my basal ganglia, serve it up with noodles, and I reckon I’d still be able to spot that making a loss of nearly £900 in one day, while trying to sell food to the people of London (who have already been shown to be willing to pay £5 for an apple in this series) is not the stuff of business legend.

I mean, Christ in a wetsuit, who turns up at a wholesalers without checking whether they’re open or not? Who just orders some, or even 100, chickens over the phone without providing any details whatsoever? How in the name of croque do you end up with three times as much cheese as you thought? And will someone please tell me how you can end up with 100 pizza bases, and 100 whole chickens to put on them? And then, when you have all these chickens, why for the love of amuse-bouche did an entire team not come up with any way of off-loading all the excess ingredients? Have they never had a christmas dinner?

Irritatingly, all this duffness meant that the task was an easy win for Mani’s team. Which means plaudits for the show’s Mr Slick. Which in turn means a thousand paper cuts to the body of the patron saint of Genuine. In praise of Mani, though, he did manage the girls better than most before him, although I don’t think his habit of somehow busying himself with other tasks while the girls spent 12 hours chopping and shredding ingredients went down all that well.

Still, they all seemed to get on, no-one cried, and they made a profit on the day. And so to the Oxo Tower restaurant for slap-up nosh.

And so to the boardroom for Alexa, Syed, and Tuan, whose collective performance was the eating equivalent of a few sticks of celery, if that whole takes more calories to digest than it contains thing is to be believed. Sadly, Sugarman opts not to fire them all, comes close to letting Syed go, before pointing the Pearly finger of bloody blame in Alexa’s direction. Not that I like to see PMs get all the blame when things go horrifically wrong, but on this occasion, for not being in charge of anything, at any point, for being catatonically unable to take the lead when needed, she had to go.

Postscript:

For those interested, Alexa’s web site reveals the following:

Alexa is giving after dinner talks about this and the dos and donts for a high performing team and business lessons learnt from her apprentice experience.

Hmm.

March 22nd, 2006, posted by Neil in The Apprentice and Television · No comments

What is there to say about this week’s Apprentice? I was all set to dispense with any sort of write-up in favour of a brief ode in honour of the to-be-departed Tigger, when up pops Sugarman with one of his curveball firings. Blimey, he don’t ‘alf keep you on your toes.

The week’s challenge was to buy 10 items and spend the least money doing so: another marvellous never mind the quality, feel the width sort of task.

In a 12 hour war between Murdoch (Syed) and Tigger (Jo) as project managers, there was an all too real chance that one of them would have to go. Jo led the girls in an “I hear you, but I’m not listening or interested” manner, while Syed dispensed with planning in favour of roaming East London in optimistic pursuit of cooked Lobsters. The girls bickered, as Jo pissed them all off in turn, as if working her way through a mental list. No-one showed much aptitude for being The Apprentice, and that’s the sad truth of this crop.

And then, to the boardroom, where the girls lost for the second time, and Jo chose Karen and Alexa to join her. Sugarman made it perfectly clear he doesn’t need another corporate lawyer, or a planner, and when the crunch came, both Alexa (planner) and Tigger (nutter) defended themselves by basically saying “what you said about me is wrong”, and the mad one selected one of the larger knives in her collection for Karen, landing the cause of defeat firmly at her door, much to the bemusement of Karen and anyone who’d been watching. But, it turns out that Karen didn’t defend her cause, and was given her marching orders, out of the blue.

Quite why Sugarman thinks either Jo or Alexa would cut it as the apprentice is a mystery that only he can fathom. But we shall see. Perhaps he’s wiser than I give him credit for. After all, he’s the one with the business empire, and I’m just your run of the mill blogging hack: fair cop. Mark my words, though: neither of this week’s survivors will even come close to winning.

March 10th, 2006, posted by Neil in Vague rants and The Apprentice and Television · No comments

I’m the best there is

This blog believes that it is the right, nay, duty, of every Apprentice candidate to dissolve into unexpected sobbing and shaking at the merest provocation. Those unable to cry on cue should instead throw the word “F*“, at will, into otherwise perfectly acceptable sentences.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, Mani.

Read more…

March 2nd, 2006, posted by Neil in The Apprentice and Television · No comments

One week into The Apprentice Series 2, and it’s one decent and honest chap with integrity down, 13 slavering egomaniacs left. In a week which saw some utterly non-obvious editing of the girls selling melons, and the boys doing their best not to openly piss themselves laughing at the worst team-name suggestion ever, it’s one nil to the ladies.

Read more…

February 24th, 2006, posted by Neil in The Apprentice and Television · 3 Comments