Welcome to Sunny South Mims
But for the first time this series Daniel is right, South Mims is a service station. This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for locations. Next week round the back of Poundland. Still when they get sent to exotic locations, they invariable get given shitty tasks, so maybe this week they'll be setting up a mission to Mars or organising Champagne receptions on a luxury yacht. Sadly not, they're are just running coach tours. They have to find customers in London, drive them out to the country take them to attractions at a discount rate and give them lunch.
After Tenacity's evisceration last week, the teams are looking a bit unbalanced. So Mark is moved to Tenacity, joining Daniel, Pamela, Lauren, Felipe and Katie, while Summit now consists of Sanjay, Bianca, Jemma, James, Solomon and Roisin.
Sanjay ends up as Project Manager of team Summit. How this happened is not explained so I like to think he was anointed by Angels or drew a sword from a stone. At team Tenacity there is more debate. Daniel thinks he should be Project Manager because he runs an entertainment company (it organises Pub Quizzes), but Mark has experience as a tour guide from when he first moved to Britain. Daniel sounds actively offended that anyone should question his rightness to lead the team. Especially given his service station identification skills. Daniel gets the job. He tells us that, like great chess players, he thinks two moves ahead. Wait, two moves ahead? How does that work? My mind is boggled.
Coach Conference
The teams hold meetings on their coaches and try to sort out the destination of their tours and prices. Tenacity picks Oxfordshire and Summit, Kent. Sanjay thinks they can put together a good historical tour based around Henry VIII and the Cantebury tales. You know, the historic links there, because it's all history yeah? Why stop there? Why not throw in the Romans, Charles Dickens and the Battle of Britain, it's all history right? Daniel wants to set a price point of about £80, but, as this task is entirely about profit margins, the team argue him up. He's still obsessed with keeping the price below three figures, so they end up with £99.50. Sanjay, on the other hand, decides on £60. At no point are we given any indication that either team did any research, worked out any costs or did anything other than pull a number out of their collective arses.
The teams are sub-divided with half going to negotiate discounts at locations and the other half to flog coach tours to unsuspecting tourists in London. Mark, Pamela and Lauren head to Blenheim palace. The standard entry fee is £25, with a group rate of £12, but Mark is able to negotiate a rate of £9.50 as long as he brings at least twenty people. As the maximum capacity of the coach is only 25, this puts a lot of pressure on the sales team.
Sanjay, James and Jemma head for Heaver Castle. James wants to push for an 80% discount. Jemma thinks this is embarrassingly low, but James doesn't see how getting a good discount would be embarrassing. Jemma clarifies that it's embarrassing because she knows he won't get it. At Heaver castle, the team are told that standard entry is £15 and the group rate is £12. James' negotiation strategy is to call their discount rubbish and ask for £3. When it becomes obvious that he won't get it he decides to keep asking anyway, while Jemma tries to disappear into her own hair. The problem the teams have, is that with no promises or repeat business and no large numbers of visitors to back them up, the only leverage they have is a camera crew and their personal charm. Sadly, James has all the charm of a fossilised turd thrown through the castle window which knocks over a candle and starts a masivefire. The team have to settle for £12 and then run off quickly in case the prices goes up, or actually because the Canterbury tails attraction closes in an hour and it takes and hour to get there.
The James effect
In London, Daniel's team are struggling to make sales at the high price point. Daniel tries advertising Blenheim palace as the birth place of "the Winston Churchill." This looks fine written down because you naturally put the emphasis on the. But Daniel says "the" like "the rain outside", "the bins over there" or "the outrageous price of these tickets", which makes him sound like an automated voice running out of batteries. The team manage to sell five tickets, but, as Nick Hewer gleefully points out "master salesman" Daniel is responsible for none of them.
Another great sales moment from Daniel
In the end, they gather together a big group and offer them a job lot of tickets at £60 each. Despite their opposition to his earlier high prices, Felipe and Katie think Daniel has now gone too low. That's the problem with thinking two moves ahead, he's skipped the move where he asked for £80.
Not that team Summit are doing spectacularly better, despite the lower ticket price. Solomon has managed to shift a few, mostly to young women for some reason. But in the end the team is also reduced to selling to big groups. Bianca presents to a big group manages to gather a group together, but ends up admitting that they're not talking to anyone else. One bright spark asks if they are the teams "last hope". After this Bianca is pretty forced to bend over and take whatever price the group feels like paying. That, James, is how you negotiate a discount.
Bianca realises she has screwed herself
Speaking of which, James, Sanjay and Jemma have arrived at the Cantebury tales museum. Jemma was embarrassed by James request for a massive discount, unfortunately she seems to be embarrassed at having to ask for any kind of discounts or even having to mention prices or money at all. She stammers for a minute or two before James bludgeons his way in and gets a price of £6.25, probably because the representative just wanted to get home rather than because of any great negotiating skill.
Back at HQ, Mark Pamela and Lauren are brushing up on their history and making merchandise. Pamela is pissed off that she is "ironing a picture on a fecking t-shirt" instead of Daniel. And, when he calls, she is pretty short with him. Daniel is shocked by her negativity as they have sold 15 more tickets. Well Daniel, maybe her negativity has something to do with the phone call earlier where you admitted that you had only sold five tickets and that you, personally, hadn't sold any? But Daniel seems to have a very selective memory when it comes to his own failure. Maybe he told his customers that he wouldn't get on a coach in public?
The next day dawns and the teams set off in their coaches, with Summit in hideous red jackets and Tenacity in hideous yellow ones. The teams have been divided again, with half getting lunch and the other half looking after the customers. Mark, Lauren and Felipe are on coach duty for Team Tenacity. Mark gets off to a good start, putting his tour guide experience to good use, and giving the group a bit of historical background. When they arrive at Blenheim Palace, Lauren has done her homework and is able to give a comprehensive tour without notes. Even Nick Hewer is impressed.
Meanwhile, Team Summit arrive 45 minutes late and Sanjay puts James in charge of the first leg of the tour. This should really be all you need to know to get an idea of what it's like, but the customers had to put up with it so I'm going to go into more detail. Rather than giving any information, James tries to get the coach to join in a song. None of them are interested, but this doesn't stop James who launches into a bellowed rendition of 'One man went to mow'. When passengers started complaining that this is torture, he takes it as a challenged. Sanjay, amazingly, goes along with this. But then he was the one who was most enthusiastic about Jame's turn as the semi-naked chef last week, so maybe he's suffering from serious sense of humour damage.
One man went to tell you to shut the fuck up!
At Heaver Castle James dons a robe and a crown and insists the group refer to him as 'King James'. Sadly he doesn't suffer the same fate as the last British King James, and is not packed off to exile in Italy. He starts out with a tour as given by a four year old, which essentially consists of "look at that funny bush, it looks like a crab". Fortunately, once inside Jemma takes over. Less fortunately, she knows nothing about the place, is left reading from the guide book, refers to a "photo" of Henry VIII, presumably taken by a time traveller, and when asked why Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage failed she suggests they just grew apart. Or, alternatively, Anne's head grew apart from her body.
King James guides his people
Lunch time arrives and things are going slightly less well for Team Tenacity. In a bid to keep down costs, Daniel's lunch provision consists of one and a half sandwiches, a small apple pie and an extra charge for water. It's hard to disagree with Mark's view that everything was great until Daniel turned up. The tour then goes on a boat trip in Oxford. Felipe, looking like a hobbit who has been stood up by the other members of his barber-shop quartet, delivers fifteen interesting facts about Oxfordshire. The first being that there are more pigs than people and it gets less interesting from there. By the time he starts explaining the intricacies of Oxford degree abbreviations you realise that his thresh hold for 'interesting' is set a lot lower than most peoples.
Maybe Team Tenacity should show some videos of Team Summit's tour, just to put Felipe into some context? After a lunch that consists mostly of James hard selling merchandise, the team arrive late in Cantebury and then Sanjay gets lost in a town that largely consists of a single long street. They finally arrive after Sanjay phones for directions, but have to interrupt the Cantebury tales attraction half way through so they don't miss their coach slot. Sanjay thinks they need to do some work to recover some good will, so James suggests more singing before auctioning off everything left on the coach that isn't tied down, claiming they worked their balls off and having the audacity to hold out a hat for a tip.
And so James just about defeats Daniel in the "least self-aware" Apprenti competition.
Back in the boardroom we have to endure one of Lord Siralan's terrible puns in which he claims he was looking for the "complete package". On the plus side, he doesn't try to sing.
Team Tenacity collectively through Daniel under the coach, blaming him for pricing that started too high and then went too low when he panicked and saying that the tour was a success in spite, rather than because of him. Daniel says he won't be sucked into an argument, at which point Lord Siralan reminds him of the rules of the game, but he clarifies by saying that it's easy to get sucked into an argument that makes him look bad. Yes Daniel, it certainly is.
Despite the fact that Tenacity's tour was quite well done and Summit's was pure crap with an extra helping of James, no-one asked for their money back so this makes not the blindest bit of difference to the outcome. It all comes down to sales and pricing. Amazingly, James could end up on the winning team. Fortunately, karma does its job and Summit lose with a profit of £813.70 versus Tenacity's £1037.99.
Tenacity offer Daniel know congratulations, he is excluded from the team hug, and then they are sent off to abseil down the side of the Orbit, a treat that for Daniel is more of a punishment. This would look like bullying if Daniel wasn't still trying to spin it in his favour. Apparently, he'd rather win and be unpopular. Yes Daniel, but I don't think your unpopularity was key to the win.
Mr Popular
Back in the boardroom, James is in the firing line, taking the blame for the bad negotiations at Heaver Castle and the Singing. He defends himself by demanding to know how much merchandise the rest of the team sold, before bellowing over the top of them so they can't answer. But, in spite of the valid criticism, it's questionable whether James lost them the task. He may be the most annoying person on Earth, but as no-one actually asked for the money back (amazingly!) his terrible performance on day two made no difference to the outcome.
So it's Sanjay in the firing line for setting the terrible pricing policy and Bianca for admitting to a group of potential customers that they were the team's last hope. Then Lord Siralan reveals that on Jemma's CV she claimed that she always nearly wins, which sounds like the Apprentice equivalent of "nothing can possibly go wrong".
Sanjay lets James go, probably because he can claim to have sold some merchandise and it's hard to pin failure on him. Instead he brings back Bianca and Jemma. But Lord Siral seems peeved that he doesn't get to yell at James some more and gives him a bollocking before he goes. James has the face of a teenager called before the headmaster just ignoring the noise before he's allowed to go home.
Back in the boardroom Sanjay gets the blame for the pricing policy, but he demonstrates that he does at least know how prices should be set and has the good sense to say he'll do better if he's allowed to stay in the process. There's nothing Lord Siralan love as much as being reminded that he can fire them at any time. Bianca is told that her heavy discounting was a fireable offence, but it's Jemma who gets fired, the temptation of her CV and the fact that this is the first week we have really seen her do anything is clearly too much
But there's still drama to be had back at the house. Sanjay claims that his team worked well together despite losing and Tenacity were the other way round. When Daniel sticks in his oar, Mark says he's had enough of his lying. The confrontation doesn't lead to actual physical violence, but by the next day Daniel will probably believe that kicked Mark's arse.
Next Time: The Apprentii design board games, one of which would cause people to leave a party rather than play it. Bianca refuses to let James talk, which is probably a good thing for all of us and Lord Siralan claims someone is deluded.
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