Wednesday 21 May 2008

a rage is building
swelling in me like mushrooms
fuelled by little

Wednesday is of course Apprentice day, and I have to say I am very very disappointed with Sir Sid James this week.
The teams (led respectively by Raef and his marvellous morphing hair, and Alex, who has a stylist drag him through a bush every morning) this week had to design a new brand of tissues and create a TV advert to go with it.
From the outset it was clear that Raef got carried away with the cinematic and dramatic possibilities of the medium, drafting in Sian Lloyd (the weatherwoman) to play the mother of a snotty child, and waxing lyrical with Michael Koshercles over their past glories starring in Guys and Dolls. Indeed, at one point it seemed as if Raef and Michael were getting closer than was professionally necessary, as they constructed their cinematic masterpiece.
The other team, also clearly out of their depth, made a product that can only be described as garish and an advert that was, well, well bad.
However, when presented to professionals, Alex’s ad featured the product (ad nauseum it has to be said) with a poorly little girl and a father who kept saying. ‘She’ll be fine, it’s antibacterial!’.
Sadly, when it came down to it, Raef’s ad, although beautifully put together with the love of two men, and the brief appearance of a weatherwoman, failed to feature the product it was supposed to be advertising.
‘I don’t know what your bloody advert’s about!’ shouted Sir Sid, and his deadly finger began to fall.
Most of the country, I am sure, were hoping that Sir Sid James’ basilisk glare would fall upon Michael Koshercles (who even the nice Adrian Chiles in the BBC2 follow-up show described as ‘an odious little twat’) but no!
‘Raef! You’re fired!’ said Sir Sid.
I am shocked. The strangely coiffured and pompous one has been fired. I am going to be stuck for someone to write about, as I was sure that he and his semi-sentient barnet were going to go through to the final.
I am announcing a day of mourning, in which we can grieve for Raef.
He will be sorely missed.