Chocs away

Yasmina triumphs in a dull finale to The Apprentice

Monday, 8 June 2009

I don't watch The Apprentice for the boring people.

I want the lunatics, the mavericks, the downright psycho bitches from hell.

So when Sir Alan Sugar (I feel he may be rethinking the wisdom of being Lord Sugar as it looks like interfering with his fat BBC contract) got rid of the bracing Debra Barr, 24, last week, the final was always going to be an anticlimax.

We had the unsmiling Yasmina Siadatan against Kate Walsh who smiles way too bloody much for my liking.

Thank God they were backed by some of the firees of the series.

It meant we could delight once more in the idiocy of Ben 'did I say I'd been to Sandhurst?' Clarke and Philip 'dance in your pants' Taylor as they made unintentional attempts to sabotage the girls' chances of success.

Their task was to invent and market a new brand of chocolate.

Can I say at this point I'm not that fussed about chocolate?

I don't know what that says about me as a woman.

That I'm not one, according to many of my friends, who ought to be more grateful seeing as that means more Dairy Milk to go round for them.

I know I must be female because I can only read maps if I rotate them to the direction of travel and need to glance furtively at my watch and bracelet before I can be sure of my left and right.

But though I wouldn't have a clue how to market chocolate, I knew Yasmina, 27, was on to a loser by aiming the new brand at men.

'Very few men get off on eating chocolate,' said one male focus group member.

I'm glad he stopped there.

Philip, 29, tried to dissuade Yasmina, who owns a successful restaurant, from changing tack.

'We're trying to do something different,' he said. 'It's the same with Pants Man. People didn't get it at the time but they will eventually.'

That was enough for Yasmina, 27, to have a rethink and plump for Cocoa Electric - interestingly flavoured chocolates for adventurous folk.

There was no need to instruct her actors to look surprised when they bit into their strawberry and basil and coriander and creosote delights.

'Can I spit this out?' grimaced one.

Meanwhile sabre-toothed Kate had the good sense to market her chocolates at couples, with a nifty little box featuring a tray for her, a tray for him, and one to share.

Her idea to spice up the advert by getting her female model to tie up her boyfriend and gorge the whole box herself was also inspired.

We all know girls like that. Especially at certain times of the month.

She also had the sense to rein in Ben, 22, who wanted to base the box design on the international symbol for mutual oral sex.

'This is about romance,' Kate sternly told Ben, who wandered off, possibly in search of a leg to hump.

Kate, 27, seemed to have it all sewn up. She was at her most robotically efficient during the presentation while Yasmina confessed: 'My presentation style is s***'.

But it was Yasmina who triumphed though Sir Alan described her offerings as: 'Not shocking chocolates, they were shocking chocolates. The chocolate was the cheapest of the cheap.'

That was what seduced the wily old trader, of course.

Yasmina's chocolates cost just 7p each to produce, so the margin on a £6 box was very attractive.

No, I can't work it out, but Yasmina's shown throughout the series that she's rubbish with figures too, and it hasn't done her any harm.

Kate's might have been yummy, but at £13 a box, they didn't appeal to Sir Alan, a graduate of the 'pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap' school of retail.

But Yasmina might be a wow as Sir Alan's new Apprentice but after last night's taste sensations I won't be in a hurry to visit her restaurant.

Gillian Crawley

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