A trugg, Sahara desert roses and the rise and fall of Barometer Man…

Which way to the shops?

Brighton & Hove was the location for episode four of The Apprentice where Team Apex & Team Affinity were tasked with finding nine items with local relevance — the team finding the most, for the least price would win. Fines would be imposed for any items missing or which were plain wrong.

All sounded fairly straightforward. With no access to the internet, the teams had to rely on old-fashioned methods of research including making telephone calls, a directory and a map. Yet their preferred method in finding out what some items was ‘guessing’.

With a little jockeying within Team Affinity, Simba became project manager though he didn’t prove to be an impressive leader. There was a modicum of organisation, most of it being cleverly inserted by team member Dani who is proving to have quite a lot of common sense. She suggested starting their purchasing journey outside of the city and moving into the city later — perhaps picking up items more easily and, critically, more cheapily.

This meant they found the trugg shop and they were able to buy fresh asparagus, picked on the day, quite quickly and for a price which they hoped would prove to be good.

Denisha had no choice but to be project leader, Lord Sugar had insisted and was waiting to be impressed. He’s still waiting…

There were several items within the nine which were unknown to me and yet there seemed to be little ability within either team to get on the phone and find out what they were, where they might be stocked so that a buying route could be established which didn’t waste loads of time.

As someone who has on several occasions had to deliver parcels all across Wiltshire, I learned really quickly that an hour’s strategic planning to sort out a sensible travelling route saves precious time later rather than running around like an ant on speed. Sadly neither team took precious time to do this simple thing.

If they had they would have worked out that a Sussex trugg is a particular type of basket and palourdes are a type of clam. The funniest thing of all was watching Team Apex running in and out of one florist or another looking for a Sahara Desert Rose. Even I would have worked out that if a qualified florist…