Headless chickens
The Marrakech shopping task is an all-time classic episode of The Apprentice. Full marks to TalkBack Thames.
Jennifer M was in charge of Renaissance this week and was hamstrung by being given the much weaker team of Jenny C, Alex, Michael and Claire.
Lee, who was also team leader for the first time, had the much stronger team of Sara, Lucinda, Helene and Raef - and also proved to be an excellent team leader.
Both teams set out to buy ten items in Marrakech for the lowest price, dealing with wizened locals who had been negotiating with westerners for years.
Alex and Claire went off to buy a green alarm clock. And she was soon interrupting Alex's negotiating. They came out with a white alarm clock for next-to-no discount.
Jennifer told Claire to be quiet in the next negotiation so she complied by telling the shopkeeper: "I'd rather buy it here cos my feet are tired and I want to go home. My feet are killing me." Maybe she was a mole just put into the show to scupper their chances. They paid much more than Alex could have negotiated for a sequinned bedspread.
None of Renaissance knew what kosher food was and we were treated to some classic lines.
Alex: Anyone can bless a chicken.
Claire: Who blesses the chicken?
Alex: A holy man.
Jennifer: If we find a holy man and a mosque. Is the mosque far from here?
Jenny: The chicken has to have it blessed by someone from the mosque so it is kosher.
Whatever they were suffering from was catching and Margaret must have got too close. She even told us: "There are thousands of chickens here. Most of them are still alive so I suppose they could be killed and blessed in a kosher way. There aren't many rabbis in this part of Marrakech." Classic.
Lee's team bought all the ten items for a reasonable price. Raef bought a cowhide at a tannery for 250 dirhams, well below the guide price. And the team even found the Jewish quarter to get the kosher chicken. For some reason we didn't see the rabbi blessing it before they paid the butcher.
Alpha had bought all the items for only £414. Jennifer's Alpha had paid £450 but collected two sets of penalty points and had two items disallowed taking their notional total to £604.
Back at the boardroom Sir Alan Sugar didn't even give Jennifer the chance to choose a couple of hapless team members to join her for the final session. In one of the most dramatic boardroom sessions ever he fired both Jennifer and Jenny. Michael, who had claimed on his CV that he was a good Jewish boy but who didn't know what kosher food was somehow escaped the axe. Claire who bungled negotiations by interrupting also luckily escaped back to the house.
Just eight candidates remain for the final five weeks.
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