The two teams are getting lots of flack for having come up with rubbish ideas for the Richmond task.... but could any of us have come up with better ones?

Facepainting - bad cos weekday when kids at school
Gardening - lots of Richmond people have gardeners already

Singograms - went well, actually!
Kissagrams...uuurgh??

What would you have done? (I thought flower-selling, but then I wasn't sure if you were allowed to sell a product, or if it had to be a service).

Not sure what I'd have come up with in the evening, but did think Katie and Paul's DJ idea spectactularly bad - most bars already have an idea of the sort of music their punters will like... and the last thing they want is someone who promises them 'great music' and then plays the sort of stuf you'd hear at Fabric when their clientele likes a bit of Katie Melua warbling away in the background.

I would have probably gone for cleaning cars or windows.

That's the trouble I find with a lot of the tasks given - as the instructions always seem a bit vague. Maybe it's to inspire initiative in the candidates - or perhaps they are given a lot more detail that the viewers don't get to see.

My initial ideas was also flower selling. They were all up early enough - could have raced off to Covent Garden Market and spent a good wadge of money on some flowers and tissue paper, spend a little while making up some button holes for gentlemen and some pretty bunches up for women - then one group find a location in Richmond where there were a lot of offices/buisnesses and do some selling - and another group find a street location for shoppers who would be tempted to buy a bunch - or try the open air cafes. Then in the evening take some single blooms around the pubs and clubs and encourage drunk boyfriends to splash out on their girlfriends. Can see drawbacks in keeping the flowers fresh - so they would have had to make sure they had adequate buckets and fresh water - but there were enough in the groups to ensure that their products were always looking good.

Alternatively, would have raced off to a good bakers and a deli early in the morning, bought some delicious bread, made up some exclusive sounding sarnies, wrapped them and hawked them round to businesses and shop workers in Richmond for an inflated price. Many workers go out for lunch, or bring their lunch with them - but there would still be a good market. Then go ahead with the single bloom flower idea in the clubs and bars in the evening.

Big flaw in both my ideas is that both need some work space where the flowers or sandwiches could be prepared - and not sure that they have that. Can't really make rye bread and pastrami sandwiches in the back of a cab...!
Last edited by Jeanie : 12-04-2007 at 09:02

They have a kitchen at the house.

Not sure how good any of these would be but I thought: dog walking, ironing(would you let them in?), window washing, a valet service doing insides and outsides of cars and instead of whole gardening thing just a bit of path clearing and leaf clearing... For evening I'm at a loss.

washing windows would have been a good one. loads of shops in richmond... lots of windows... very quick and easy to do. doesnt cost much to buy the stuff needed.

selling sandwiches/lunches to offices/shops around richmond.
take the orders in the morning, get back to the hosue, make em and then deliver them. seems like easy money

car washing.

for the evening.. hotdog stand, BBQ stand.... you would have them lining up around the block.

selling roses in pubs and bars and on the streets

Just asked this on the last night tread but do you need to have things like licences to set up a shop on the pavement in 'real life'?

And do the contestants have any kind of identity (apart from the camera crew, ) to say why they are knocking on peoples doors and asking to dead head a few roses. I would have thought that a random person standing on the door step saying 'we are in the area and in buisness for one day and would like to trim your edges' would make the alarm bells of 'casing the joint' start to ring. How many people under normal circs would say - yes, come on in!! If so, how much of the business they actually get is down to the show 'The Apprentice' rather than their excellent business skills?

I thought that too. As someone who has had a cold caller at their door trying to swindle them out of cash I'd probably even tell boy scouts that turned up offering to shine my shoes where to go!

i did notice them wearing id's and i am sure the people asked "oh what is the camera for?" either way there were not enough cameras for the girls as they only made what £90??? or even less.

They made no money cause the face painting idea was guff! On a weekend it would have worked great but as for stoating up to schools to get children on their way out, or to walk up to people as Jadine did in the playground with no stall set up is bizarro. As a teacher I doubt any school would have supported such a venture even if there were cameras and people with id there. Checks on these things have to be done!!

Right - it's just that it must be a help in door to door selling. Personally, a stranger turning up asking to do something to the house would get short shrift from me - but would the kudos of 'The Apprentice' make that difference (even if you really didn't want or need anything doing)

Camera crews filming on the streets, I guess, wouldn't be that uncommon so probably people wouldn't think to second glance - and you would have need to have acess to a small child as well - unless you felt like going into work as Brian Potter's lion.

oh yeah the facepainting thing was a total nonstarter. the looks like sugar mixes the teams next week. i think it was rather pathetic when all the girls said they didnt want to be project manager... sort of showed why there was no leadersip from the start.

doesnt show much drive to me. the boys and the american version contestants see giong for pm much differently to the british girls...

the boys and americans see it as a chance to shine like a star. its a caluclated risk that if you win you will be praised but if you lose you are almost certain to take the fall...
the girls all seem so scared, i hope none ofthem are the apprentice.

They should have sold people the chance to be on telly for a second!

dont know if they allowed to do that... one of the few things wrong with the apprentice is we do not know all the rules so when someone doesnt do something you are not sure if its because they are stupid or because it is against the rules

I suppose the illusion is that they are doing what anyone else with £200 and a dream could do - so the fiction is that they are just being filmed doing what anyone else could do - whereas the fact is that if they weren't part of 'The Apprentice' machine and had to conform to all the normal bylaws and general life then they wouldn't have done half so well.

You can't make food for public consumption in your own kitchen these days unless it's been given the once over by the Environmental Health and the HSE. In case you poison someone...


I'd have hired two power washers and done drive and patio cleaning.

I was watching with my brother who works for a school and he said the same thing - no way would they be allowed to do it ...

I dunno - I reckon there are quite a few women who'd make more money than that lot did selling kisses.

According to Geri on R5 right now they had a restrictive list of what they could do, flower selling was not on the list.

and whoring themselves for cash was!?!

They didn't ask her that unfortunately.

Car cleaning was also not on list apparently as they needed a water supply or something.

It's OK, I was kidding!

In reality is very hard to come up with a way to make money on a weekday in posh reserved Richmond with only £200 - especially not knowing the rules.

Hazel x

Apprentice blog on http://blog.myspace.com/wivenhoefunnyfarm

Interesting.

Shame the programme couldn't have maybe allowed the viewer to know that. As I said in my earlier post, all the instructions for the tasks seem very vague sometimes, and to my mind it leaves the viewer feeling somewhat confused as to why the candidates opt to go down certain routes.

Can see how programme time restraints would prevent them giving all the details - but maybe a little more insight into the actual rules of the tasks wouldn't go amiss.

I'm sure with all those so called business brains they could have come up with something better than gardening when its wet and face painting on a school day (madness). Have they no idea? I also believe they don't make the rules clear so you never quite know what they are working against.

The kissing thing was just embarassing.

I only realised later that the guys had a van. Given the leafy suburb that Richmond is, I would have visited houses offering to remove any unwanted junk, like in garages and lofts. You could charge for this, and probably have sold whatever was cleared to make more money. That sort of business could have gone on into the night.

Gardening is a back breaker for too little money, and they weren't skilled at it. Face painting is never going to rake in much cash - it's usually done at fete's to raise charity money isn't it?

From early on, the half of the girls could have been selling the idea of running a karaoke for a pub, in return for a cut of the bar take.