It's takeaway for Natasha as Helen, Tom, Jim and Susan make the Apprentice final

Natasha, who has a degree in hospitality, was fired in last night’s semi-final of The apprentice, where the teams were tasked with starting their own fast food restaurant.

‘You have a degree in hospitality, understanding food and all that stuff’, said Sugar. ‘It was a long time ago’, replied Natasha, despite boasting to her team mates about her BA Hons at the beginning of the task and telling them she had run her own restaurant at uni.

‘You learnt fundamental things in your degree’, stated Sugar. Natasha said that she hadn’t been interested in the food side of things and honed in on the areas she liked.

‘It’s like doing a first aid degree and not being able to help someone (sick) in the street’, said Sugar. ‘I didn’t like doing resuscitation but had to do it.’

He added, ‘You started off as a house on fire, but I’ve found you lack lustre in the last few weeks. You’re fired.’

Lord Sugar told Karen and Nick that Natasha not being able to handle the process was a weakness and shown she couldn’t be his business partner.

Natasha, Jim (PM) and Susan went head to head in the boardroom after loosing the task with a miserable score of 4/10 for their Caracas Mexican restaurant. Whilst team Logic, Helen (PM) and Tom, earned 7/10 for their traditional British pie and mash takeaway called ‘Mypy’, putting the pair in Sunday’s final. Industry experts judged the teams on their customer service, standard of menu, their restaurant’s brand I-D and it’s potential longevity.

In the boardroom Sugar asked team Venture where their business plan was. Susan admitted they didn’t have one and hadn’t though about profit margins, proven when Jim’s sums failed to total up, coming out with a figure of 4,000 rather than 400, after an industry expert asked how much money they expected to make over a lunchtime.

Sugar also criticised the teams for slow service after waiting ten minutes for his ‘fast food’. PM Jim, who the girls ganged up on, blamed it on the equipment.

Lord Sugar wasn’t convinced and told Jim he had the manner, which some call charisma, which sometimes is a good trait in business, but it has its downfall. He added that he liked Jim’s spirit and was putting him through to the final.

Susan, he said, didn’t get on with too may people, which could be down to her being ruthless.

‘Not many people have a good word to say about you, but you’ve achieved a lot. Susan you’re in the final’, he said.

Helen, Tom, Jim and Susan face a grilling in Sunday’s final when they hand over and are questioned about their business plans.

To market with Melody, the eleventh apprentice to be fired.

Mouthy Melody set herself up for failure on .last night’s The Apprentice nominating herself as Logic’s PM for the investment task.

Lord Sugar said it was with regret that he was letting her go, but earlier had confessed he found it difficult to understand what she does (work).

‘There’s a woman with exceptional ability, but it’s a cruel process here’, he told Melody’s remaining team-mates Helen and Tom.

Logic faced Lord Sugar in the boardroom after loosing to Venture by less than £30 in a task where they had objects to sell at a profit and reinvest their money by buying other products to sell. A challenge which Sugar called ‘smell to sell.’

‘It’s not a great win’, Lord Sugar told Venture, whose PM Natasha failed to do much re-investing.

‘You had no balls, no guts, you didn’t reinvest’, shouted Sugar as he took away the team’s treat, a helicopter ride to Sandown.

‘Which of you three brain surgeons let this happen?’, Sugar asked Melody, Tom and Helen, whop up to now had a perfect record.

Tom and Melody said the blame lay with Helen, who wasted time making a four hour round trip to a linen wholesalers to purchase duvet covers for a retailer at only £3 profit per unit. The retailer ordered 30.

Lord Sugar told Helen, who asked Melody if she could take over as PM half-way through the task, and became obsessed with selling the goods to retailers, ‘That’s very unusual. Never happened before someone saying they want to take over control.’

He also said that she had made a big mistake focusing on selling to retailers as they can just go to the wholesaler themselves.

Whereas Tom, he said, an innovator and innovator, was right up his alley, a product man, but over the ten weeks he had only said there was a problem with a task when it was too late.

What saved Tom was the sales he made, selling nodding dogs and umbrellas to the public, when it wasn’t his thing.

Helen was saved by her impressive track record, having never lost before.

In next week's programme, the teams have to come up with and open their own fast food restaurants.

The Apprentice: Zoe is fired for crumbling under pressure.

Zoe was ordered to leave the competition last night having failed as PM of Logic to get any orders for the team’s biscuit BixMix, whereas Venture, whose PM was Helen, sold £800,000 units to Asda for their little stars biscuits for kids.

Zoe’s error? Not going to the factory to make the product and leaving Tom and Melody to it.

Lord Sugar told Zoe, ‘I’m looking for someone to go into business with. You can’t perform in a task, then you can’t perform with me.You’re fired.’

As Zoe, a food retailer, walked out of the boardroom, Lord Sugar told the remaining candidates, Melody and Tom, Susan was let off the hook, ‘I’m flexing my muscles, as someone who is meant to be an expert in this field has failed.You get it?’

Logic’s failure of the task was put down to their poor quality product. Feedback from the supermarkets they pitched to, Asda, Waitrose and Sainsburys, was that the team had no clear target audience, their packaging didn’t stand out and their snap and share biscuit, half chocolate, half digestive, was good in principal, but left one person with a plain biscuit and the other with chocolate.

‘You should have broken it horizontally so both get some of the chocolate’, advised Sugar.

Before making his decision, Lord Sugar told Tom he was like a broken record with his ‘should have, could have, would have done’ speech.

Tom replied that it was a learning process. ‘It’s not school’, said Sugar.

‘I’ve got over you being a charming, nice man, but you’re not authoritative. What should, could, would have done is no good to me.’

Previously Sugar’s advisor Karen said to him that all they hear from Tom is he’s learning. ‘At some point he’s got to get it right’.She also warned that Melody needs to be carefully watched as her interaction with the other candidates is not good.

This was proved when she and Zoe argued on Asda’s shop floor before the pitch, and their bitching to one another in the boardroom.

Sugar told Melody he was concerned about her arguments with colleagues and that it never seems to be her fault?

Next week the teams go back to basics and set up their own market stall a’ la Alan Sugar.

Film Review- Narnia: The voyage of the Dawn Treader

After watching the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and  Prince Caspian over the Christmas holidays I was left wanting another Narnia fix so decided to give the latest film in the trilogy a go. I was slightly disappointed by Prince Caspian and had heard Disney had pulled out of making the third so was a little sceptical that the new film could be better than the first. Unfortunately I was right, the film was some what predictable and uninteresting, I guess it didn't help that I was sat next to a sniffling child for the whole two hours?
While the graphics were amazing, much of the characters lacked the love ability factor which came so easily in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. With King Peter and Queen Susan being demoted to minor characters, it was up to Queen Lucy and King Edmund to lead the way, taking centre stage with their cousin Eustace, who depsite his name actually played a somewhat amusing part, building up a good rapport with Reepicheep the mouse, actually their relationship was what stood out most in the film.I was also disappointed with the lack of Narnian characters who were replaced by people, a comment which may seem odd but only fans of Narnia could understand. All I can think is that the lack of CGI characters was down to smaller budgets? All in all he film is a bit of a let down and because of its simplistic plot more suited to children.