Yay! I can see The Apprentice

So, not only is The Apprentice back, I can now actually watch it and comment because I (at least for the moment) have access to a VPN..

At last something to put on my blog and the ability to do it properly!

There was nothing much to say back in Episode 1. (Apart from the fact that flogging Chinese Lucky Cats in Chinatown seemed a remarkably, recklessly even, poor decision. Those guys import them for pennies. I can buy one here in Baiyin for about fifty pence. Trying to get them to pay a fiver was the wildest flight of optimism.)

Episode 2 was on ground I'm more familiar with - beer - and the sight of the Banks's Brewery in Wolverhampton made me all nostalgic for a decent pint. Of course, never in a hundred years would I buy Rhubarb and Caramel or Chocolate and Orange flavoured beer. I'm old fashioned. I prefer beer flavoured beer.

For me the comment of the night came in that "post-game analysis" show, "You're Fired".

The panel included the head of the BrewDog brewery who remarked that the boys team had a bad pun as the name of their beer. Indeed they did. Many a fine ale has a bad pun as its name, and theirs was right up there with the others - A Bitter This - can't get much worse than that as as puns go.

The fellow from BrewDog agreed. He told them how much he hates "gimicky names" for beers. This from the brewery that gave us Trashy Blonde Ale.

(Mind you Ed Byrn'es "You've got to go some to look daft in front of a group of Morris Dancers" was pretty good too!)

I'm constantly astounded at contestants basic inabilities, though. In this episode, they made a big deal out of how difficult it was to scale up the quantities of their flavourings from a sample pint to a full cask. It's simple multiplication and no one among the best and brightest on display here could do it. They wasted two kegs of beer before managing to get it right.I wonder if any of them has ever tried to follow a recipe in a cookbook. Scaling quantities is about as basic as it gets.

Next week they have to come up with a new and innovative piece of flat pack furniture. Is there anything at all that hasn't already been sold in Ikea? Should be fun.