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The Apprentice: The Final

Yasmina Siadatan, winner of The Apprentice 2009
  • Posted at 11:20am
  • 08 June 2009
  • by PaulJones-RT
  • 3 comments

It must have been a bit weird for Kate and Yasmina on that final night, just the two of them in the penthouse that used to sleep 15. And when Kate answered the phone to Sir Alan's PA the next morning, I did wonder if she might just decide not to wake her opponent up.

But, no, we got our final competition - each of the girls was asked to launch a new brand of chocolates - and with some of the fired candidates returning to help out, there was plenty of entertainment to be had.

Philip found an outlet for his creative urges, choreographing the dancers for Yasmina's presentation, and enjoying a surprising amount of twirling and thrusting himself.

Poor Philip the estate agent, how he must long to rip off that stifling suit, burst free of the constraints of the office - and dance, dance, dance!

In his pants.

Yes, he was still harping on about Pantsman. "They'll get it one day," he said, convinced that, like many of history's great thinkers, he's suffering for being ahead of his time.

While deluded Philip danced for Yasmina, Kate was fighting off Ben's latest attempt to sex up a product (he wanted to call the chocolates 69 - God knows what shapes he would have made them). But his influence was still evident in her brand, Choc D'Amour, which featured his-and-hers sweets and an ad involving some light bondage.

Yasmina's team came up with Cocoa Electric, which boasted a shocking pink box and supposedly shocking flavours ("explosive chilli" did sound disturbingly like the morning after a hot curry), but they failed to deliver on the actually-being-edible front.

I suspected when I started to feel nervous for Yasmina ahead of her presentation that I'd developed a soft spot for her. Or maybe it was just that I knew Kate would ace that part. But I don't think it's fair to criticise Kate for being "too good". That makes no sense. Kate is composed, decisive and good at managing a team, and those are all great business attributes.

But Yasmina has those skills and something more. I don't want to call it passion - I'm convinced Kate really wanted the job - but there's a natural enthusiasm about Yasmina, and a feel for business, that maybe Kate doesn't have. She's stuck to her original mission statement - "business is about a simple formula. Make more than you spend" - and I think that struck a chord in Sir Alan's entrepreneurial brain. It was a tough call, but Yasmina was the right choice.

When The Apprentice returns next year, it will be with Lord Sugar presiding, but lovely, mumsy Margaret Mountford won't be sitting beside him. She's always seemed more of an academic than a gritty businesswoman to me, and she's just announced that she's quitting the show to concentrate on her studies - a PhD in ancient scrolls at University College London. Like Philip, she has hidden talents.

Meanwhile, some people are saying the series has become predictable. Perhaps. But with Sir Alan set to join the government, Margaret off to hang out down the student union and Philip (possibly) pursuing a career in dance, it's a reminder that life, if not The Apprentice, is like a box of chocolates - you never know just what you're gonna get…

**

Did the best woman win? Post a comment below and let us know.

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Comments

  • Posted on 08 June 2009
  • at 9:11pm
  • by Vicki M.

I can't believe that Yasmina even made it to the final. Her win in the catering task was a total fluke - despite making a huge profit, I highly doubt she would ever have won any repeat business after serving those ridiculous baguettes at the City function and producing chickenless chicken wraps. Very poor management. Despite surviving that task, she surely deserved the chop in the soap task, getting off very lightly when poor Paula went instead for Yasmina's mistake. And then the inedible chocolate! This woman could not create a quality product if she tried. Talk about scraping the barrel.

That said, there is a huge difference between being driven and being a driver, and Kate seemed to lack drive in the final task. While Deborah easily (and wrongly) convinced her to up her price, at least she made up for it by coming to Kate's assistance with the packaging and name.

A very disappointing series all round - I maintain that Deborah had the most talent; if it weren't for her bloody rudeness she would have been a worthy winner.

  • Posted on 08 June 2009
  • at 7:46pm
  • by Lucia Cooper

Yasmina was the right choice. Well done Sir (Lord?) Alan Sugar!

  • Posted on 08 June 2009
  • at 4:02pm
  • by Jan McClury

Yes, indeed the best woman won in the end. Having been a Kate supporter for weeks, I realised as the programme unfolded last night that Yasmina had the edge on her. How I felt for Yasmina as she practised her presentation speech and kept going wrong. She's doomed, I thought. Wish the tax payer had paid for her to have Media Training and not Harriet Harman....Thankfully, Yasmina did triumph in the presentation slot and seemed very confident. Her team backed her well and right from the start they seemed to come up with the ideas more so than Kate's team. I am sure that Kate won't be on the unemployment statistics though as she has Sir Alan's phone number and surely a very good reference! A very good series but it will be a bit sad to lose Margaret but as she says, she does not want to collect her degree on a zimmer frame. But will Sir Alan become Lord Sugar...We await the outcome of Gordon's speech tonight and maybe Sir Alan will hear the words. You're fired!

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