The Apprentice: season 13, episode 5 recap: "Happy Birthday"

The cathedral bells remain silent, because He is unsatisfied. Year after year the people place presents at His feet: nigella seeds, skeletons and African black soap and yet the bells pay no heed. In this, His 70th year, the Lord Sugar demands nine sacrifices and only then shall the bells ring out and one lucky parishioner shall have bestowed upon them a £250k business opportunity.

The task

It's shopping week, the one time of the year we all have to pretend that there's not this thing called the internet that can deliver all the rambutan you want to your door within hours. Surely the best way to win this task is to use the money for same-day delivery and then just make sure someone's in so you don't have to go all the way down to the depot with a "While You Were Out" card? Failing that, why not just get Harrison to sing "Happy Birthday" instead?

Finally, after 13 seasons, is a task around the one thing Lord Sugar loves more than anything else: Lord Sugar. To celebrate his 70th birthday, the teams must buy from a list of specific items: unfortunately, a Moonpig card or a picture of Piers Morgan with his eyes scratched out is not going to cut it. There are nine items in total, ranging from a car aerial to bricks and mortar. Them's some crazy birthday plans, bro.

Following her nervous breakdown in the boardroom last week, Joanna has already been appointed PM of Graphene, so the arguing can start in the car before the task has even begun. Jade doesn't think they should ruin the task by bickering again, so makes her point by bickering with Joanna over who bickers the most. As punishment for her insubordination, Joanna sticks her with Bushra and Liz on the subteam. I have a feeling she's going to go far, until she has to ask if Lord Sugar is even Jewish (James: [Pause] "Yes") and I realise that feeling was probably wind.

Sajan takes control of Team Vitality, because he's from London. Because he also wanted to be PM, this puts Charles's nose out of joint, bitterly pointing out this isn't really a business skill, and spurring him on to sabotage his own team's efforts. Seeing as he practises the Jewish faith, Charles is the only one who knows what a ruggelach is, so it makes sense that he marches into a Turkish supermarket to ask if they have any of the Jewish pastries. They do not. Just cut up some pain aux chocolates, guys. Easy.

It soon becomes quite clear that despite members on both sides proudly declaring they know London, no one actually does. (Can anyone really know London?) Bushra is from South London, but quickly loses direction when the rest of the team wants to plough East, like a cabbie refusing to cross the river. Both teams have trouble locating a Spurs scarf, when everyone knows you're never more than five minutes away from a Sports Direct in London. Lord Sugar would have loved one of those giant mugs.

The Amstrad computer proves the most elusive item of all. After being beaten to the pass by Joanna for one in West London (sold by a woman who just happens to have one set up in her flat), Sajan manages to track down a seller across the other side of town. Despite the poor man just putting his tea on, he reluctantly agrees to drive for over an hour to meet Vitality, only for Sajan to realise time's getting on and cancel on him just as he gets to Canary Wharf. The unfortunate bloke returns home to his cold dinner and an obsolete piece of technology that he can't even email a letter of complaint to the BBC on.

The boardroom

Clearly, Lord Sugar doesn't place much importance on timekeeping, which means that the omnishambles that is Graphene manage to argue their way to victory. Despite missing the deadline by over an hour, Graphene secured all the items on the list and the girls get their fourth win. Joanna bursts into tears: is it because she knows she didn't really earn the win, or because she has to spend another week with Liz and that mockney accent she puts on when she has to talk to anyone with a trade?

A defeated Sajan brings back Harrison to the boardroom, along with Ross the human echo. Sajan gives it his very best to avoid a firing and pulls out a sob story on how he still has a long way to go. Ross takes a different tack and decides that informing Lord Sugar that "statistically speaking" he's usually the smartest person in the room will convince the pointed finger of doom to go another way.
Who got fired?

Ross did, for not doing anything and basically just repeating what everyone else said.
Does he thank him?

He may be the cleverest person in the room, but Poindexter doesn't appear to have a way with words: "Thank you for the opportunity ... it was ... I appreciate the opportunity." He doesn't even get a piece of birthday cake.

Next week, the candidates must use all the bricks and mortar to build a BBQ in Sugar's back garden, whilst he pelts them with ruggelach, draped in his many Tottenham scarves.