The Apprentice: season 15, episode 2 recap: "Brain Freeze"

The girls’ team is not that much better. Lubna proposes “Cheesy Cola” as a flavour, made from cream cheese and cherry cola, and every week we stray further and further from God’s light. Although PM Carina nixes this idea, she makes the strange decision to make a retro lolly, made of Liquorice Allsorts and cherry coke , and goes with Lottie’s idea to make a garden-inspired lolly, compete with twigs. Lottie, it should be said, is my new nemesis. Last week, she claimed to be a world-class wine expert but is now protesting that she’s “only a librarian”, which means she can’t be subteam leader and can gleefully push Marianne in front of the oncoming bus that is a boardroom firing. Willing to take all the credit but do none of the work, Lottie continues her game plan of just complaining where everyone is going wrong without doing anything to help.

No one seems to have any actual business nous anymore (if they ever did): it’s almost as if the producers have just cast people who make for ‘good’ TV, rather than their commercial acumen. The boys’ corporate client makes a lowball offer for the penis lollies, which Dean refuses, even though they’ll have a harder time trying to flog them later on. And the girls seem to think negotiation consists of walking away when you can’t agree on price and make the other party sweat, only to return with exactly the same price.

Some contestants do look to possess some semi-decent sales skills, however. Thomas, aka the voice of Jay’s dad from The Inbetweeners in the body of Biff Tannen from Back To The Future, manages to charm some punters with his cockney charm. Pulling someone from the street to their lolly stall, he informs them “You’ve gotta buy three now, ya know that, duntya. Or I’ll fuckin’ cut ya, only kidding!”, as Claude looks on lovingly.