The Apprentice 2007 Episode 5 'Fish, Lips And Horses'

A classic episode! It was really great to see the different strategies used by the candidates, whilst their humour was really funny. Of course, Sir Alan was right in the boardroom.
The candidates wheel and deal in the fashionable London art scene. They had two days to select two artists to work with, mount an exhibition and then get buyers through the door of their private view. The team to sell the most art wins.

Natalie heads up Eclipse and Kristina takes the reins with Stealth.

Natalie was the Project Manager for Eclipse. Katie in Eclipse was completely airy-fairy this week. She seemed to fancy herself as a bit of an art-critic and seemed to think she new how to communicate with artists and sell their work. They chose the art of Elisabeth Hoff (more about her later), who's huge glossy lip photographs were Eclipse's first choice.

Whilst Adam is ridiculously arrogant, he voiced his opinions but did exactly what Natalie asked him to do. Katie said that she wished he would 'go back to the car sales lot and get run over...' Lead by Katie, the team turn against Adam's hard approach to selling, deciding they must tread lightly around artists and not go in for the hard sell at their private view.

Krisina was the team leader for Stealth. She wanted the team to give the hard sell, completely the opposite to Natalie's softly approach. One customer described her exhibition as being like an estate agents.

Tre was on top form this week. I think he is hilarious. My favourite comment was about Linda Lieberman's ocean inspired work. 'Titties and fish,' he growled with disgust, 'what a combination. She calls it hanging the ocean out to dry. I call it bras and fish.' Despite voicing his opinions and the art work clearly offending him, Kristina shoved him down in the basement with the responsibility of hanging Lieberman's work. He was offended by the nudity in the pieces and he refused to hang some of the pieces, saying they belonged in 'a fetish gallery'.

When he tried to sell the art he was brilliant, creating the biggest load of nonsense to try to appeal to modern art lovers (nutters?). Still, he managed to sell a few.

In the boardroom, Kristina's team won by a landslide, pulling in £4,702 to Eclipse's £1599.78. They were packed off to a swanky spa to soak up some serious treatments. Kristina tried to persuade Tre to have a footballer style 'back, sack and crack' wax!

Sir Alan tackled Eclipse's choice of artist Elisabeth Hoff and was not impressed by the way she dominated the team and refused to share her contacts. She was so arrogant and really loved herself. She was like an art-diva and dominated her team. Personally I'm not into modern art. Although one or two of her pieces were nice, I agree with Sir Alan that to sell her work you needed someone to fall in love with the whole collection as it wouldn't have appealled to everyone.

Adam and Lohit are pulled back into the final boardroom. Lohit has been like an extra all series and has done nothing. Adam was bound to be called in as Natalie hated him. Katie didn't get one sale, and it was her sales strategy that flopped.

However, although Sir Alan admired the way Natalie combined motherhood with studying for her MBA, he felt she was out of her depth. And so Natalie the housewife became the sixth candidate to be fired from the competition. Natalie's inclusion to the show exposed their claim that the greatest young business people in the country were invited to take part a complete mockery. She was nothing special and Sir Alan was right to give her the boot.