No Turner Prizes for The Apprentice candidates this week (or The One With The Fight Over Pure Evil)

Rargh. Sell some art, Apprentice candidates

On tonight's Apprentice, art.  A particular sort - street art.

Will the candidates know their Urban Banksy from their Utter Bollocks?  On their form to date, it's dubious.

The call comes at 6am.  The teams are to go to Waterloo.  Clearly expecting a jaunt on ze Eurostar, they're somewhat bemused to discover Lord Sugar on a massive telly under the arches.  It soon becomes clear that they're expected to be art critics.  Erk.

As it's The Apprentice, there are the traditional two teams.  And what do Apprentice teams need?  Leaders!  Stephen is keen to do it and says just that.  But Gabrielle says just that, and then goes on to actually outline her experience in running art events, including catering expertise, so that wins the day.  Even though Stephen can turn his mouth into an enormous upside-down U and make his top lip disappear.

Over on Phoenix, Tom knows everything about street art.  I suspect the police may quiz him one day about his in-depth knowledge.  Well, he knows that nobody knows who Banksy is.  So maybe they won't.  Anyway, he is the leader of Phoenix, and Adam is mighty relieved, because he's just about bright enough to realise that blag and a giant pink face only get you so far in the art world.

The task?

Get some corporate clients and other punters to rock up to a hastily flung together art gallery in a trendy part of East London and buy street art from up-and-coming artists.  The team which earns the most commission wins.  Easy.

Tom's team head to Renault, where he says, "Jwayur de vivruh" to a Frenchman, who may or may not know that he actually meant "Joie de vivre".  Their budget for art is £5k.  Nick Hewer has only praise for Tom.  I suspect he wants to stroke Tom's fledgling moustache.  Laura says nothing.

Gabrielle decides they want someone "quite unique".  How unique?  Quite.  Not very.  Not a bit.  Quite.  Fgs.  No budget discussed with their corporate client, Beefeater Gin, though, which Karren thinks is a mistake (because it is).  "Get on that train with that particular artist..." Stephen makes unintelligible statements about nothing in particular with great enthusiasm as his alien face looms at the corporate clients.

Nathan Bowen, building site graffiti artist and man who draws scribbled figures of  is much liked by Gabrielle when they visited him.  Unfortunately, Nick and Ricky find some work that looks like his on a building site and don't like it at all - possible conflict point in the future #awkward

Tom says "obviously" a great many times to street artist Pure Evil and explains how much he knows about street art from across the world.  Pure Evil's loins wither; he is clearly in need of some ego-stroking and, fortunately, Sterling rock up to do just that.

Gabrielle, Stephen and Jenna visit "the artist known as Pure Evil" and Gabrielle bangs on about how drawn in she is to the icons and how she wants to really look at the art.  Which is nice.  And Pure Evil begins to get his semi-on back.

Phoenix visit Copyright in Bristol.  Adam proceeds to demonstrate he knows nothing about art, but makes serious faces a lot.  Big pink ones.

James Jessop shows both teams his work, using his frankly ker-azy voice which is frantically monotone.  Possibly off his tits on oil paint, who knows?  "If I could go back to 1982 in a TARDIS and spraypaint a whole train, this is what I'd do" - his canvas looks like a big ol' train covered in graffiti, which I think is frowned upon by the authorities, so it's probably for the best that the TARDIS doesn't exist and the strange-voiced artist has to stay firmly in the present, flogging his graffiti for £15k a pop.

Both teams want Pure Evil (possibly subliminally hoping it will please Lord Sugar, who surely has a white cat somewhere).  However, Sterling wins the day and signs Pure Evil and Tom is distraught.  He scrapes his forehead with a pen and does some thinking.  (As an aside, IS he growing a moustache?)

So, Sterling have Pure Evil and Nathan Bowen.

Phoenix have Copyright and James Jessop.

Tom thinks Pure Evil is "mental" for not choosing them to represent him.  Perhaps he should've stroked that artist ego some more.  So to speak.

Brick Lane now and the galleries.  Ooh.

Oh, fuck.  The art that Ricky Martin hated is the art of Nathan Bowen.  The art that Gabrielle wants to offer to Beefeater Gin.  Gabrielle wants Nathan to do a live art demo at their gallery evening.

Over on Sterling, Adam Cor-blimey isn't impressed with the James Jessop art - they're too massive, apparently.

Stephen has an idea.  Nathan is to do his live art "out the back" so that nobody sees him, playing on the Banksy theme.  "What the actual fuck?!" think Gabrielle, Ricky and Nick, but, more politely, say, "We love the idea, but no." It was, as Stephen said, "way outside the box" - why, yes, Stephen, having a live art demo that nobody can see is not in a box called "good".

Tom says obviously some more.  Laura seems to be hiding, because she's said, "Thank you very much" today and that's pretty much it.  Perhaps she might be scared of the big green monster in one of James Jessop's paintings?

Stephen's selling technique seems to be inspired by Brian Cant, saying as he does, "Take it away?" many times over.  Unfortunately, nobody does.

Adam thinks the artist appreciated his "naivety, unbiased-ness and innocence", but does manage to flog paintings.  Surprising, really, given that his art knowledge is akin to that of a toffee apple.

Laura speaks!  But only to say she's not used to selling things like this - you know, taking an item and giving it to the public for money.  She's used to the other sort of selling, like - well, what is there?  Laura isn't sure.  But she blames Adam for it, anyway.

Ricky couldn't possibly do three paintings for one chap (with surely a wig, Donald Trump would be proud) for £3,000, no way.  Eventually, however, he does them for a staggering sum more - £3,100.  Surely-a-wig-man goes away happy.  Well, as happy as someone who's just purchased some faces with black make-up running out of their eyes can be.

Stephen then demonstrates how useless he is as a corporate host.  "We were hoping for a gin and tonic" say his corporate clients - he actually replies, "I wish!".  Well, perhaps they wish that you'd said hello, introduced them to the rest of the team and said goodbye to them when they left - because, as Karren Brady points out, that was a masterclass in how not to treat a corporate client.

Gabrielle, on the other hand, is yelling, "If you want it, come and buy it!" at her punters, which seems to work, bizarrely.

Back to the boardroom for the dissection.

Lord Sugar - oh, the pun wizard - "the writing was on the wall with this task".  How we laughed.

Adam was out of his comfort zone and Lord Sugar was away with the jokes again - "not the Turner prize, more like the turnip prize" - seriously, Shuggs, enough, my sides are a-splitting.  Mind you, you're the one with the fat wedge of cash and the "my boardroom" - and I'm the one titting about on a netbook, so...

"You couldn't have bestowed your enthusiasm on more grateful subjects" - says Karren to Gabrielle, re Pure Evil.  I think Karren had clocked the stiffy too, don't you?

Lord Sugar picks holes in Gabrielle's "tactic" not to ask Beefeater Gin what their budget was.  Gabrielle pretends it was her strategy, but it soon becomes clear that it was a colossal fuck-up as the boys all make wry little lines with their mouths and shake their heads.

Beefeater Gin didn't buy anything.  This wasn't a shock, was it?  No gin and tonic on offer, fgs!

Renault bought art.  Coo.  Well done, Phoenix!

However, in the final analysis, Sterling were a heady £137 ahead of Phoenix, so they got to dress up in enormous rubber johnnies and go and sploosh lots of paint over each other and a vast expanse of paper in what can only be described as "a mess".  

Back to the greasy spoon.  Tom admits that it is his fault.  He takes "some responsibility".  Adam says the failure of the task lies with Tom.  He says Tom is "wet behind the ears" (should've worn one of those johnnies the other team had on - would've kept them dry).

Laura says nothing.  But, to be fair, Jade has said just about bugger all the whole task too.  I suspect they do talk, but it's just not interesting enough to make the final edit.  Ooh, controversial.

Back to the boardroom and Laura gets animated and vocal, blaming the failure of the task on Tom's choice of James Jessop, once they were let down by Pure Evil (although, to be fair, resting one's hopes on pure evil is never a good plan - did the Bible teach us nothing, boys and girls?!).

Lord Sugar seems to like Tom's gambling spirit.  Will it pay off for him?

Adam did lots of sales, Tom and Jade sold some and Laura sold next to nothing.  However, she doesn't question her own sales ability.  She does, however, insult Adam by calling him a blagger.  Whoops.  However, her eyes remain dramatically surrounded by as much tarry black stuff as the women in the pictures Ricky sold to wig-on-his-head man earlier.

Adam gets to go back to the house as Tom makes a good, if bleeding obvious, decision not to bring his top salesman back into the firing line.

Talking of the bleeding obvious, Lord Sugar has to "decide who's responsible for the failure of the task", he says.  Um, yes.  You've watched this before then, Alan?

Laura then finds her voice and protests that she was "still involved" - though she doesn't seem to know what she was involved with.  It wasn't sales.  Perhaps it was drawing dark lines round her eyes.

Is Jade indecisive, Lord Sugar wants to know.  I can't decide.

Tom talks himself into saying "decision" a number of times, then persuades Lord Sugar that he's not a waste of a seat on The Apprentice, because, two years out of university, he's running a £multimillion company.  Clearly Lord Sugar is worried that he'll be outdoing Amstrad by the end of the month.

Tom then wisely sits back and lets the girls scrap it out.  Laura says "myself" a lot.  And she's "devastated" that she didn't do more sales.  And it'll be a "travesty" if she leaves this process now.  I preferred her when she didn't talk.

Lord Sugar says Tom is responsible for the decisions that cost them the task this time.  Is it curtains for him?

Jade is indecisive some more.  Lord Sugar isn't sure whether he likes that or not (he suspects not).

Laura is "certainly a good talker" (and she agrees) - but, ultimately, she's talked herself out of the show - it is "myself" who gets the finger this week.  "Take care," she bizarrely urges them all as she leaves the process in a travesty.  Or was it a taxi?

And myself, for one, won't miss her.

However, you can see her eyes at 7.30pm every Thursday on BBC Two as they star in their own dramatic miniseries from September.

"Smelling what's selling" - The Apprentice (or The One With The Strategy)

Repeat. Often. Then lose.

This week sees the return of the perennial favourite "buy it cheap and flog it to punters" task.


Lord Sugar loves this one.  It takes him back to his roots.  You can see his entrepreneurial juices flowing as he divvies up the teams (Granville, fetch a cloth).


The teams head to a whalesale whorehouse in Essex (or something, I was dazzled by Adam's enormous pink face-matching tie, so I wasn't quite listening).  Anyway, they rock up at a hanger-ful of toot and try to work out what will sell like hot cakes.  But first, they have to elect team leaders.


Jade, on Phoenix, "I haven't been team leader, so, yeah, I might as well."


Everyone, "Yep."


Laura in particular, "Thank FUCK it's not me."


And, on Sterling:


Ricky, "I want to do what Lord Sugar did."


Nick, "I'll put myself forward."


Everyone, "Ooh, Nick, yes, please!"


Ricky, "Arse."


So, team leaders elected, they set about trying to work out where is best to flog their assortment of drivel to unsuspecting buggers in Essex.


Azhar goes for Pitsea, because he's never heard of it, or something.  He also says "strategy".  He does this a lot.  In fact, if you had a "strategy klaxon" that went off every time he said it, your ears would be running blood before the end of the programme.


The other team heads for the surely considerably more impressive "Romford".


What happens when they start to try selling?


Well, it's role-playing bad backs and mopping, crazy bugs whizzing about to the delight of Essex schoolchildren and then there's the fake tan.  Apparently, you can sell fake tan to the inhabitants of Essex.  This cannot be a surprise to anybody who's watched TOWIE.  However, given that they have to explain their purchasing decisions to Lord Sugar in the boardroom, whilst Karren Brady and Nick Hewer chew on their lemon-flavoured wasps, perhaps it's a good thing they didn't go for vajazzle.  I'll pause briefly for you to imagine explaining the concept of "vajazzle" to Lord Sugar...


<...>


And...you're back in the room.  There, that was unpleasant, wasn't it?


Meanwhile, back at the market, Adam is whipping up a frenzy among the Essex women, with his selling tactic of "making them feel nauseous".


"Give me a number, ladies. Not your phone numbers, a price."  I think I speak for all women when I say, "Bleurgh."


Azhar says "strategy" some more, but doesn't seem to have any kind of clue what a "strategy" actually is.  Perhaps he thinks it's like an exotic pet.


Gabrielle says their beard trimmers aren't selling well and they decide that, because the clientele in the shopping centre is mainly women, they should sell them as bikini line trimmers.  Nick Hewer appeared somewhat baffled by this - thank heavens he didn't have to have vajazzle explained to him.


En route back to the warehouse, Ricky and Stephen write a fake tan strapline that I'm sure Clarins will pick up on in their next advertising campaign, "It makes your hand a little bit browner".  Because we all want brown hands, don't we?  That's why we use fake tan - heaven forbid we go out into the world with pasty hands!


Unfortunately, the fake tan has run out (this is to Essex what a water shortage is to the rest of the country), so they settle for hot water bottles.


Thomas and Laura are doing a roaring trade with the crazy bugs (a notable CV addition, fo sho), but there's a lack of strategy (as Azhar would say, as he wondered whether his "strategy" should have a diamante collar, doubtless).


Tom, Laura and Azhar are scornful of Jade's "strategy" some more, this time in the back of a cab, with a nice sunset behind them (to show us there is NOT MUCH TIME LEFT on this task - IT IS GETTING DARK!).


Jade then comes up with a strategy, "Just do deals".  Genius.


So, did they smell what sold?  Who smelt most (so to speak)?  Will it be a boardroom bunfight?


Nick, the frantic fop, was a good team leader, according to the others, even Ricky "Essex loves a tan" Martin.


Forensic analysis of what happened with fake tan, traffic, stock, vans - Sterling berated for not taking the fox back to the bag of grain, or something.


Phoenix, headed up by Jade, demonstrate a small rubber bug to Lord Sugar.  And Azhar bangs on about strategy again.  And again.


The results are in...


£422.61, £415.60, total assets £831.21 - Phoenix.


£681.30, £273.90, total assets £955.20 - Sterling.


So, Sterling get to go for cocktails in a London bar (one of the better-sounding win-treats this season, it must be said).  Alien-faced Stephen makes a funny about his cocktail tasting like Phoenix now... "Bitter".  How we laughed.


But Jade...  Jade has to decide who's coming back to the boardroom.  Can she do it?


Strategy is mentioned again.  By...no prizes for guessing...Azhar.


Distracted from the content of what Tom's saying by wondering whether he's actively trying to grow a moustache.  Also distracted by Lord Sugar's hypnotic chimple (again).  And Laura's eye make-up is so dramatic it surely will have its own spin-off miniseries on BBC Two post-Apprentice.


Jade decides to bring Azhar the strategy man and Tom for no reason whatsoever back to the boardroom.  Laura may have been a better move, given that Lord Sugar hasn't fully forgiven her for the bath riot shield she came up with.  Anyway, Tom and Azhar it is.  Will Azhar's strategy of simply saying "strategy" over and over again have worked well enough to save him?


Lord Sugar drags out the firing process and, at one point, makes it seem like Jade's going. But strategy-man's strategy failed him (or perhaps it was just the memory of the shorts in the fitness video task) - and it's bye-bye Azhar.


And I, for one, won't miss him.

A Hallmark moment (nope)

Birthdays. Including administration.

My son was writing a card for a party he went to this afternoon.

The first I knew of it, he'd got two wrong (by writing "Dear <own name>" in them fgs!).

So he started another one.

Which had "You're 7!" type things all over the front of it (moral of that particular story, don't bloody buy too far in advance - it was one for his cousin, <not-same-name-as-party-boy-unfortunately>, who will be seven in June).

He'd managed to write "Dear <party-boy-name>" in that one.

Wonderful!  Except <party-boy> is going to be eight.

So I made him write "<party-boy>" after the "Dear" on one of the ones he'd already got wrong - fortunately he'd written "Dear" on one line, then "<own-name>" underneath - and then "from" before "<own-name". It's all a bit squished up above where it says Happy Birthday, but never mind.  (CLEAR AS MUD, RIGHT?!)

Then I gave him the envelope for the card, which he wrote <party-boy> on.

But it was too small for the card (even though I had held it up and measured it against the card - wtf happened there, did the card grow, the envelope shrink OR WHAT?!!), so I got him the right one and, finally, he has a correctly-written card in the right-sized envelope.

THIS, THIS is why my life is difficult - and I am laughing at it all, because really - ffs, "write a card" - how hard can that be?!

"Proud Sponsor Of Mums". No. Really No.

This evening, I saw an advert.


One of those nostalgia-filled ones with the mawkish music that attempt to twang your childhood memory heartstrings, trying to make you fair vibrate with lost-youth yearnings and then empty your wallets in the general direction of the cynical fuckers who made the ad.


Vodafone have tried it with Yoda.

Yodafone. Heh.

Because we all need a little help from a Jedi Master to use a mobile phone, seemingly.  Complicated they are, fail you will, young Padawan.  Or something.  I think I missed the point of the ad.  Yoda's going to help me transfer my contacts if I buy a new phone. In my estimation, gone down he has.  Although, being an animated creation, he probably loses no sleep over that.


But on to tonight's festival of sentimental bullshit and the bubbling rage it provoked in me.


Procter & Gamble (now restyled as P&G, possibly fearing that the "Proctologist & Gambler" undertones of their actual name didn't make a particularly appealing brand - I mean, who wants to take chances with their colorectal specialist these days?) have a new campaign.


And it pulls together all those wonderful brand marketing wins:

• young child trying hard
• slightly older child trying hard
• young man succeeding
• his mother sobbing tears of happiness that she'd mopped all the wounds, dried his tears when he didn't win and whipped the lad every time he said, "But, Mum, I don't even like running!"
• the Olympics

Obligatory swelling music accompanies a series of clips from a young athlete's life, his mother, as the P&G strapline would have it, "never the focus but always there".


And then a load of P&G product logos and the killer slogan at the end, "P&G - Proud sponsor of mums".


Proud...sponsor...of...mums.  There's a website and everything.  All about how mums are the "boss" of P&G.  Some marketing fanny or other from the company had this to say:

"We're using our voice to celebrate and reward mums and recognise their sacrifices."

A bigger load of patronising horseshit I'd be hard-pushed to find.  A company that makes nappies, washing powder and face cream wants to use their "voice" to sponsor mums?  Because mums are the sum total of nappies, washing powder and face cream and want a company that makes them to celebrate them, of COURSE.


The fanny continued:

"Today's consumers expect transparency, authenticity and honesty from the products they buy and the companies that make them and unifying all of our brands into a holistic advertising campaign is the perfect way to meet this expectation and grow our business."

Are P&G going to sponsor me to be a mum?  Is my life changed, enriched, rewarded by knowing that a big company has a voice they're using to say, "Hey, Mums are pretty cool, you know!"


Because none of us knew that, did we?  Not a clue that our mums need to be celebrated, until a company that makes soap told us.  Thank FUCK for P&G.


I'm looking forward to the next P&G campaign.  I'm told they're focusing on religion for it and toying with the slogan "P&G - the Pope's Catholic, because we let him be" and one for woodland creatures, with the strapline, "P&G - Bears can shit in our wood, we're magnanimous like that".


There's a wider point here.  Brands in general are so focused and keen on getting our attention that they have become like the irksome bell-end you avoid in the pub, because they're earnest and a bit cunty and don't half bang on about how brilliant they are.  They are shitting themselves that nobody watches adverts any more because we all have on-demand telly squirted directly onto our retinas by ever-so-clever tellyboxes and mobile devices which neatly snip out anything that might be trying to sell something to us.  Because, of course, unless we see a clever bastard slick as fuck advertising campaign for, er, soap, we will forget it exists and the whole world will end up smelling of knob cheese and sebum.


But there is nothing more lazy and patronising than a brand that tries to sell to "mums".  We are not a homogeneous group of passive creatures, grateful that a brand is using its voice to appreciate us.  Well, some of you might be - but this one isn't.  And that rather neatly proves my case.  I don't want to be thanked by a company simply for having procreated.  If I'm doing a good job as a mum, that's its own reward - and my children will appreciate me.  If I'm not, then, frankly, a brand shouldn't be celebrating me anyway.


So, P&G, stop trying to shoehorn your marketing spewings into the relationship I have with my children. Quit with your authentic soft focus nostalgia flatulence and simply say, "Here is some soap powder/face cream.  We think it's jolly good and it smells nice too.  You might like to try it next time you see it in a shop somewhere."

Bill Hicks, where are you?

PS - I'm open to sponsorship deals from household names.  Because I like irony.  And goldy.  And silvery.  And, my favourite, papery-with-the-Queen's-head-on.  Interested?

Telly for the hard-of-thinking

Broken box. Bleak.

Programme makers today admitted that the way they put telly together has changed since there is now so much of it spewing forth into our living rooms from ever-sophisticated clever bastard audiovisual equipment.


"We used to make programmes that had a beginning, a middle and an end," wept one television producer, as he lamented the death of his craft.  "We educated, informed, entertained.  We made, if I may venture, bloody good telly."


The admission from channels such as the BBC and Channel 4 that their programming has altered to meet audience demand to be "literally ecstatic" for every minute their eyes point goggle-box-wards comes amid protestations from ITV that "they're copying us, we invented 'dumbed-down', for heavens sake.  What next?  If they start making the kind of programmes we cobble together after our heavy sessions in the pub, we'll either have to up our game or... Oh, no, hang on, we can just put Ant and Dec and that Cowell bell-end on more often.  Sorted.  Mine's a Jägerbomb."


Whereas older-style television programmes expected you to watch from the beginning to the end, paying attention right the way through the middle and remembering what had happened earlier on in the programme until the final credits rolled, the new format goes something like this:

• Coming up!  <Cue montage of bits yet to come from the programme>
• But first... <Bit of programme that you may never see again - pay attention>
• Here's what we've just told you! <Were you paying attention? Didn't matter, here it is again>
• Coming up next/After the break (depending on corporate status of telly channel - even BBC programmes get adverts on them on UKTV) <Here's what you're about to see. No need to pay attention, you'll see it again in a minute>
• Just now/Before the break (ditto status of telly channel) <Here's what we told you already.>
• Coming up! <Here's what you're about to see. No need to pay attention. You'll see it again in a minute.>
• Here's the bit of the programme you may only see once or twice more.  Oh, go and make a cup of tea or cut your toenails, or write a novel, or anything else.

In fact, as the enormously-titled '80s television programme ironically beseeched a nation of bored school-age children, Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead?

Well?  Why don't we?  We get what we deserve, televisually, after all...and what have we done to deserve TOWIE or Made In Chelsea, please?

Masterchef - cooking doesn't get tougher than this. Really?

Kitchen tools.

Angry boiled potato, Gregg Wallace, and his pole-arsed co-host, John Torode, today spoke of their excitement regarding the impending Masterchef final.


Thin lips a-flapping in their customary braying, the pair spewed forth a veritable feast of linguistic treats to describe their state of near frenzy about the prospect of three members of the public cooking them dinner.


"Cooking doesn't GET tougher than this," trumpeted Gregg, neatly overlooking the incident with the gimp suit in the prison kitchen from his shady past.


"They are going to have to cook for their Masterchef lives," intoned Torode, perhaps gleefully envisioning some sort of execution forfeit between courses.


So, the finalists.  Wide-eyed Shelina has been on a journey.  Andrew breaks down rather a lot, because cooking is tricky.  And Tom has facial hair.


With that in mind, the final should be exactly what a Masterchef final always is - full of laden forkfuls being slurped unattractively into the mouths of two barking gimmers, shiny kitchens with unfeasible numbers of implements, steam hissing from every pot and pan, as if miniature dragons lurk inside (and, given that this is Masterchef, they probably do, waiting to be part of some elaborate dish involving hay, soil and the sputum of a small vole).


Tune in to BBC One at 9pm tonight to find out who wins the final.  Alternatively, tune in just so you can finish yourself off to the dulcet tones of India Fisher as she Marilyn Monroes her way through the voiceover.  Either way, you'll end up with a microwave dinner on your lap, mindlessly forking overcooked processed fat 'n' carbs into your slack-jawed gob as you watch five-star food being dished up for dickheads.


Happy viewing.

Deal Or No Deal - it is just random box opening

Boxes. Little boxes. Don't know what they're made from.

Noel Edmonds today admitted that the hocus and, indeed, pocus that happens in the self-styled "dream factory" (aka Bristol telly studio where Deal Or No Deal is filmed) is, in fact, bullshit.

"I don't know how we've maintained the thin veneer of credibility for so long," he said, his well-preserved features as motionless as his bouffant hair.  "It is staggering.  For almost 45 years, we've held the nation in a sort of hypnotised thrall as they watch a random assortment of earnest-yet-irksome fools ripping Velcro seals off cardboard boxes.  It's incredible that we've had such a good innings, really."

Mr Banker, the guffawing sadist at the end of the phone, who makes offers of cold hard moolah to the members of the public fortunate enough to land places in either the east or west wing of the dream factory, said, "Oh, fuck.  He's only gorn and blown it, the twat," when he heard what Edmonds had confessed.  He went on to say, "Ah, well, that's me back to the Exchequer.  I only hope they don't notice that I've been siphoning off cash for the last 45 years.  Oh.  Whoops."

The general public's opinion was expressed, as ever, in the form of a lottery system.  This week, the enormous chubby finger swooped out of the sky and "It's You"d onto one Tim Cadaver, of Droitwich.  He said, "I've long suspected that Deal Or No Deal was just random box opening.  I said as much to my wife, 36 years ago, but she beat the shit out of me for suggesting it, so I went and lived in the shed and pretended Noel Edmonds didn't exist any more.  If you'll excuse me, I was halfway through crafting a cuckoo clock out of belly-button fluff and phlegm, so I'll crack on, cheers."

Carol Edmonds (no relation), who once appeared on the show, said, "As an 'Only Here Once' or 'OHO', I knew I wasn't going to deal, no matter what the gruff-voiced charmer on the end of the phone offered me.  My nerve broke when I actually spoke to him, though, and I crumbled at the end of the third round, when I'd lost four of my power five and had no fall-back position above £10,000.  I knew I'd never get to five-box, even though I had a complicated system that involved my dog's birthday, the house numbers of everywhere I'd ever lived and the hymns I had at my wedding, so I dealt at £2.74.  With hindsight, I should've gone on, as I had £100 in my box, so to speak, so I'd have been quids in."