One down, fiveteen remain. Who will become The Apprentice? (As the always say at the end of each episode.) Nicholas was fired last week, so the remaining contestants have to buck themselves up, wipe their tears* and move on to this week’s task.   *unlikely, actually

At 7am in the house, the phone rings. Cue some guy running crazily down the stairs in his boxers to answer. (Which begs the question – how come there is only ever one phone in The Apprentice house? And how can they hear it if they’re all upstairs sleeping, and the phone is downstairs?)

Ahem. The two teams are summoned to their computers to watch a message from Sir Alan. I was quite disappointed that these computers appeared to be HP laptops, and not giant Amstrad ones from the 80s. Oh well. Sadly, Sir Alan can’t meet the teams in person – he’s got a urgent matter to attend to of course – but luckily he’s got a webcam in his car so can record a video instruction for the teams. Clever thinking, Sir Alan. That’s probably what got him where he is today.

And it’s a laundry task! Each team will get use of an industrial laundry and will need to obtain clients to…well…launder stuff and make money. (But not launder money, of course.) Sir Alan has also provided some large-scale clients that each team have to pitch to to win their business. (It seems a fish restaurant manager counts as a large-scale client, even though his laundry seemed to consist of lots of jeans.)

Raef puts himself forward as team leader for the boys, Jenny does the same for the girls. Raef stammers a lot in his team talk, Jenny – well – just talks and talks and talks.  And is easily becoming one of the more annoying contestants of the series, acting like some kind of school marm from the 1930s as she tells everyone to “Be quiet! BE QUIET!” when she’s speaking. Later on, she seems to have something serious against Lucinda and tears strips from her, causing Lucinda to cry. Awww.

So, how goes the task? The girls – well – completely stuff up, not only pricing entirely wrongly but also managing to lose items of clothing belonging to their clients. (Which never get found – I wonder where those missing shirts went to?) So the boys are victorious! Off they go to the Ritz for tea and cakes. Bit of a poor prize, if you ask me.

Jenny, unsurprisingly, takes Lucinda into the boardroom with her and, surprisingly, Shazia. (Who was deemed responsible for the lost items.) And, as often happens, the unexpected one goes – poor Shazia was thought to have messed up the most, so off she went with her little wheely suitcase into a taxi to be driven through London’s dark night.

Here’s awful Jenny arguing with Lucinda and making her cry. I like how the BBC have now dubbed in Alice Cooper’s Poison on this clip! And it also contains the first “yuck!” bit of The Apprentice so far – Jenny proclaiming that at times during the task, it felt like she was having to breastfeed Lucinda. Sir Alan’s face says it all.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBWiwi-CDxc]