So, down to the last two candidates – 36-year-old Kristina Grimes, a pharmaceutical sales manager, and 27-year-old Simon Ambrose, an “Internet Entrepreneur”. (Although quite frankly, who isn’t?) 

What exciting task would Alan Sugar come up for them to prove their worth in the final battle? He’s apparently recently required a building on London’s South Bank for £120 million (ooh, the show off!) that he plans to develop. The job for each candidate, therefore, was to come up with – in four days – a conceptual idea of a new building for that space, and present that idea to a roomful of “property experts”.

And, as always, the final sees former contestants come back to help with task. After being re-introduced to them, two teams formed: on Simon’s there were Tre, Jadine, Lohit and Rory, whilst Kristina found herself with Paul, Adam, Natalie and Naomi.

The first day on this final task seemed very chilled out. Both teams went on school field trips. Naomi and Adam went to the Science Museum. Lohit, Rory and Jadine talked about nature at Kew Gardens. Simon and Tre went to the Aquarium and even brought Mummy Margaret Mumford along for the ride. I joke! They weren’t on field trips, they were doing “research” of course… Of course, silly me.

But down to the nitty gritty: designing buildings. Both teams ended up with initial ideas that were subsequently scrapped. Simon (in strong collaboration with bestest bud Tre) came up with a ship design. With much persuasion from Rory, and in discussion with the proper architects the next day, this was changed to a building consisting of three waves. Kristina’s team thought up a “long building” with two angels at either end, also changed to a big spikey-shaped thing (im my eyes, anyway) that was supposed to symbolise a phoenix rising from the ashes. Or something. (In reality, a brand-spanking new building replacing an old one. Ahh, see what you’ve done there. Clever.)

So, blah blah blah, they both made presentations to Sir Alan and his assembled property experts. And the next day, back it was to the boardroom for the final decision. The interesting thing about this task was that there was no way to clearly judge the winner; no “X made a profit of £500, Y made a profit of £1000”.

I thought both contestants had fair claim to becoming The Apprentice, both had positive and negative points throughout the entire series. Certainly in the final task, they performed equally well. Both were likeable – unlike, say, the Series 1 Final, where quiet and calm Tim was up against gobby Saira.

They were also quite different: Kristina being the more mature, having more business experience, and being a very good salesperson. Simon seemed incredibly enthusiastic in most task, and at his young age would be more easily moulded into what Alan Sugar wanted of an apprentice.

So, who won? Simon! The halls of Amstrad will be a much brighter place with his colourful socks…