The Apprentice 2024

[Blue Jam]

Those sanctimonious pricks at Innocent really wound me up. Their shitty regurgitated fruit drink contains more sugar than Coca-Cola, by whom it is in fact owned.

Office was very Nathan Barley as well. Lord SugaRape.

[thr0b]

It needs a rest and a reset. A new investor, and a rethink of who they cast as contestants. Because we've seen it all now. There's no surprises, no shocks. I don't care who wins. The men always lose the first few tasks. Surlordalan gets rid of someone undeserving and seemingly competent early doors.

It doesn't hold my attention anymore. Bah.

[bgmnts]

Those sanctimonious pricks at Innocent really wound me up. Their shitty regurgitated fruit drink contains more sugar than Coca-Cola, by whom it is in fact owned.

Yeah but aren't innocent drinks just naturally occurring fructose, and Coca Cola contains God knows what highly refined sugar corn syrup stuff?

[Paul Calf]

Not in the UK. We don't really do HFCS, as we don't produce much corn. It's cane sugar.

And really, sugar is sugar. HFCS is a particularly nasty form of it but none of it is nutritious and it seems to be highly addictive.

[FeederFan500]

USA puts tariffs on sugar to make its own corn-derived sugar more economically viable, so it's in American Coke but not in most places.

HFCS/glucose fructose syrup is put in lots of sweet products you get in supermarkets and elsewhere, but isn't yet in drinks here so much

Once you pulp a fruit into juice or puree it is just as bad as putting that amount of sugar in water really. About the only thing in Innocent's favour is that people don't tend to glug smoothies down like you can with fizzy drinks.

[Paul Calf]

USA puts tariffs on sugar to make its own corn-derived sugar more economically viable, so it's in American Coke but not in most places.

HFCS/glucose fructose syrup is put in lots of sweet products you get in supermarkets and elsewhere, but isn't yet in drinks here so much

Once you pulp a fruit into juice or puree it is just as bad as putting that amount of sugar in water really. About the only thing in Innocent's favour is that people don't tend to glug smoothies down like you can with fizzy drinks.

Yeah, it does have some bulk which stops people guzzling it (which is why you shouldn't drink your calories).

[Dr M1nx PhD]

"We're passionate about indulgent cheesecake"

Imagine if that was true. Imagine that you're the kind of cunt that thinks baking makes you quirky, and that you've decided to spend your short, precious time on earth being passionate about cheesecake. Instead of literally anything else that has ever, or will ever exist, you get frothy at the fucking gash about indulgent cheesecake. Honestly you might as well just fucking die.

But then, imagine if you weren't that cunt, but decided to go on tv and lie and say you were, so a dried up old cunt of a walnut man would toss some coins at you.

What I'm saying is that they should all be shot.

[Blue Jam]

Imagine if that was true. Imagine that you're the kind of cunt that thinks baking makes you quirky, and that you've decided to spend your short, precious time on earth being passionate about cheesecake. Instead of literally anything else that has ever, or will ever exist, you get frothy at the fucking gash about indulgent cheesecake. Honestly you might as well just fucking die.

Or maybe you're just a Golden Girl.

[Blue Jam]

USA puts tariffs on sugar to make its own corn-derived sugar more economically viable, so it's in American Coke but not in most places.

HFCS/glucose fructose syrup is put in lots of sweet products you get in supermarkets and elsewhere, but isn't yet in drinks here so much

@buzby to thread in 3, 2...

[Tony Tony Tony]

Asif should have gone tonight for two reasons.
1. When Sugar asked him, in the final three bit, what he did in then task he simply dissed the other two, and
2. That pointy beard, what the actual fuck is that all about?

There have already been stories in the papers about him seemingly being an Andrew Tate wannabe so I expect him to go far this series.

[buzby]

@buzby to thread in 3, 2...

It was correct, though the US government was manipulated into putting the tariffs on sugar imports by lobbying from Florida sugar cane growers that was funded by Archer Daniels Midland, the corn processing company that had been trying to push HFCS (and ethanol to replace petrol) since the US 'corn mountain' was created by massive government subsidues offered to farmers for corn production in the mid-seventies (which itself was a result of a domestic corn shortage and price hike caused by a massive deal by the US government to sell corn and wheat to the USSR in 1973). At the same time, world petrol and sugar prices had also peaked, so ADM thought they could sell ethanol and HFCS as cheaper alternatives.

Unfortunately, by the time they got the production processes sorted and set up the mills, the first fuel crisis had ended and the sugar price had fallen again dramatically, which meant ADM were looking at a big loss on their investemnt. This then led the CEO, Dwayne Andreas, to come up with the tactic of secretly funding US sugarcane growers lobbying for import tariffs. He was no stranger to political machinations, being one of the US' biggest individual donors to politicians on both sides, illegally donating $25000 to Richard Nixon to funded the Watergate break-in, and illegally donating $100000 to Hubert Humphrey's 1968 presidential campaign opposing Nixon. Andreas was also close friend of Ronald Reagan, who signed the sugar import tariffs into law upon entering office in 1981.

UK food producers do not use anywhere near as much HFCS as the US though. We still primarily use liquid or cystalline sugar (about 50% of our annual use is produced domestically from sugar beet) or cane sugar products such as molasses (the UK's biggest molasses importer is based in Liverpool). Here, HFCS (usually labelled as isoglucose or glucose-fructose syrup) is mainly used as an ingredient in biscuits (McVities are big on it), cakes and ice cream. UK-produced full-fat Coke and Pepsi are still made with sugar. 

European production of HFCS was limited by the EU as part of agricultural quotas, which limited it's use in food accordingly. Although we are no longer covered by those quotas, corn/maize is still more valuable as a crop to farmers as livestock feed or for biogas and ethanol production than for producing a sugar replacement on a wide scale.

[Sarnie Rudeboy]

Pies are the same as cheesecakes

[EOLAN]

Did Lord Sugar make some obscure link between bringing them to the Royal Exchange and making them do a task on cheesecakes? Think I am just too zoned out and trying to guess which contestant is due to drop out of their own volition.

[Alberon]

There's some restaurants there or something.

This show is about four years past it's sell by date. Eject Lord Sir Alan and reformat it. Have fewer contestants and have them all doing tasks towards setting up their business plans from the first episode. Websites, logos and product design and the like.

[Psybro]

I remember seeing an American YouTuber get sent a crate of Dr Pepper from the UK as a gift because the sugar instead of HFCS is a real selling point for them.

[Dr M1nx PhD]

Or maybe you're just a Golden Girl.

Were they big into their cheesecakes?

[BritishHobo]

Genuinely can't watch this anymore. Had a crack at the first episode, but it's so cold and robotic and cynical. Everyone on Sugar's side of the table comes off cartoonish and insincere. Filled with dread at the thought of watching the three of them cackle at another advert that's shit because the teams were only given two hours to make it.

[thr0b]

It's a stark contrast to Dragons Den before, which is as good as ever. Helps that the current line-up of Dragons all seem to be interested in advising where potential businesses are going wrong, where improvements could be made even if they don't want to buy a share.

In fact, have Deborah and Peter take over the Apprentice. That'd be good stuff.

[Hat FM]

Asif should have gone tonight for two reasons.
1. When Sugar asked him, in the final three bit, what he did in then task he simply dissed the other two, and
2. That pointy beard, what the actual fuck is that all about?

There have already been stories in the papers about him seemingly being an Andrew Tate wannabe so I expect him to go far this series.

Can someone help me out and tell me the name of the rick and morty chracter this guy looks like?

Not sure what the point of Tim is really. 'they said they would make great cheesecakes but they are actually rubbish' - we know Tim, we are watching. alsways disliked smug nepo baby Karen.

[Psybro]

I think having back to back kitchen episodes reeks of desperation.

[Paul Calf]

It's a stark contrast to Dragons Den before, which is as good as ever. Helps that the current line-up of Dragons all seem to be interested in advising where potential businesses are going wrong, where improvements could be made even if they don't want to buy a share.

In fact, have Deborah and Peter take over the Apprentice. That'd be good stuff.

I fucking hate that programme. Smug cunts sitting behind literal piles of money getting dancing monkeys to wank for coins. The aesthetic is really mid-2000s and you'd have hoped we'd have got over this sort of bully-worship by now.

[Terry Torpid]

That's true. I think a programme about down on their luck inventors who've come up with a brilliant idea in their shed could be a great show, but of course they had to make it dramatic and antagonistic.

The thing that annoys me the most is that the contestants can't bring any notes with them, so if a Dragon asks them what was the after tax turnover in the third quarter of 2018, and the poor sod can't recall it on the spot, the Dragons are appalled, like the person has no grasp of business and must be banished from the Den forthwith. I've never been in a real pitch meeting, but I'm sure you can have a quick glance at some documents to quote any exact figures. Needlessly contrived.

[thr0b]

See, I think it's moved away from that. They do put them on the spot, but they also give them time to think, and they're open to challenge.

It's much better than it was. Especially about a decade ago when every person entering was guaranteed to not get an investment apart from the last one.

[Paul Calf]

The worst thing about it is the way it reflects the way businesses are actually funded these days: the people with the brains who are actually doing the work go crawling on their bellies offering their dignity to get permission to make some cunt who's already got mote than they'll ever need even more money.

These useless parasites are unnecessary to society. We don't need them. And yet we give them TV programmes that pay them to sit on their sweaty, pointless arses and demand blow jobs. And this us presented as just the way business needs to be conducted, as a great and laudable enterprise.

[thr0b]

I just think it's a good show is all :(

[Gurke and Hare]

Imagine if that was true. Imagine that you're the kind of cunt that thinks baking makes you quirky, and that you've decided to spend your short, precious time on earth being passionate about cheesecake.

Cheesecake's pretty good. What else are you going to get passionate about, golf?

[touchingcloth]

The Jyllands Posten cartoon of Muhammad has let itself go.

[Gurke and Hare]

Also is £8 for a mini cheesecake daylight robbery or just normal in That London these days? Shows how long it's been since I lived there.

It would have seemed high a couple of years ago on Greenwich Market, the bespoke artisan cakes on there were probably going for about £4 then, and they looked better than those efforts. The price that London Dungeon agreed to pay was completely mental and killed the kayfabe, a big corporate order like that would want to be paying less than the retail price, not 50% more. The women won because the client wasn't taking the game seriously.

[touchingcloth]

Not in the UK. We don't really do HFCS, as we don't produce much corn. It's cane sugar.

And really, sugar is sugar. HFCS is a particularly nasty form of it but none of it is nutritious and it seems to be highly addictive.

Fructose is metabolised in the liver in a similar way to alcohol, so one downside compared with other sugars is that it can give you fatty liver disease without even the fun of the benders.

[touchingcloth]

Also is £8 for a mini cheesecake daylight robbery or just normal in That London these days? Shows how long it's been since I lived there.

I was in London a couple of weeks ago and saw a sign arguing with itself:

HAPPY HOUR
ALL PINTS £5