I know who should be fired, just like Sir Alan Sugar - Kevin Buckle

Sir Alan Sugar flanked by fellow Apprentice judges Baroness Brady and Tim Campbell

I write this column on a Thursday evening, normally interrupted by watching The Apprentice.

Two weeks ago Lord Sugar declared the losing team to have turned in the worst performance he had ever seen and then last week amazingly the losing team were judged by many to have matched it.

In the first instance the teams were each to sell fish to a posh hotel with two of the fish offered to be bought in and the third to be caught by the team. One side chose to catch pollock and the other crab.

Alex, the leader of the crab team, came out of the hotel meeting with his two colleagues declaring “I think that went very well” only to have it pointed out to him by one of the others that as they had left she had realised they hadn’t sold the hotel the crab. The entire point of the task!

It was no surprise that Alex was fired. The next week the teams had to design a computer game. One team went for a global warming theme with a scientist catching animals to save them. The sub-team led by Francesca, one of the favourites to win, settled on the name Artic Saviour.

As the words’ appearance were tweaked on the screen she even declared “that’s perfect”. The nation was, of course, screaming at their screens “no it’s not” but incredibly none of the sub-team noticed the misspelling.

With “forgetting the crab” already starting to be used in business they then set up their own catchphrase of “adding a penguin” which has come to mean taking a bad situation and making it worse.

They decided on three animals the “Artic Saviour” would rescue – seals, polar bears and penguins. The problem with this scenario is of course that there are no penguins in the Arctic, living as they do in the Antarctic.

They had to wait for the next morning before the rest of the team pointed out their mistake. As the branding sub-team leader Francesca was fired.

Now it has been obvious for a long time that those chosen for the show are not the best candidates or the show would be quite dull. However, many of the candidates appear to lack basic general knowledge and common sense.

To be honest though annoying as these business entrepreneurs can be they are not as annoying as those who set themselves up to advise, help, promote and support businesses.

Luckily as such a well established business Avalanche can avoid the worst of all the “help” that these people offer but as we all try to recover in an economy that may not right itself for years it has never been more important that those tasked with promoting Edinburgh and its businesses show an understanding that in recent years has been lacking.

If I had to pick one thing above all the factors it would be understanding footfall. As soon as I hear somebody talk about footfall as a lump of people you can just make assumptions about I know they are clueless about the realities of the city centre.

And if I was allowed one firing it wouldn’t be a person it would be #ForeverEdinburgh – you’re fired!

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