Good TV: Livin' la vida loca - Ricky Martin wins The Apprentice

Ricky Martin (real name Richard, but chooses to go by the Latin popstar's name), has won The Apprentice to become Alan Sugar's partner with a £250k cash injection into his start-up pharmaceutical recruitment company. Ricky revealed that he is giving up his leotard and the oiled world of amateur wrestling to focus on making his business a success. Apparently there's no room for 'The Fitness' in business. 


Ricky beat fellow candidates: Tom, Nick and Jade to the prize, after a series of gruelling interviews/character assassinations (my favourite episode of the series) from Sir Alan's sadistic advisors, and Margaret (still better than Karen). Claude was on top form and out to kill. Ricky's personal statement deserved the shoot down - how did this application form even get him selected for the show? In it, he compares himself to Thor and started babbling about being descended from God before likening Sir Alan to the Godfather. Claude pounced on the statement that he wanted to teach an old dog (Sir Alan) new tricks. Sir Alan replied "Woof!"


Jade was torn to pieces in the interviews, found lying and hiding her A-Level grade 'N' in Business Studies. Her unoriginal business plan for a telecoms company selling on leads was described as "grubby". I think she should follow her drunken jellies idea - I can see that selling. A lot more fun than calling up hard-up people to recover debt too. Nick's lofty idea for software that orders all the ingredients for a recipe at one click was compared more to an academic MBA than a serious business proposal. They also questioned the demand, who has the time to do that? Nick thinks he's on to a winner though, after 5 years, he reckoned that he could turn Sir Alan's £250k into £1.45 billion! Clueless! Besides, unless he was badly edited, I didn't see much of Nick's contribution all series.

Tom was Ricky's only major competition in the final. Tom has been sophisticated and professional throughout the series and right on the mark strategically too. Yes, he's had Daddy's investment banker money to fund his wine broker business but at 23, to be running a £1.25million turnover company is impressive. It's rather depressing to be the same age as him! His business plan- a £25million hedge fund where the liquid asset is wine- was reviewed as superior. Nick said this business could be "electric" and has the potential to bring massive returns. But Sir Alan has never risked anyone else's money and as a pensioner, isn't prepared to start now so the hedge fund idea was rejected as too risky. If Sir Alan was 20 years younger, he probably would have chosen Tom but he wanted a safe experienced pair of hands who wouldn't need babysitting. Ricky's desire, experience and passion won out, once he'd cut out the wrestler bravado. Ricky did grow on me and I think he was a worthy winner.


It was only a shame that Adam didn't make it into the final, I so want to know what his business plan was! The highlight of the series has to be Adam and Tom's big day out to the vineyard - "English Wine Sparkling, sorry, I mean, English Wine Sparkling".