The Apprentice - UK

Looks like the UK will be getting a version of The Apprentice, with Sir Alan Sugar as the boss.

Steve Jones (UK)
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

God 'elp the apprentices.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Is that the guy who started Amstrad?

Matthew Lock
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Yes - more details here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3727649.stm

R1ch
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

"The show, which will be broadcast next year, will see the electronics mogul test the apprentices' entrepreneurial and business skills. "

I was about to slag off the e-mailer and say the task for the contestants would be to sell a warehouse of them! But I've just looked on their web site, and they are only 30 quid, which doesn't sound that bad!

Ian H

Ian H.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Why are all the British electronics companies cut price ones like Sinclair and Amstrad?

Matthew Lock
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

.. and that Bush company that made hifis.

Matthew Lock
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Not all British electronics companies are cut price. We also do well at the outrageously expensive sector of the market as well (thinking of high end hi-fi equipment). It's the middle ground, mass market stuff we struggle with.

Ian H.

Ian H.
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

"Is that the guy who started Amstrad?"

Yes, indeed "Amstrad" is short for Alan Michael Sugar Trading, apparently.

Steve Jones (UK)
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Oh joy - we get to watch desparate money-fixated mildly unpleasant people be unpleasant to each other and suck up to someone unpleasant & rich too?  Perhaps with the added spice of reds-under-the-beds (in this case a secret Arsenal fan). 

Oh goodie. 

(please note portions of this post may contain irony and should be consumed with extreme caution)

a cynic writes...
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

I almost choked on your post. I'm going to sue.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

As Alan Sugar's average speech pattern uses fckn instead of breathing it will be interesting to see how he manages with something as asinine as The Apprentice sounds.

There's a real life version of The Apprentice being run by the owner of one of the mobile phone companies in the UK, but his name escapes me.  He's trying to find his replacement, he says.

Simon Lucy
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Isn't that John Cauldwell of the Phones4U company?  They televised some of his recruitment practices a while back and boy did it look tough.

Not Waving But Drowning
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

That's the man.  Twinkle in his eye, baseball bat behind his back.

Simon Lucy
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Sinclair and Amstrad were completely different.

Sinclair was an inventor and his two most famous inventions, the Black Watch, and the Z80 can hardly be considered bargain basement -- when my kid brother got a Black Watch for his birthday back in the seventies it cost a weeks wages. The Spectrum would have set you back two weeks wages from what I can remember.

Amstrad on the other hand was a trading company. It manufactured nothing, but simply imported cheaply what people wanted (though with the ephone it changed tack and decided to import what people didn't want).  When computers cost $2000 the Amstrad Word Processor fulfilled a a real need at $200.

Stephen Jones
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Do not forget the C5.  Britains answer to the Humvee.  :)

http://www.sinclairc5.com/

Ben
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Sinclair didn't invent the Z80 processor, he just built low cost computers around them.  Sinclair's computers were never very good either. For example a Commodore 64 could run rings around a Spectrum in terms of graphics and sound, but the price of the Spectrum was right, and so there was quite a scene in the UK around the Spectrum.

I had a Spectrum too I might add, and there were some darn cool games for it too, like Skoooldaze.

Matthew Lock
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

The Spectrum was the best, due entirely to the games that were available for it.

Many other platforms were available, several of which were technically better, but they had no software support, so nobody bought them (apart from early-adopters/visionary types).

IMHO, the Spectrum should have been chosen as the "BBC" computer, but the actual winner had a real keyboard, instead of a "dead-flesh" rubber effort. A lot of schools blew their budgets on buying BBC computers, at huge cost, but ended never using them.

Steve Jones (UK)
Thursday, May 20, 2004

The Commodore 64 had a reasonably big following in the UK too when I was a lad. And the graphics and sound were amazing compared the Spectrum (anyone remember attribute clash?) But the Spectrum had *the* coolest computer magazine ever: Your Sinclair.

Matthew Lock
Thursday, May 20, 2004

Things haven't changed a great deal -  all we need now is a few people to root for the Dragon and we're back in a 1980s sixth form. 

a cynic writes...
Thursday, May 20, 2004

Amstrads didn't just import.  There biggest trick was to take all of the different, complicated, pieces of kit like Hifi separates and put them alltogether into one neat, simple box (not so neat after all the controls had fallen off!)

Since I now have 6 large remote controls in my lining room I think it is an idea that could do with some reviving.

Ps.  We used to have endless hours at school arguing over the which was better, the Speccy or C64.  Still, we could argue about anything back then.
Pps.  I think you'll find the coolest magazine was Crash, you trainspotter!

Ged Byrne
Sunday, May 23, 2004

Steve,

It wasn't just the keyboard.  BBC basic was lightyears ahead of Sinclair Basic.

Ged Byrne
Sunday, May 23, 2004

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