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SUGAR: WHY I CHOSE SIMON
EXCLUSIVE THE APPRENTICE WINNER
By Sir Alan Suga
AFTER 12 long weeks I was down to the last two apprentices, and the final task I set them was very tough.

It was based on a conceptual idea of designing a building on one of the sites I own. It's in a great position on the River Thames and I wanted to see how the apprentices would come up with an innovative scheme that would take into account all the factors that have to satisfy the various authorities who make decisions on new buildings.

Both Simon and Kristina had to pick teams to assist them and it was interesting to see how they handled their old housemates. I was surprised Kristina chose Paul as they had a flaming row in France, but he is a chartered surveyor and would be a great help on a building project. Adam was his normal negative self, a strange choice.


Simon took on his mate Tre - the two of them have been like the characters from the movie The Odd Couple. Throughout the series they've argued like a pair of old men, but I think they have mutual respect for each other.

I am not sure if it was one of Simon's weird jokes or a complete wind-up, but he chose Rory for his team knowing that Rory to Tre is like a red rag to a bull. It worked - there were endless rows between the two.

Rory was upset that he went out so early in the contest, saying he had no time to show his real creativity. In fact, Simon's team's final building design came from a seed of an idea of Rory's, as well as the dancing girls used in the presentation. At least he had a chance to show his skills in the end.

The design Simon's team came up with was really adventurous. I said I wanted to see something memorable - and it certainly was.

The audience of experts at the launch were really impressed with Simon's presentation and the way he handled their questions.

He did very well and you would have thought he had been in this business all his life. I was pleasantly surprised - despite the fact that my associate Paul Kemsley revealed last week that Simon's the worst landlord in the world.

Kristina's design was more conventional but still innovative. However her scheme would never have passed the stringent planning laws and it would have had to be toned down a lot.

She did quite well in her presentation but I felt that she should have used Naomi to do it. Kristina wanted to be sure the job got done as she was the team leader but I think she confused this with winning the task. Sometimes you must use your team to its best strength and Naomi would have been better, with perhaps Kristina taking the questions afterwards.

Apart from the final task, I had to consider how both of the finalists performed over the whole contest.

Simon is very clever and knows how to handle people, but he can play the fool sometimes. I recall at the start of the series how he did Andy up like a kipper when he forced him to be the team leader.

What makes me laugh is that Tre thinks he has manipulated Simon throughout the series - in fact it has been the other way round. Simon has played Tre brilliantly and got a lot out of him.

Simon is young, highly intelligent, eager to learn and enthusiastic, and I felt that he has the best potential to be the winner this year. It was hard to decide but in the end I went for him.

Kristina is a great girl and she should be proud of reaching the final considering the hard life she has had. She's tough and doesn't take any nonsense and was able to get through in a dignified way without slagging anyone off.

She got respect from her team mates and I'm sad to have to let her go. I'm sure our paths will cross in the future - I would employ her any day of the week, but the rules are there is only one job.

I'd like to thank Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford who once again have given me great insight into what was going on. Without them I couldn't have made my decisions.

We all look forward to seeing you again next year in the fourth series.

'Simon and Tre were like The Odd Couple
Mirror

APPRENTICE: HIRED AND FIERY
EXCLUSIVE: THE APPRENTICE WINNER
By Mark Jefferies Mark.Jefferies@Mirror.Co.Uk


IN the most nerve-racking finale to The Apprentice yet, Simon Ambrose was last night crowned winner of the hit BBC show and declared: "It's my destiny!"

His rival, single mum Kristina Grimes, battled to hold back tears as Sir Alan Sugar told jubilant Simon: "You're hired!"

Viewers were on the edge of their seats as the tycoon struggled to make his choice - and when the decision came, not everyone agreed with it.


Several of the show's rejects, appearing on BBC2's The Apprentice - You're Fired! programme, considered walking out in protest. "Some were furious and thought that Kristina deserved to win," revealed a show insider.

"A couple didn't join in the applause for Simon and there was talk of leaving."

But the delighted 27-year-old Cambridge graduate - who will now earn a six-figure salary working for Sir Alan - came out on top after the final task.

The pair had to design a building in London and the results split Sir Alan's advisers, Margaret Mountford and Nick Hewer.

But last night Simon insisted he is the right man for his new job - working on a project to develop a hotel and golf complex near Stansted airport.

"In terms of being an Apprentice, I am the ultimate!" he boasted to the Daily Mirror.

"I deserve to be here and I guess my life has come full circle from when I was playing on my Amstrad computer aged six.

"Now I am working for Sir Alan - and it's a dream come true."

Runner-up Kristina was devastated by the decision. "I came intent on getting the job with Sir Alan," she said with tears in her eyes. "My heart and soul was in this, so it's very tough."

Her mother Janet added: "I know she's devastated but we're very proud of her and we do want to congratulate Simon as well." Magnanimous Simon also had kind words for his rival, saying: "I feel so sad for Kristina. She's such a great opponent. She worked her heart out for this job and so it's a bitter-sweet victory.

"Part of me was behind her as well but it's a dog-eat-dog world - and a lot of people thought I was the underdog."

Despite the huge salary that goes with his new role, Simon has no extravagant spending plans and will simply "be boring" and invest in stocks and shares.

His plans to mark his win were similarly low-key. "I'm going to celebrate with my family. We'll just have a bottle of champagne and maybe a sing-song."

Millions of viewers saw Sir Alan brand Simon a poor leader... then hire him anyway with the phrase: "Bloody old fool that I am, I'm going to take that risk - you're hired!"

Entrepreneurial flair runs in Simon's family. His father is a multi-millionaire businessman while his grandfather also made millions in the jewellery trade.

His mum Mary said last night: "Simon has always been such a good boy. He told me not to embarrass him by constantly singing his praises and to think of something bad to say. But I can't think of anything bad."

For Simon, getting all the way to the final of the show was a dream come true - and his triumph will take some time to sink in.

"Winning is the cherry on the cake," he said. "I'm over the moon.

"I can't believe it. I've come a long way to cross the finish line. I'm sure that, in the next few days, it will start to dawn on me but right now it's a lot to take in."

So just why did he win?

"There is an entrepreneurial spirit running through Sir Alan's body and perhaps he saw something in me that was akin to himself, and he was willing to take a gamble.

"Sir Alan is looking for someone he can mould and impress his ideas on. I may be the Apprentice but he's been there and done it. This is just the start. I hope to do Sir Alan proud."

He said of his new boss: "I didn't see him as some kind of Marvel comics character but he was someone I admired for my whole life.

"If Sir Alan gives me a tea-making job to do, I'll do it." [/url]

Sugar and a touch of tabloid spice



Sir Alan Sugar is known for his uncompromising assessments of character, but last night he unexpectedly turned his sharp tongue inwards, describing himself as a "bloody old fool" for deciding to "take a risk" on 27-year-old Simon Ambrose rather than the more experienced Kristina Grimes, 36, in the final of the third series of the BBC recruitment gameshow The Apprentice.

Through the tense final minutes across his underlit glass boardroom table, the shouty, frowny communications tycoon had dithered between the reliable female candidate and the maverick male one, before choosing Ambrose for the six-figure position for which he began to compete among a dozen candidates three months ago.

Sir Alan will not have been the only one slightly surprised by his ultimate preference for the Cambridge graduate from Clapham over the Irish single mother. Betting on The Apprentice has generally been based on the belief that Sugar, an early school-leaver who likes to present himself as an alumnus of Hard-knocks College, tends to prefer the candidate with the toughest life story. The first two series were won by Tim Campbell and Michelle Dewbery, who had both overcome rough starts. Posh and dull enough to be the only one of this year's main contenders who would be unable to get a job as a character in EastEnders, Ambrose breaks this trend.

But perhaps, logically, Grimes had to be second choice in the final because she was second choice for the final. Katie Hopkins, 31, who had taken the series to a new peak of publicity by being photographed by a Sunday tabloid "romping" naked in a field with a married man, had originally been chosen for the closing head-to-head, but became the first contestant to walk out from the show.

Having deliberately avoided one job, Hopkins then accidentally lost another, sacked by the Met Office, apparently because of the newspaper pictures in which she showed possibly unwise faith in early summer temperatures in Britain. Poignantly, on the day that her former TV adversary claimed the Sugar salary, Hopkins announced that she plans to contest her dismissal through an industrial tribunal. The BBC may already be asking if it can film her appearance, because there were strong signs in last night's programme that the producers had panicked about the dramatic potential of their forced last two. Simon and Katrina were almost minor characters, as the action concentrated on eight previous contestants brought back to serve the finalists in two teams.

The last task for the business wannabes was to design a new building to sit on a site beside the Thames recently bought by Sir Alan. With the two finallists mysteriously kept offscreen, the camera seemed excited by the return of the ditched apprentices, who dutifully reprised their greatest bits.

Eventually, at a gala evening for property developers, Team Kristina presented a home-and-office complex shaped like a giant, glittering swan's wing. Team Simon went for two huge bicuspid teeth.

On the night, a smile-count of Sugar's cutaways seemed to favour the woman but, in the boardroom, he gave it to the man.

Grimes, who had promised herself some "Kristina time" after bringing up her teenage son, is the only obvious loser from the process, although she can probably expect her own TV series.

The biggest winner is the broadcaster, which, after the risk of moving the show from BBC2 to BBC1, saw audiences of 6 million and a rare media clean sweep of interest from the FT to the Sun.

Ironically, this was largely due to the contestant who ruled herself out of the prize. TV reality shows are frequently accused of selecting and editing contestants to make them as much like soap opera characters as possible. Katie, though, seemed determined to cast herself as peak-time schemer. Although Simon got the money, Katie got the fame. "Nobody makes a fool of me," boasts the tycoon in the opening credits. But she did. guardian