Episode 12

The Final! And what a final it was!

Firstly, we were all surprised with the final task - those of us who had watched the previous series (US & UK) were expecting an event management task. This explains why Simon chose Rory for his team, given Rory’s previous experience running events.

This task was the longest task by far. I was happier to be in Simon's team since I had a lot of experience working with the others in the team.

As you saw, Simon split the team quite early on. Simon and Tre were obsessed with the 'boat' idea. Jadine and I knew that we had a tough job in front of us to convince them otherwise.

Rory came up with the idea of the 'horns' after we visited Kew Gardens. It was based on some 'heliconia' flowers we saw. This is when he did his iconic sweeping drawings that the architects were so impressed with.

Tre and I spent all day at the architects trying to develop the 'horns' idea. At the architect's suggestion, we went to the local Tesco and bought bananas, long red chillies, artichokes etc to try and imagine what the building would look like. This is when The Wave was born. We decided it would be a complex with three buildings with 60, 50 and 30 floors.

We knew our design was radical but we wanted something iconic, which was what SAS's brief was. While Simon met with commercial real estate agents to discuss prices per square foot and other commercial matters, Jadine, Rory and I went over to an eco-community to learn about solar panelling, rain water collection etc.

We had everything covered - including public transport, noise levels, low income housing, community involvement, marketing, local hospitals for residents, schools, graffiti management, solar heating, lifts, entranceways, an amphitheatre, playground, waterfalls, materials for the building etc.

Simon decided that Jadine and I would also present alongside him. Jadine and I wrote out the entire presentation and it was really difficult to get Simon to practice. On the night before the presentation, Jadine and I were busy practicing and all Simon wanted to do was to watch 'Match of the Day' with Tre. In the end, Jadine and I gave up.

Jadine and Rory were responsible for the decor of the theme room and organising the props. I was responsible for putting together a brochure and mood boards, neither of which turned out as well as I wanted, due to time limits and communication issues.

Rory was responsible for the dancing girls which turned into a massive argument. Rory is an ideas man - he is not good at implementing as he cannot think about the detail. He was not able to explain how the dancing girls' silk scarves would be put together. At the same time he wasn’t willing to take help from anyone either. Having left us in Week 2, Rory also didn’t realise the logistics of getting things done on The Apprentice. In normal life, a simple task of buying silk, could take 20 mins. You go into the shop, pick the colour, they chop it up, you pay, you leave. In The Apprentice, that can take 90 mins. First you have to find a shop that is ok with the filming. The paper work alone takes 15 mins. Then you get filmed from behind, walking into the shop. Then you stop. Then you have to walk in again and this time you get filmed from the front, walking into the shop. While you are in the shop, almost every conversation you have has to be filmed from different angles, all of which takes time. So Rory had given himself 20 mins to do this, while the rest of us, more experienced candidates, knew it would take much longer, hence pushing out our timelines.

Simon and Kristina had to flip a coin and we went first. We weren’t allowed to watch each others presentations. Simon did a marvellous job in the presentation. He handled the questions well and had them eating out of his hand. He definitely impressed everyone. The dancing girls turned out well too and the room looked good. So all in all, a fantastic effort!

Did the right person win? I think SAS definitely has a soft spot for Simon. Throughout the whole series, SAS has claimed he wants the finished product and that he doesn’t want to teach anyone anything. He wants someone who can just get on with things. However, in the end, as SAS said himself, he's taking a risk with Simon. I'm very happy Simon won and that I played a role in that. He's a good guy and I wish him well in the journey ahead.

Lohit Kalburgi

Lohit Kalburgi