What You See is What You Get

by Sugar, Alan

  Piers Morgan, being mischievous, started to mess around in the boardroom. When I got to dealing with the losing team, I explained to him that while the prank he’d dreamed up with Alastair Campbell – whereby they would end up firing me – was funny, we had to stick to the format. Eventually, Piers was the one I fired for being such a clown and causing so much aggravation for the girls. He kept annoying Cheryl Cole in the boardroom, talking about her husband, Ashley, who had left Piers’ beloved Arsenal. Cheryl was getting quite angry and she was quite grateful on occasions when I told Piers to shut up.

  Piers had been fired from the Daily Mirror and had had to reconstruct his career, writing for newspapers and publishing an autobiography. Now he wanted to get into TV, and this was his first real opportunity. Cheryl Cole, who was famous as a member of the group Girls Aloud, also wanted more varied exposure on TV, which she certainly achieved with The X-Factor. In Piers’s case, he has gone on to be a great TV celebrity and I continually wind him up that he has me to thank for it. He also owes me a debt of gratitude for coaching him through The Celebrity Apprentice in the USA.

  Mark Burnett, the owner of The Apprentice format, had decided the UK’s idea of The Celebrity Apprentice should be tried out in America, as the main series had gone down the pan. This turned out to be a good move, as The Celebrity Apprentice rejuvenated the format in America and it is now very popular again. In my opinion, Donald Trump is fantastic at the job in America – he is tailor-made for the American market, although when they showed the American version in England, it was greeted rather mildly, which I guess is down to the cultural differences between the two countries.

  In the first USA Celebrity Apprentice series, Piers Morgan managed to get himself on the show and into the final, where he was up against a very popular country singer that everybody loved. Piers, in his usual way, managed to alienate everyone and his brother on the way up, walking all over them and abusing them. Nevertheless, he got through to the final because his teams won most of the time. The final happened to be broadcast while I was in Florida and Piers phoned me and asked me to come up to New York and be in the audience. I told him I couldn’t be bothered to schlap all that way and said I’d watch it on TV. He hummed and hawed a bit. Ann was in the room and I told her, ‘It’s Piers on the phone. He’s in the final and wants a few tips from me.’

  ‘No, I’m not asking you for tips, Alan. I’m just telling you I’m in the final tonight. I was just calling to ask you to come along or tune in and watch it.’

  ‘Don’t give me any of that bullshit, Morgan. You’re calling me to get some tips, right?’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got anything, I suppose it might be useful.’

  ‘Piers, tell me something. The programmes up to now have all been prerecorded, right? But the final, from what I’ve seen on the TV promotions, is actually going to be broadcast live in New York – is that right?’

  Yes, it’s going to be live.’

  ‘There’s not going to be any pre-recording? They can’t cut what you say?’

  Yes, exactly right. Why?’

  ‘Well, it’s as simple as this – you’ve won, mate!’

  ‘What do you mean, I’ve won?’

  ‘Listen to me carefully and I guarantee you’ll win.’

  ‘Why? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘Well, if the programme can’t be cut because it’s live, then what you need to do is to put Mr Trump in such a position that he can’t do anything but choose you.’

  ‘Right . . . I see what you’re saying, but how do I go about doing that?’

  ‘Well, it’s very simple. Write this down. Mr Trump will ask you about four or five times to plead to him why you should be The Celebrity Apprentice winner and here’s what you say: “Mr Trump, people might not like me for the way I’ve gone about doing this, but let me remind you that at the beginning of this process you told us that we had to go out and make the most amount of money for charity. And that, Mr Trump, is exactly what I’ve done. When you look at the amount of money my teams have won compared to this other fellow’s, I did exactly what you asked me to do. Now, Mr Trump, you are a businessman and this is a business programme, so it would be difficult for you to go against your principles. You told me to go and make a load of money, and that’s what I did. However, if you are going to choose the winner on a popularity vote then, with the greatest respect, Mr Trump, your credibility will go down the pan.”’

  ‘Okay, Piers? You say that and I’m telling you, you’ll have boxed him right into a corner in front of fifteen million viewers – what’s he going to say to that? He is a businessman. He told you to make money. The show’s not about picking the nicest personality – it’s not a singing contest. You are going to win, son.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I’d get away with that.’

  ‘Piers, what can they do to you? They can’t shoot you – you’re on live TV. They can’t edit you, they can’t cut you. Just have a drink and get into motor-mouth mode and do it. I promise you you’ll win.’

  That’s exactly what he did, and he won! Of course, he will never give me the full credit for that speech and will deny all knowledge of our conversation. He just talks about his supreme superiority – but that’s Piers Morgan for you! Trust me, it’s true. Let’s face it, who would you believe? He was a tabloid editor – say no more, right?

  *

  The first UK Celebrity Apprentice was broadcast over the course of two days in March 2007. In my opinion, they kind of messed it up, in that they split the show into three sections, leaving the final boardroom climax right to the end of Comic Relief night, the idea being that viewers would hang on to get the result. I was very disappointed with the programme.

  Patrick Uden’s vision was that the celebrities were the ones the programme should focus on and I should be some kind of benign judge. Not wishing to blow my own trumpet, but part of the success of The Apprentice, as most people know, is my interrogation of the candidates. He chopped out all the funny and business-specific dialogue that went on in the boardroom. Knowing so much of this had ended up on the cutting-room floor, as they say in the media world, was very frustrating for me when I saw the programme broadcast. People like Lorraine Heggessey didn’t understand – she saw the end-product and thought it was great. If only she’d known how it could have been, she wouldn’t have formed that opinion.

  Despite my protestations to Lorraine, I only managed to get a little more of the good stuff included. Regrettably, with this Comic Relief thing, it’s a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth and there were arguments about who had jurisdiction over the programme. Was it the BBC (who normally have the final say)? Was it Talkback Thames? Or was it the Comic Relief team?

  Emma Freud has her annual moment of power – one year putting on Comic Relief, the next year Sports Relief. There are so many people sticking their oar in – each contributing their so-called artistic brilliance – that all you get in the end, I’m afraid, is a mess. Patrick threw his lot in with Comic Relief, explaining that it was their show and they’d decide what went in and what didn’t.

  I was getting quite angry and agitated. In the end, I told Lorraine and the Comic Relief people that if they ever wanted me to do this again, then as much as I liked Patrick personally, he should not be in the picture because he’d forgotten who he was working for. I would want Talkback to have full editing rights.

  The thing is, we all gave our time and effort and in the end came up with a show that could have been so much better. It was so frustrating.

  *

  Shortly after Comic Relief, Ann arranged a sixtieth birthday party for me in a classy Marco Pierre White restaurant in St James’s. I invited the whole family, including my seven grandchildren. By then, Louise and Mark had had their second child, Fay, named after my mum, and Daniel and Michaela had had their third child, Rachel.

  As usual, I invited some of my staff and business contacts like David Gold and Alan Watts of Herbert Smith. I also invited
Nick and Margaret, as well as some of the celebrity apprentices who had appeared on the programme and some of the people who were part of my new TV life.

  Michele Kurland had secretly laid on a surprise. Andy Devonshire had taken all the grandkids, lined them up on the famous Millennium Bridge (which the apprentices walk over) and filmed a take-off of The Apprentice, which ended with all the kids pointing and saying, ‘You’re hired!’

  It was a great surprise for everyone. I was also surprised that some of the celebrities, including Karren Brady, Cheryl Cole, Maureen Lipman, Danny Baker and Jo Brand bothered to turn up. I went to great pains to let them know that any party of mine was not going to be one of those bashes they read about in the papers, thrown by the likes of Rod Stewart, Elton John or even Philip Green. This was essentially a family affair and they should not expect to be hobnobbing with their show-business contemporaries. And, as it was my family and friends, there was a possibility they might get pestered a little – particularly Cheryl Cole, by the kids! Piers was invited, but made some excuse, like his grandmother had just died. He’s got a bad memory for excuses – as I recall, she’s died seven times. I’m sure my warning that this wasn’t a celebrity-infested bash must have put him off, and he decided he was too busy – most probably having a handsome attack.

  Anyway, we had a great night, and there was a funny cabaret by a group of people acting as waiters who suddenly burst into song. The celebrities who did turn up seemed to enjoy themselves.

  Karren Brady had phoned Daniel and asked him what he would suggest as a good present to buy me on behalf of the celebrities. Daniel said I was a bit of a hypochondriac (talk about the pot calling the kettle black!) and as Karren had recently overcome a serious brain tumour, which was detected by having frequent check-ups, they bought me a full body scan at one of those medical centres.

  This coincided with a second operation I’d just had to fix my groin because of damage I’d caused over the years playing tennis. The surgeon, Mr Gilmore, known for his expertise in groin repair, had failed two years earlier to remedy the problem – if anything, I was in more pain – and I had to go back. This, in Daniel’s mind, was me being a hypo! All I would say to him was, ‘If I live long enough, I’ll sit back and watch you when you get to my age and see how you get on with all these aches and pains.’

  Being virtually out of action for over two years, unable to exercise, my weight crept up by a couple of stones, the type of thing you don’t really notice yourself, apart from your clothes getting a bit tight. However, when you see yourself on TV and in the newspapers, you realise you’re ballooning up.

  Fortunately, the second operation seemed to have fixed the groin. I remember joking with Gilmore when I wrote out his cheque that I’d deliberately make the words differ from the figures, so that when the bank returned it to him, he’d have to phone me and say, ‘The cheque came back,’ to which I’d reply, ‘Yeah, so did my fucking groin.’

  He had screwed up the first time round. The second time round, he removed a foreign body and proudly presented it to me in a small plastic container. It was allegedly a ‘holding stitch that had gone wrong and had attracted some kind of a cyst around it. I told him that in my business, if I didn’t fix something properly the first time, I wouldn’t have the audacity to charge again. He laughed, but of course it fell on deaf ears.

  *

  Due to the perceived success of the Comic Relief version of The Celebrity Apprentice, the following year we did one in aid of Sports Relief. The message about me being unhappy with Patrick Uden’s involvement had got through to the BBC and Talkback and, thankfully, this time Michele and her crew were responsible for the production. The girls’ team of Clare Balding, Lisa Snowdon, Jacqueline Gold, Kirstie Allsopp and Louise Redknapp took on the boys’ team of Phil Tufnell, the MP Lembit Opik, Kelvin MacKenzie, Hardeep Singh Kohli and Nick Hancock.

  In the opening boardroom scene, I tried to make the candidates feel at home with a few soft jokes which went down quite well – with the exception of one to Hardeep Singh Kohli. He ended up throwing his toys out of the pram when I asked him if he was related to some customers I had in the early days, the Kohlis, who had a shop in Green Street near West Ham Football Club. I explained that the mother of the family took a liking to me and used to give me some of her chapatis. I told him that after I ate them, they would have a special effect on me when I visited my other customers that day and I could understand why the West Ham song was ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’. I went on to ask why, when he appeared in the celebrity chef show, he didn’t cook them and blow away the other contestants. I know it sounds like another lead-balloon joke when you read it on paper – and maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here: don’t try to be funny in front of professional comedians – but he took exception to this and claimed he was going to walk off the set, accusing me of a racist remark. No one else could see how my remark was racist, but Michele got into a panic. I got hold of him after filming and told him he was being stupid. How could he even think that was racist? I’m the last person on this planet to make racist remarks. I told him, ‘I’m Jewish, you bloody idiot!’ He calmed down and agreed to carry on. He and Kelvin MacKenzie locked horns throughout the show and had some big boardroom bust-ups. At one point, Kohli accused Kelvin of comparing him to Hitler.

  The show turned out great, much better than the previous year’s – it was very funny. The girls wiped the floor with the boys in a great victory. As the boys’ team lost, I had to find a culprit. Complaints about Kohli’s performance by the others boxed me into a corner and I fired him. It was a tough thing to do, considering his tantrums, but the right person was fired on the day. After the show, I spoke to Adrian Chiles, who worked with Kohli on his popular programme The One Show. He told me Kohli was very sensitive and always made a fuss over the smallest of things.

  Funny how things turn out. Kohli accepted a six-month suspension from The One Show in July 2009 over some alleged misbehaviour. The person in question never made a formal complaint, but it seemed The One Show’s management took the matter very seriously. Kohli was quoted as saying, ‘Nobody has accused me of sexual harassment. I recognise I overstepped the mark and have apologised unreservedly.’

  Quite frankly, dealing with these egos in the celebrity show was starting to become a headache. We did one more show for Comic Relief the following year and the off-camera arguments – particularly among the girls’ team, headed by businesswoman Michelle Mone who rowed with Patsy Palmer (Bianca from EastEnders) – were ridiculous. Michele Kurland and the excellent producer Colm Martin were pulling their hair out. The situation was compounded by the fact that Emma Freud poked her nose into my decision on the losing team, which comprised Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr, Jack Dee, Gok Wan and Gerald Ratner. After I sent them out of the boardroom, she wound them up by saying they shouldn’t have lost. While the general spirit of the show was meant to be light-hearted, the team, having now been wound up by Freud, were acting in a very belligerent manner. At one point, I thought to myself, ‘Here I am doing this for charity, giving up my time after a gruelling twelve weeks filming the real series, and all I’m getting is a load of stick from these people.’ It was only my professionalism and the intervention of Colm (who was frustrated watching this near sabotage) that stopped me from getting up and walking out. It was a bloody joke. The production team was fuming because for a moment it looked as though all their hard work in arranging the task and filming it had been scuppered. Thanks to Nick, the situation was calmed down and in the end we managed to round off the final scene and it made a good show.

  Afterwards, I went to the studio café, where Emma Freud was sitting with her partner Richard Curtis, and tore her off a strip. I told the pair of them that what she’d done was a cardinal sin in TV production terms and that she should have known better than to poke her nose in. I lost it a bit and asked her if she would storm into an operating theatre and interfere with the surgeon if one of her children were being operated on. She denied
interfering, but I advised her to be careful what she was denying, as she’d forgotten that all the celebrities’ microphones had been on when she spoke to them and we’d heard every word up in the production gallery. Emma couldn’t argue with that. Shades of Gordon Brown during the 2010 election campaign, when a microphone he used when meeting a member of the public was left on after he finished talking to her. The TV company continued recording Gordon and transmitted him calling the person a bigot.

  I made it clear this was the last time I was going to do any celebrity versions of The Apprentice. I didn’t need the aggravation of all the big egos flying around.

  *

  Back at Amstrad, the writing was on the wall. It was getting even tougher supplying BSkyB and there were stories that Samsung, the giant Korean manufacturer, was after their business. There was also talk of new HD (high-definition) products being the way forward but, as ever, BSkyB’s engineering division had excluded us. We were treated as the poor relations, so to speak. BSkyB’s new HD product was developed by Thomson, but they were also considering a special PVR that incorporated four tuners, effectively two Sky+ boxes in one, which would enable the user to have full Sky+ in different rooms. I poked my nose in again and managed to get us a contract to develop this new dual Sky+ box based on a low-price calculation I’d worked out with Ian Saward.

  I had spent my whole life hustling in the electronics industry and was starting to lose my heart for the fight. As I’ve mentioned, the people I was doing business with had changed; they were oblivious to Amstrad’s part in their history. Also, methods of negotiation had changed from the days when I used to sit round a table with Stanley Kalms or Sam Chisholm and hammer out a deal. Everything was becoming far more complex and political.