Howard’s way wasn’t good enough for Sir Alan
PICTURE the scene: Sir Alan, curtains drawn, feet up, one hand in a family pack of Monster Munch, the other flicking between home shopping channels, looking for a pair of diamonique earrings for his good lady wife. Yes, this week, he got his teams time on some sub-QVC teleshopping channel, shifting tomorrow’s charity shop donations to the bored, the unemployed and the masochistic.
He says it’s his favourite challenge. But he’s probably just scouting for outlets to offload a warehouse full of unsold Amstrad crap.
After last week’s misadventure with the £2,000 rocking horse, Empire kept it cheap and cheerless, with a remote control car, tacky hair accessories and a pashmina-headscarf that could be worn in a dozen different ways, none of them flattering.
Bizarrely, despite having managed to alienate Nick, Margaret and anyone who’s worked with her, Debra was a natural in front of the camera, exuding a charm and easygoing approach she’s not previously shown. Even fellow team-member James got into it (“Stop spying and start buying!”) and became an unlikely pin-up, receiving a fan letter from Lonely of Lancashire.
The other team weren’t such pros. Despite a grin that makes Kate Garraway look like a toothless guttersnipe, our Kate didn’t shine on screen. According to fellow team mate Lorraine, she lacked personality and flair, which is a bit like being told you’re greedy by your MP. In her defence, it’s hard to exude grace and enthusiasm while stuffing sequins onto a polystyrene cat. The bad-taste theme continued with Howard’s other picks from the little TV shop of horrors, including a deep-fat fryer and a “designer” polyester jacket with gold leather leaves attached – an outfit that Liberace would have considered a bit naff.
Unsurprisingly, the jacket didn’t sell, though given that Lorraine was modelling it, it never really had a chance. This is a woman that could wear the entire Tiffany catalogue and still look like a frump. Howard’s main contribution was a spot of car-crash on-screen flirting with Lorraine.
Avid viewer Sir Alan wasn’t impressed but couldn’t decide who to blame. Nick was more certain, telling Howard, “Your actions lack ambition, you’re not a big guy, you don’t take the big chance”, lines he must have borrowed from a second-rate gangster film. Still, it was enough to make the boss think he was just a bit too ordinary to succeed and, with that, Howard was going, going gone.