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Raef Bjayou shown the door on The Apprentice

22/05/2008

Raef Bjayou has become the latest contestant to be fired from The Apprentice.

The entrepreneur was given the boot after his team's highbrow approach to a tissue advertising task failed to impress Sir Alan Sugar.

Bjayou, 27, had recruited weather girl Sian Lloyd for his team's "I love my tissues" campaign, in an attempt to create a "subtle, wholesome, mumsy" storyline.

But a failure to stress the nature of the product saw the former public schoolboy summoned to the boardroom by Sir Alan.

And while Bjayou was joined in his debut boardroom visit by comparative veterans Michael Sophocles and Claire Young, he became the tenth contestant fired, with Sir Alan complaining that his Renaissance team's advert was artistically impressive but lacking in substance.

"You made the biggest error going. I don't know what your bloody advert was about," the Amstrad boss explained.

"You don't mention tissues once in the voiceover. It would not sell many tissues. I am frustrated because you did 95 per cent of the work better than the other team."

Sir Alan continued: "Raef, you put yourself across as Mr Elegance, as Mr Perfect, yet I feel - and I've never said this before - I feel you've been lucky.

"The one of you that is going is the one who, with all due respect, is a lot of hot air."

After Bjayou's exit, Sir Alan told aides Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford that behind Bjayou's "elegance and the flowery language there ain't much there."

Interviewed by the BBC after his departure, Bjayou earmarked recruitment sales manager Lee McQueen as his favourite to win the fourth series of the hit show.