Ex-army man Simon Smith was given his marching orders on The Apprentice on Wednesday night after losing focus in Sir Alan Sugar's latest challenge. Satellite engineer Simon found himself in the boardroom with retail buyer Claire Young and sales manager Alex Wotherspoon after their team failed the task to set up a photographic portrait business at Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent. Simon was keen to put himself up as project manager for the task - but an army is only as good as its soldiers, and he soon realised that he didn't have the full support of his team, namely Claire and Alex. In the boardroom, Sir Alan granted outspoken Claire an early reprieve saying: "Get out that door... get back to the house because you're going to be the next team leader." Then Sir Alan turned his attentions to Simon, saying: "I'm sorry my friend, I think you're a bit out of your depth here. And, with regret, you're fired!" Upon learning his fate, Simon said: "I gave it my best shot, I gave it everything I had, I gave 100 per cent to every task I did. "I made a lot of people smile yesterday and that was a really good feeling - but I failed. I'll go home now, pick myself up and I'll be putting satellite dishes up again next week." This challenge saw Sir Alan mix up both teams, Alpha and Renaissance, to include male and female candidates.
