wk8 - It's 5.10am and Mona stumbles blearily to the phone and the teams are summoned to the O2 dome, which SIrAlan points out has been famously rebranded from a shit attraction into a shit venue. So the task is all about rebranding - and the victim of the team's media makeovers is to be the dishevelled seaside town of Margate. Perhaps they could get in touch with Tracey Emin and turn the entire seafront into an art installation complete with burnt out buildings and Emin's used tampons on th beach. Oh hang on someone's clearly already thought of it.

The one-sided power struggle between Howard and Debra continues on team Empire as Howard eagerly puts himself up to be Project Manager and Debra completely steamrolls him out of it ("You can be SUB team manager if you like"), until he meekly caves ("I'm happy for you to be Project Manager", Debra (haughtily) "Oh Yippee!"). Howard suggests that they target the pink pound, and Debra and James are in agreement. Only Mona, who lives in Kent (albeit in that well known cosmopolitan mecca of Sittingbourne) is unconvinced that Margate would be ready to become a gaymotropolis, but Debra simply argues her down stating that gays "spend more money and go away more" (Yes to Mexico you Picasso faced freak).

Mona and James are despatched to Margate itself before they become too troublesome to "research" the gay market by talking to the UK's ropiest tranny. Mona here displaying a shockingly provincial upbringing in her sheer confusion of different sexualities, her identifying a bloke in a dress as "a gay" and her desperate fear of offending anyone ("Are you um a man or a woman" she stutters - with an unsaid "or an it" hovering nervously. When the friend of Dorothy Perkins reiterates that he is "mid op", she blurts out "Oh you can't tell" before fixing him with a rictus style and making her excuses, like the Queen having been forced to meet and greet a Big Issue salesman. Still sweetly out of touch she seems to choose the burliest looking man on the street to ask his opinion of the town's lavender rebranding (whilst James gurns ominously under a "Danger Men at Work" sign). "Oh yeah we ad one of them gay pride marches ere last year" the bloke on the street tells her. "And?" (Did he go out queerbashing?) "And it was alright. No problem" he deadpans pleasantly. Which is nice. Meanwhile Debra and Howard audition actors to play their gaymos, and Nick studies his fingernails or the outside of the window pain carefully as Howard issues directions for "touching".

Yasmina PMs team Ignite, and end up going with Lorraine's paedo serial killer theme ("I see Margate through children's eyes"). Having finally had one of her "hunches" listened too, Lorraine's surprisingly chirpy as she and Ben drive through Margate to do the research and set up a photo shoot. "I just love those buildings!" she waves at what looks like a boarded up bingo hall. Ben's less impressed; "It's not exactly the Seychelles" (or is that his slogan idea). Basically it's a dull family idea, which isn't so much rebranding as re-imagining the contents of most leaflets in Margate's tourist information office (do they have one?), but done less professionally. Ben manages to look like an even bigger massive arse than usual by insisting on "framing" shots in advance for the photo shoot using his hand (the same sorts of shots you find on postcards of Margate) - looking like he's trying to snog an imaginary woman in a burkha. Maybe he has to make a square with his hands because he has a weird shaped head? However it just makes him look like a tosspot. Meanwhile Yasmina and Kate ogle and humiliate the male models for their photos, whilst Margaret half glares (but sneakily twinkles) on.

The morning of the photo shoot arrives with a dense grey tupperware layer of fog, but sadly no-one thinks of really rebranding with "Come to Margate and get stabbed in the eye by ghostly pirates" - shame cos Ben's already proved he can "Yarrrr" with the best of them).

Mona and James aren't affected as they've found a really shit club to pose their models in and try to get them to gaybo and lez up. Even Nick thinks the result looks "stiff and wooden" and not in a good way. The fog lifts and James and Mona get some nice shots of gays on the beach holding hands and licking enough ice creams to fuel a squillion single entendres, whilst Debra and Howard pose, preen and point score back at the office of an unimpressed graphic designer.

Howard and Lorraine get some decent if dull photos of families playing ball on the beach and making pots, but Yasmina and Kate whinge that they's no space for text until Under the wacky notion that visuals should make a poster rather than being covered text (crazy huh? Oh) Lorraine gets arsey over the phone, guaranteed to put Yasmina's back right up. It gets worse when Lorraine rejoins her Project manager who asks proudly "What do you think" only to hear Lorraine's doomy "I don't like them." Yasmina cracks and starts getting bitchy and snappy, whilst refusing to listen to Lorraine's suggestions (" We can have this discussion when the deadline's passed... so you want me to change the poster now") until, in the face of Lorraine's persistence Yasmina yells "CAN YOU STOP SHOUTING AT ME LORRAINE..YOU'RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE!!!" ouch!

I sort of feel sorry for Lorraine despite her annoyingness, it just seems that a perception has been built up of her by the wrong people (Phillip, Debra) because she won't always quietly back down to bulldozing behaviour. Sadly once someone has sewed the notion into a group that someone who slightly doesn't fit in is a "mental", no matter how much of a twat the sewer is, it's very hard to get that idea out of the collective mind. So Lorraine's damned whatever she does now - I quite like the fact that she isn't taking it lying down.

With under 30mins to go Debra's team have only just started on the leaflet to accompany their poster. Well Debra and Mona actually, as Howard's taken his gaymo insights elsewhere and James is probably half way across the North Sea on a pedalo or something. Well make that Debra - because she doesn't like Mona suggesting they at least try to fill in the glaring empty spaces on the leaflet that Debra has time-managed into a terrifyingly bleak corner, Debra gets all huffy and decides to call it a day as they haven't enough time to do anything (who's fault is that Debs love?). Lovely Nick furrows his brow at the unfinished product ("what's that bit?",  Debra: "That would be a blank space").

Kate pitches the Children's Margate idea for Ignite, with pictures featuring infants being molested by paedos at the potters wheel or something, but it gets a bit ripped apart by the branding bods who declare that the images are hidden by the copy (Lorraine being annoyingly right again there - bet the teams despise her).

Howard starts Empire's pitch with a stoopid question ("Do you know margate", Branding Expert: "yeah"). At least Empire's pictures don't just feature the fecking beach and show boys and boys and girls and girls holding hands in restaurants. Sadly the comedy font and over abundance of word makes it look like a poster for a church jumble sale commisioned by a "trendy" but slightly dim vicar and the "rainbow map" of the UK showing Brighton, Manchester and er Margate is just embarrassing. Debra takes Howard's cue in trying to bullshit her way out of the semi blank leaflet fiasco ("We wanted to offer local businesses the opportunity to advertise", Unfooled Branding Woman: "It's not finished.")

And it's time for the teams to present their concepts to assembled Margate locals and bigwigs, including one conspicuous gay stereotype. The locals find Ignite's campaign pedestrian and safe (given the fact that Margate's violent and sex crime rates are above the national average you'd think that'd be a good thing). However local bigot woman is disgusted by Howard's pitch ("It's just DREADFUL"), before he manages to upset all the greys in the audience by stating that Margate is associated with "dull tired old people" (AND Only Fools and Horses! Oh) and even the token gaymo cringes at Empire's posters. The bloke who thought Ignite's idea was boring likes the rebranding "key messages" but wonders why it was limited to one community. "Where gays lead many others follow" explains Howard and I try to resist adding "in case they get bummed".

Both teams demonstrate that apart from Barbara from the League of Gentleman - no actual locals were consulted in the making of these campaigns.

So it's back to the boardroom, where SirAlan picks up on the visually bereft leaflets (Debra admitting that "That was the worst part of campaign" before trying to blame everyone else on her team), before accusing poor James of just going on a beano and building sandcastles and buying everyone equal opportunity icecreams.

Empire lose woefully with 4/10 from both locals and branding experts (compared to Ignites 7/10 from both) and Ignite get sent to race fast cars round the Lotus racetrack whilst Jame's heart visibly breaks a little bit and lips tremble at missing out on top boys own japes.

James and Mona pick up on Debra's timekeeping "skills" leaving them sod all time to do the leaflet despite James having rung his Margate research inspired ideas through to her, but she's not that easily ganged up on and prepares to lie and bully her way out of trouble.

SirAlan picks up on the fact that Mona had insider Kent knowledge and wasn't listened to, but sadly Mona digs her own grave a little by having an extremely annoying voice and by admitting that she was not "happy with the concept" - leaving it open for Debra to insinuate she's a great big homophobe (Mona "I did actually speak to A GAY PERSON" - oops!). Even James and Howard get stuck into Mona, mainly because they're shit scared of Debra, who looks like a wild horse who's had a stroke when she's riled.

Even SirAlan lets Debs get away with trying to bullshit him on top of the failed bamboozling of the ad-folks over the blank leaflet; although Nick ("You told them it had been carefully designed") and Margaret ("They didn't like being lied to") put the boot in helpfully.

Debra brings Mona and James back into the boardroom, and SirAlan vouches that Howard would have been safe this week in his opinion. James when asked who he would sack damns Debra with translucent praise ("She's a nightmare to work with and very aggressive and bulldogish but at least she's consistent" - couldn't you say the same about Hitler?).

Debra battles her corner, blaming the photos for their failure (er the photos were alright), but James isn't having it ("I'm responsible for 15 minutes worth of lousy posters, she's responsible for 6 hours worth" and even starts imagining that he came up with the whole gay idea in the first place. Eh?!) and she resorts to moody sniping yet again ("I wish I was you and went to Margate and did nothing and ate fish and chips!", Mona: "I'm glad I'm not you Debra!") However Mona clearly loses it and starts blabbering uselessly under SirAlan's scrutiny, so he fires her for showing no creativity and marks James's card for no apparently good reason whilst Debra gets away without any real SirAlan censure for her charming antics.

So in the taxi ride over the end of the pier poor old Mona comes across as a little bit dull and provincial. Meanwhile Ben's twatting on about how he hopes that James will go, and everyone but him looks happy to see the "village idiot" return.

Next week it's marketing baby products. Cue Ben in nappies and Debra for real selling poisoned baby milk to stop kids crying. Probably.

Liking: James
Not disliking: Lorraine, Howard
Disliking: Yasmina, Ben, Kate
Laughable hatred for: Debra