Dragon's Den
From Frikipedia
Hit BBC2 TV show, presented by BBC News business correspondent, Evan Davis, whose arms are controlled by a series of pulleys and strings, like a puppet.
Contents |
Premise
Hard-talking self-made millionares line up a series of budding but clueless entrepreneurial types to ridicule and patronise, under the pretence of offering them much-needed investment to stop their fledgling businesses going bankrupt.
The Entrepreneurs
Usually fall into one of three categories:
- The Desperates - People who've been trying to make a success of some crappy website (sshh, Friki recognises the irony) or plastic child's toy for ten years of their lives and have realised that they have nowhere else to turn but to prostitute themselves on TV in the hope of securing enough investment to pay the mortgage this month.
- The Inventors - Mad old people who toddle on with something they whipped up in their shed out of three planks of wood and an empty washing-up bottle. Usually haven't even tested their pride and joy in the real world, so invariably it falls apart during the demonstration.
- The Braggers - People who actually have a perfectly lucrative business anyway and just turned up to try and show off how good they were.
The Dragons
- Duncan Bannatyne - A grizzled Scotsman who made a fortune in health clubs and gyms. Like all Scotsmen, no matter how rich he gets, he is still incredibly tight with his money. Tends to wait for all the other Dragons to declare themselves out before sweeping in and offering the desperate entrepreneur a deal that falls pathetically short of what they actually wanted.
Most likely to say: "I hear you want £100,000 for 10% of your company. Well, I'll offer you £10 and a half-eaten Snickers for 80% of it. And I get to sleep with your wife whenever I like."
- Peter Jones - Posh Englishman who got his millions from unspecified means. All Friki knows is that he isn't the Peter Jones of the King's Road Peter Jones shop fame. Will tend to spend the whole of every pitch desperately thinking of some clever puntastic put-down for the begging individual in front of him.
Most likely to say: "You've come to us with an idea to revolutionise toilets, but I'm afraid I can't ever see this business becoming flush. Haha. Guys, did you see what I did there. Honestly, I should start charging for these..."
- Theo Paphitis - Shouty and lairy man who owns a series of stationery shops. Mmm, pens. Also owned Millwall football club for a while, a club renowned for it's shouty and lairy fans. Will constantly assert his brilliance in the face of the pitcher by scrutinising every single word they say and pulling them up on some crushingly boring technicality, then smiling smugly as the human being in front of him suffers heart failure.
Most likely to say: "Did you say you filled out a P-234/D patent form? I'm sure a product like this needs the P-234/E form. Am I right? I am right aren't I. SHUT UP AND GO AWAY! I'M RIGHT A-BLOODY-GAIN!"
- Deborah Meaden - Sour-faced woman who made her fortune in the "leisure industry". Never invests in anything ever, so it is possible she lied on her application form and just spent 30 years working as a dinnerlady in a branch of Butlins, and the small stack of cash in front of her on the table is actually all her worldly wealth. Scares young children easily, due to her astonishing likeness to all of your childhood fears combined.
Most likely to say: "I'll stop you there. I'm out, and I'm off home to my gingerbread house to feast on the hearts of children."
- Richard Farleigh - The "nice" Dragon. Though you know there's something wrong with the world when the nice one is the smug, improbably-tanned Aussie twiddling his biro in the corner. He made his money investing in computers and stuff, making him a bit of a geek. But with nicer hair.
Most likely to say: "Hello there, I'm Richard. Do come in, would you like some cake? Or a biscuit? I'm sure we've got some biscuits somewhere..."
The End Result
The entrepreneurs will eventually fall down on either:
- Inexplicably valuing their "company" (consisting of themselves, their drinking buddy and 500 crappy bits of merchandise) at around £6.7 billion pounds.
- Getting their pitch in a muddle when asked to recite profit figures for the last five years, because they aren't allowed any notes.
- Answering back to a Dragon. This is the equivalent of a six-year-old questioning the authority of a primary school teacher, and tends to result in them being angrily belittled by said Dragon, to the point that you feel they're about to send them to sit on the "naughty step".
- Generally being a shambolic waste of a central nervous system.
