Which candidates have moved furthest up and down in your opinion this week?

Up

James
Noorul (lol too bad)
Lorraine

Down

Ben (even further than he was)
Phillip (even further than he was)

Up
Lorraine - excellent performance, totally redeemed herself from last week.
James - Just seems very cool and, well, sensible - looking forward to seeing him as TL

Down
Ben - not a very strong TL and soooo loud mouthed.

Up:
Ben - Wasn't allowed to finish.
James - Plain old funny.
Lorraine - Looked hot.
Howard+Kate - Decent as a team.

Down:
Mona - Would NOT let the Cassandra thing drop.
Phil - Just a moron.
Noorul - Awful.
Debra - Bitch.

Up:

James - I warm to him every week and his smack-down on Ben desperately needed to be said. Good on him

Lorraine - couldn't stand her last week, and still think she's far too negative, but she does demonstrate sense now and again

Also not really change in opinion, but Kate and Yasmina also going up in my estimation every week. I like how Kate keeps people on task, and with Yasmina, how she takes on Debra.

Down:

Philip - having felt he was a good candidate and though I think he knows where his failings are, the ignorance of team-mate advice is getting silly. He needs to pull it back or he will be gone, and started to think maybe he will deserve to. Though SAS's comment on his accent was somewhat rude.

Debra - she's capable but needs to reign it in a bit, and not feel as though she's always under attack.

Mona - beginning to wonder what she contributes.

Down:

Nick - Hit a new low this week (not that I thought that highly of him before.)

Everyone else, same.

Were we watching the same programme?

She made ONE comment about it when they were back in the house.

Up:
Nooral (!) for standing up to Ben
Debra for standing up to Nick
Lorraine

Down:
Mona / Howard - don't seem to do much
Nick

Can't get any lower:
Ben / Philip

How the hell can Ben possibly have gone up in anybody's estimation this week.

Last week he did as he was told, he played a parrot reasonably successful, he came up with the idea of pirates in the first place and didn't argue too much with James when James suggested making the parrot the pirate.

This week, he didn't read the task spec (which told them they didn't have to sell everything, and they wouldn't be penalised if they didn't sell something rather than selling it at a loss), he overburdened his own sub-team with seven items leaving the smaller team of Yasmina and James to only have to shift three items, he refused to listen to anybody who tried to offer sensible valuations of the products they were trying to shift, he insulted team members and members of the general public in even measures, he claimed that he made sales which were made by other members of his team when all he did was butt in at the end with a seriously undervalued price, and he then fell apart in the boardroom when asked who he was going to bring back.

He was the worst member of his own team, there was no justification - on this task alone - for firing Noorul, although taking all six episodes into consideration Noorul was probably the weakest member of that team, and not one thing he did on that task presented any merit whatsoever. It was a perfect example of the team leader being the worst person on the team - in effect, he did a Noorul. And got away with it.

My opinion on his business accumen has not gone up, rather as a person. I got angry with Noorul for constantly butting in and I don't think it was fair that Ben wasn't allowed to finish. My opinion of Ben before this episode was that he was a good candidate, his tenacity in the board room especially made him look strong to me; however it also made him look ike a complete arsehole. Last night I felt sorry for him.

"To Cassandra" round the dinner table, and again in the house. May not have been the volume of it, rather the way Lorraine looked so downhearted afterwards. No one else felt the need to repeat it, either.

Ooops, I forgot to check the dinner scene.

Why would Lorraine be downhearted about it? Margaret only made the comment to highlight that she'd made what should have been important contributions and not been listened to.

I thought Margaret was highlighting that she had a habit of doing that, having been against Philip's idea last week too.

Being right is good, but not being listened to is bad. I know you aren't going to like this, but in Sir Alan's world if you see a fire it's not enough to say "fire". You have to shout it and get other people to react. If they don't listen it's a demerit for them, of course, but it's also a demerit for the candidate if they don't have what it takes to be heard.

"What it takes" is partly force of personality, of course, but also having good arguments. Last week Lorraine identified the bad idea but didn't come up with anything better so they had to go with it anyway. This week she had an instinct about the rug, but she didn't then get anything solid to back it up. She should have got it priced, or at least found some evidence that even a newish rug could be worth a lot of money. Philip dismissed her partly because he doesn't value her opinion, and partly because she had no evidence. A better candidate would have got through even to Philip.

I suspect Lorraine was unhappy about Margaret's assessment (if indeed she was, and it wasn't an artefact of the editing), because she understood this.

Up:

Debra - I liked her passion in the boardroom even if it didn't go down with Sir Alan

Lorraine - I've never thought she had much to her before, but it has to be said she did show herself astute about the rug.

I don't think my opinion of anyone else really changed.

AS seemed very happy with the way Lorraine handled things this week and very unhappy with the way Philip did.

He is always particularly positive about people who demonstrably take his advice as Lorranine did this week (and was canny enough to make sure he knew it - I was very impressed with that).


Only if you really, truly, believe that associating a food for children to eat with underpants isn't just about impossible not to better.

Lorraine did come up with something better (although hardly earth shatteringly original) - it just needed some team input to bring it in line with the brief.


Which she could not do because as PM Philip was resposnible for allocating resources and he simply would not allocate time to get it properly valued.


If a PM is completely intransigent there is very little even the best of candidates could do about it. And Philip was completely intransigent.

It's always a balancing act for candidates who can see a PM is getting it wrong because it's so easy for them to be accused of 'negativity', even when they are 100% right.
Then, when they hold back, they are accused by their detractors of 'not following through'.

Yes; I wonder if he was using Lorraine to put pressure on Philip.


Well, Lorraine didn't, did she? She came up with something completely unworkable, and stuck with it through-out. Saying the team needed to fix it for her is really just saying the team could have had a better idea. Which they could have, but they didn't.

Anyway, we now know the reason they didn't have a better idea is that they discovered too late they weren't allowed to use Kimberly's idea. They had at least 5 ideas floating around. Philip's was the only one that was at all viable.


They had an hour or so before they left base. All she needed was some prices that showed a modern rug could be worth something. She was looking in an antique rug book, which was the wrong place really. Presumably they had other books.


There's a time and a place. For Lorraine to query the cereal theme when they were half-way through briefing the music guy was too late to help, and so just negative.


She didn't seem to be holding back about the rug, she just didn't seem to be doing anything positive about it.

It was only 'completely unworkable', as you put it, because she was shouted down every time she mentioned it.


What were these five ideas?

I absolutely do not believe that it's possible for normally functioning adults to come up with five ideas that are worse than associating a food for children with underpants.


Why assume?

Even if they did I would stand by my first rule for the task as scored. Do NOT sell ANYTHING until you have had it valued by a trusted expert.

Lorraine wanted it valued and Philip just ignored her.

She did all she reasonably could and he just ***ked up the whole thing with his arrogant attitude.


And yet when she doesn't mention a problem every five minutes she's at fault for 'not following through'.

Face it. Pants man was just about the worst idea anyone has come up with on the apprentice ever and that needed pointing out at every opportunity, no matter how late.


No, because the arrogant idiot, Philip, was the PM and as such he was the one who allocated resources and decided what they would do and he simply ignored her.

The rules of the tasks do not allow one person to go off on their own mission (there aren't enough cars and camera crews for one thing). If the PM was intransigent, as Philip was, there was nothing she could do,

She did exactly as much as was reasonable and Sugar seemed to recognise that and basically gave Philip a bollocking for being such a tw*t.

No, it was unworkable because it didn't meet the brief, as Sir Alan made clear when she raised it in the boardroom.


Well, the "cereal killer" was a worse idea, so that's one!

This seems to be something that Philip apologists come up with again and again.

The actual specific first idea was not in line with the customer's brief but it would have taken mere seconds to adjust it so that it was.

To keep harping on and on and on and on about it not fitting the brief is absurd as all ideas are refined.


I'm not even sure that it is!

Anyway, I said 'normally functioning adults' so that rules out Philip.

And also, I think Lorraine was partly misunderstood.

She seemed to understand that her idea didnt meet the brief, and intended for some the fruits to be background rather than fully functioning characters in their own rite...

Well, for a start I'm not a Philip apologist! I think the guy is an a*se, and I think his Pantsman idea was rubbish. I just think Lorraine's was rubbish too because it didn't meet the brief.

In what kind of way do you think it could have been adjusted to meet the brief?

If Philip had allowed them to work on either of the ideas they would have worked better than pantsman did.
If they had been allowed to work on the idea maybe pantsman might have become a superhero Apple or bran flake as per Lorraines suggestion - but working on her idea. the trouble with Philip he makes knee jerk reactions to everything without thinking it through.
If he had thought about the rug a bit more he might have agreed that it could have been the gem but as it is - Concrete man slayed the day

'I absolutely do not believe that it's possible for normally functioning adults to come up with five ideas that are worse than associating a food for children with underpants.'

I have to agree. Lorraine's idea could have at least been edited down to fit the brief and could've had potential but because Phil bull-dosed his idea he completely hampered the creativity of the group. That's why the other team worked because they listened and edited -not perfect- but potentially good ideas to make one good one. Kimberly being the marketing expert should've had at least some foresight to know the whole concept didn't and could never make any sense, let alone be good.

up

lorraine - she does tend to have be right and is doing well. maybe if she didn't have the droopy 'eeyore' attitude, people might listen to her. she ought to drop the 'alan carr' glasses as well.

debra - still going up consistently

down

ben - what can i say - only plonker

philip - sick of the 'i'm a bloke from durham' line. just do the job properly and stop shouting people down.

That 'apologist' comment wasn't aimed at you.


Focus on one fruit.
Have a composite fruit character
Have a seperate character as leader for the fruits
Have a 'Mr Sleepyhead' character who is enlivend by the fruit.


You could go on and on. Thiose took about five minutes to come up with whilst actually watching the episode.