Up:
James (ever rising!)
Lorraine
Noorul (slightly)

Down:
Ben (stoops to new lows for sucking at PM)
Phillip (stoops to even newer lows for sucking in general)
Debra (slightly)
Mona (getting to be a bit pointless)

Kate and Yasmina stay top of the pack for me, and dont move at all. Howard is still nestled somewhere in the middle.

She wasn't shouted down. The main reason she didn't get more time is that they spent it all on Kimberly's idea.


(1) Cereal killer. (2) Natural. (3) Pantsman. (4) Multiple characters. (5) Kimblerly's idea (which never appears on screen, but which she mentions in an interview).


Because we can see other books on the table.


I agree he messed it up. It was a bad task for him. I don't agree she couldn't have done more.


I so hate that smiley. What you don't seem to understand is that there's a time and a place. Talking about the rug when there was still a chance to do something about it was good. She should have been more insistent, or found more data herself to back up her instinct. Where-as whinging about the cereal theme when it had already been decided and the costume maker briefed, was too late and not constructive.


It wasn't the worst idea. It was at least viable, unlike Kimberly's or Lorraines. It wasn't as bad as the two ideas Philip himself had early. It wasn't as bad as Ben's idea for an exercise machine you have to have sex with in order to get fit.

You say it would only take seconds to come up with a better idea, but in fact they didn't. Instead they have 4 worse ideas, and a lot of silence. If Lorraine herself had spent a few seconds and improved her idea, you'd have a point. It didn't happen - she came back with the same multiple characters idea in the afternoon session that she'd raised in the morning.


She didn't have to go off on her own. They had phones, they had reference works.


There's no doubt he deserved it. To get back to the thread subject, Lorraine went up a little in my opinion this week (although I still don't rate her as high as you seem to), and Philip dropped quite a lot.

Ben also dropped a lot. He performed worse than Philip.

Every time we saw her mention it on screen she was shouted down or ignored.


But you are assuming that these other books were relevant. Do you know of a book which values modern rugs? It sounds a little unlikely.


I don't think anyone is suggesting that any of the candidates is perfect.

Lorraine had suffered from accusations of negativity last week when she tryed to oppose Philip's no-hoper of an idea.

This week she had to perform a balancing act of trying to correct another of his idiotic errors but not giving the impression that she was forever undermining the PM.

From Margaret's and Sugar's reactions I would say she got it spot on.


As I've already pointed out, she had limited opportunity to get more data. Candidates cannot go off on individual missions without the PM's approval and he just kept ignoring her whenever she brought the rug up.

If she had had an opportunity to find out more I'm absolutely certain that Sugar would have wanted to know why she didn't.

As he seemed pleased with the way she'd handled the matter it seems a very fair bet that she didn't.


Well, you seem to think it was viable. I would bet money that you would never in a million years get any British cereal manufacturer to agree with you.


Yes, if motor mouth Philip had just shut up for a moment so they actually gave it the slightest thought.


To get a rug like that properly valued they need an expert to examine it. That would have involved the PM in allocating time to take it to one. This he wouldn't do. Telephones and reference books were not enough.

That's OK then! I'd hate to think I was coming over as a fan of the loudmouthed knob


OK, I accept the first two as possible refinements. The third still doesn't seem to meet the brief to me, and the fourth is a completely different idea, rather than a refinement of Lorraine's.

To be honest, I think they'd still have lost to Kate's team with those ideas.

'Scuse me, but do we know what Kimberly's idea actually was? You've got me busting with curiosity here!

No, and I'd love to know.

My guess would be that it has something to do with copyright.

It's a shame that the BBC/Talkback have things so tightly nailed down that we don't get to hear about these shenanigans.

How fair overall task was depends very much on how obvious it should have been that the idea was not allowable.

If they team should reasonably have known the idea was inappropriate then it's fair enough that they lose time.

If it was some technicality it wasn't really fair.

I agree that was beyond what was possible for her. But she didn't need to get it properly valued. She just needed some evidence that it might be valuable. Saying that it might be an antique in very good condition wasn't plausible. Phil could see it was a modern rug. But I like to think that if she could have found some evidence that even modern rugs, of that size and style, could be worth over £100, then Philip would have listened at least to the point of allowing her resources to get it valued properly. I also like to think a good candidate would have found such evidence from the available resources without needing to go off on her own.

Obviously we'll never know, and of course she still gets credit for having good instincts and trying to persuade Phil, and Phil gets criticism for not listening. It's a fairly minor point really.

For comparison, the same point could be made against Kate in the first task, where she said that they shouldn't spend the whole £200 on cleaning products. It's a point in her favour that she spoke against the mistake, and a point against her that she wasn't forceful enough to make a difference and the mistake still got made. She's one of my favourite candidates anyway.

Similarly with Lorraine. It's just one small detail in the big picture.