Has he been given free reign to pipe up whenever he wants?

Tell us about Pants Man

Hahaha must admit that was perfectly timed when Phil was spouting off about the body rocker.

Good for Nick - I wish he'd do it more often. I've often thought how frustrating it must be to follow the candidates around during a task, cringing, not able to offer them any hints or words of wisdom to stop them making fools of themselves - then when they get in the boardroom Alan Sugar, even when he asks for their opinion, doesn't take a blind bit of notice of it anyway.

It can't be easy speaking up to SA and when Nick stuck up for Lorraine this week I cheered!

Margaret, on the other hand, seems to be rather inconsistent in her views, if the things she said on TA/YF this week were anything to go by.

I rather felt she was playing to the gallery on this weeks YF.

Margaret isn't what she was.

I know I thought she seemed quite bitter that Howard had left instead of Lorraine, which seemed a bit out of character for her.

Inconsistent? Playing up to the gallery? I don't understand how folks got that impression, but ok. Just don't diss the Mountford Marvel!

Don't worry Im not dissing her just making an observation.

Well, Margaret had plenty of time to observe Lorraine before she made the initial 'Cassandra' comment.

She's also an extremely intelligent and erudite woman.

If she can't tell the difference between a 'Cassandra' and someone who she was so cruelly insulting to on YF then she's not the person I thought she was.

She correctly perceived the mood on YF (where playing to the gallery is standard practice) and played along with it. Fair enough in itself but she just went (much) too far.

Series 4 was Margaret series.

Series 5 is Nick series.

Agree with this. Nick & Margaret in previous years were far more remote figures, observers and never seemed at all pally with the contestants, whereas this year, they're coming across almost as a bit of a comedy double act, and you can imagine both of them going off down the pub with the contestants at the end of a day's work.

I think it's another reason why this series is a bit of a let-down as far as maintaining interest in who wins goes. Tension was/is a fundamental part of what makes the boardroom exciting and it just doesn't seem to be there this time round. They all seem a bit too familiar with each other....

I am fed up of those two now. They just sit around pulling constipated faces or standing like a pair of chumps waiting for Siralun's limo to show up. Get rid. Use some of the earlier apprentice winners instead providing they are still employed by siralun.

Well, she might have changed her opinion since making the Cassandra remark; that was some time before this and has observed Lorraine in increasingly different and more significant roles. Nick and Margaret have changed their opinions before, that's not uncommon.

And, actually, I'm not sure the Cassandra comment can be taken that far. I don't think she was saying Lorraine is omniscient, just undervalued and ignored at times when she might have a valid point. Plus in business, you have to be able to command people's attention when necessary (and by this, I don't mean by shouting al a Debra/Yasmina), so being compared to the passive figure of Cassandra isn't entirely a compliment.

Besides I'm not sure you'd have to be imbued with mythological powers to have spotted that Pantsman was going to lead to ruin.

To keep on-thread, Nick is being a bit more vocal, certainly since the early days, when they were seen and not heard. Ha, like SAS's boardroom children. I think of the two he tends to be more prone to obvious preferences, but I'm not sure that's always a terribly bad thing here.

Margaret to me always seems terribly uncomfortable on TV, which I think she has admitted herself, and rarely appears on YF.

I think Margaret has been pretty consistent myself. She seems to have altered her perception as the show as gone on. But I haven't seen her chop and change. I love her write ups of the task, as like you said, we don't always get to see her opinions. And it gives you a greater insight as to what Margaret thinks about people. It also sometimes tells you about things we don't see on the show which can give a slighter different perception to what we see on the show. It does show how they try to create characters out of the candidatures and pigeonhole them.

But going from evidently sympathetic to downright snidely rude is odd. Even more so when Nick supported her very strongly last episode (10).


This is where the spin comes in.

She spoke firmly to Yasmina because Yasmina continued to question a decision she made as project manager. If it had been the other way around there would doubtless have been a nice set of diatribes about how Lorraine is not a team player and was way out of order to keep questioning the PM.

As for Yasmina, it was Yasmina who shouted at Lorraine, not the other way around.


LOL, ain't that the truth!

Ok, but it could still just be a change of opinion/attitude then? I'm not sure that's all that odd considering when she made the famed Cassandra comment and this point in the series. Really, I think it's just Margaret's sense of humour, for which she's pretty much known. She's made very similar comments throughout all the series, and doesn't really suggest a change of character for the YF audience to me. Margaret (and Nick, I guess as well) never give wall-to-praise, even of the ones they like.

And even if Nick does support her, maybe Margaret can break the mind-meld on occasion.



I wasn't referring to that spat. I was just suggesting that Cassandra was a passive figure, and Lorraine also comes across like that; that she doesn't give off an air of authority, as it were, which is something I think SAS is looking for. You need to be able to rally the troops and command people's respect, even if you're not always right, or indeed especially when you're not right, but even when Lorraine is right, she doesn't always seem able to do so. It's not really an on-thread point, but it's a feeling I have about Lorraine. Incidentally, on that occasion, I think Yasmina did very much over-react, and is prone to doing so. However, I also think it undermines the whole Cassandra thing, if Lorraine couldn't see that maybe Yasmina is a bit better at pitching. But I guess that's a whole different debate!

The Cassandra comment was made because Lorraine made one (obvious?) observation (prophesy if you will ...) and it's been taken by both Lorraine and some of her followers as evidence that she is the best candidate, which I find quite bizarre.

As for Nick ... he really is getting annoying lately, and I think Debra was correct in responding to him a few weeks ago; in fact, I wish all candidates had the courage to speak more openly to Nick, Margaret and Alan Sugar himself instead of treating them like gods.

Margarets performance on YF was quite interesting. Does she know who is in the final? I ask because at this late stage I find it odd that she said Lorraine should have gone. Does Margarets comment mean Lorraine doesnt make the final? I dont know either way, but Margaret's behaviour was quite strange on YF.

I too find it quite strange that this one remark, relatively early in the process, is being used to hang some sort of mythological claim to overwheening instinct and prescience on the part of Lorraine and her support.

Unless Cassandra, after one success, followed up with hedged-bets and 20:20-hindsight carping and 'I told you sos' then I fail to see why Margaret changing her view shows inconsistency.

Totally ageree with you and Revenga. The proof is that Lorraine made no such profecies before and hasnt since. She managed to pull a good call out of her arse. Thats all she did.

That doesn't sound like Margaret to me. She surely knows her own mind and won't be intimidated by the likes of Adrian Chiles or a studio audience.

Generally Nick seems to quite enjoy the publicity and appears on You're Fired, Margaret doesn't seem to and I was surprised to see her here at all. It looked to me as though she had prepared the comment, about the gas not being lit, in advance, partly for its humour value. I don't think she was swept up in the moment. So I think it reflected her new, lower opinion of Lorraine.

I agree she went too far. I wouldn't go that far (not of Lorraine, anyway; some others, eg Anita, got fired before showing us how brightly they could burn).

I'm sure when Margaret said it, it wasn't the first time Lorraine had been in that position. I can't remember what the previous occasion was, though. She did do the Cassandra thing again on the "10 items" task, though, identifying the rug as highly valuable, and arguably with her criticisms of Yasmina's work on the Margate task and again with the dinosaur on the TV task.

I think Nick's been a bit of an a*se this series sometimes. In the contretemps with Debra, Nick was definitely wrong and it's not surprising she got frustrated and argued back.

Also, I think some of his comments to Howard last night were a bit much - he was virtually calling him a wimp and a coward.

I agree, I felt sorry for Howard, I dont think he's a coward, just very sensible.

She's done it a lot, as you say, but the important point that a lot of posters don't seem to understand is that although her opinions may be ignored or too late within the context of this game, AS will be looking for people who can spot problems or come up with ideas over a much longer period of time.

I think this (and the 'group' mentality) is the main reason why so many people dismiss her and yet AS does not.

This is not the case of a Michael Sophocles, completely useless, candidate. It's a case of a candidate who consistently shows good business sense but is does not shine in the entirely artificial format of TA.

I doubt she'll win but I can well see why, from the perspective of someone who's looking for employees who will perform in a real business environment rather than a series of unrealistic, two day, tasks she is very much deserving of a place in the interviews.