Don;t get me wrong, I was pleased that they did as I can;t stand all the silly bitching and squabbling the girls always seem to do.

BUT

I still can't quite work out how the boys won. I'm sure Karen said that they had fines worth £550. Looking at what each team bought:

Girls Boys diff
Sewing Machine £57 £35 -£22
Tikka Gold £160 £135 -£25
Truffle £200 £100 -£100
Tartan £69 £23 -£46
Plates £120 ???? ?????
BlueBook £50 £62 £12
Chicken Feet ???? X - £50 fine £50 +
4 Metre Board ???? X - £50 fine £50 +

Late Arrival Fine £50 0 -£50


Struggling to remember what else they bought, but I just can't see what the girls could have bought that was more than the £550 of fines the boys got.

Can someone help?

The rule on fines was you got fined £50 + the list prize of the item. The boys(well Jamie really) failed to purchase 3 items which resulted in £550 of fines under that formula.

The boys won the tasks because their negotiations were so good they were below the list price for some of the items they brought, whereas the girls negotiations were poor and they overspent on everything.

So even though Jamie's woeful productivity SHOULD have cost them, they were saved by a combination of the magnificience of Chris and how badly the girls negotiated for goods(the truffles and the Tartan being the worst examples).

Yes I understood the rules, but look at the comparissons I showed - there was no way that the difference between the 7 things the boys bought made up for the £550 in fines!

I make the difference about £179, although I don't remember what the boys paid for their plates.

What were the other 2 things they had to buy that I have missed and just how much over the list price did the girls pay that resulted in them spending more than the boys considering their £550 fine?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s108/...pprentice.html

That means the 3 items were worth 550-150= 400 pounds.
plates, chickens feet and 4 metre board.
The plates we know could cost £120
How much did the girls pay for the other 2 items.
57+160+200+69+120+50 is all we know. and two items missing.
It doesnt add up.

Was the late fine higher than the missing item fines, maybe?

OK, so I make it that the girls spent £656 on the things I have identified plus a £50 fine for being late.

So they then spent £388 on the chicken feet, the 4 metre kitchen top and 2 other things that I can't remember.

The boys spent £355 on the five items, plus £550 in fines, so they must have spent about £100 on the plates.

So how much was the list price for the kitchen top & chicken feet? Did the girls pay more than the list price? Bearing in mind that the boys were fined the list price + £50.

I just don't think the sums add up to a boys win

I wonder if the candidates are actually shown the other team's balance sheets for the tasks? The figures do seem to have a 'plucked out of thin air' feel to them at times.

I was pleased that the boys won because this was a task where having one less member was a clear disadvantage, especially for Jamie who was operating solo. His result of getting only 2 items wasn't really that much worse than the 3 other pairs who only got 2.5 items between them if you want to look at it that way. Also the girls should have been fined more than £50 for being late - the list price of the last item should have been added on at the very least.

Either way not a very transparent process, though I do realise the show relies on that to a large degree.

I have my doubts about the calculations too, but the maths on the truffle purchase do show that the girls really hadn't thought about it at all, i.e.

List price = £2,000 per kg = £100 per 50gm
Therefore penalty for non-purchase = £100 + £50 = £150

And they paid £200, so they would have "saved" £50 by not buying it at all! That plus the £50 fine for being late was the difference between winning & losing...

This fine was particularly laughable. Why didn't the boys just stay out all night to get the remaining items if £50 was the extent of the fine?

In the end, it didn't matter, but they could have won by a country mile if they did.

They were a few minutes late and got fined £50. You don't know what the fine would have been for a team that was an hour late.

You're correct that it was laughable but not for the reason you stated.

It was laughable because it meant that the task was won and lost on the vagaries of the traffic.

If the production company employed anyone with a hint of intelligence to design the task they would have had the minders note the times the deals were closed and only allowed those completed before the deadline to stand.

Having the result decided by traffic conditions is absurd.

I would think £50 isnt the maximum fine. It can go up if you arrive even later.

[quote=Jepson;46169393]It was laughable because it meant that the task was won and lost on the vagaries of the traffic.QUOTE]

No it wasn't as the girls spent £70 more than the boys.

Without the fine they'd have still spent £20 more.

Lauras £200 for the truffle went in no small part to the failure, as was Stellas penchant for £1 discounts

Everyones laying into Jamie for only getting 2 items, but he didn't have to bullshit as pathetically as Chris, he came across as a businessman, Chris as a con-man! The way Jamie demanded a low fee (undercutting the girls by £25) for the tikka gold was masterful

Fair enough.

If he knew that he was getting a hard time getting that kitchen worktop, common sense would tell you to move on to the other two items. Had they lost, I'm very sure he would go. Sugar was clear about that, he being PM not setting a good example.

The other alternative was to give Chris and Stuart more items, maybe a 7-3 split but he wanted to be a hero . So, again, it's entirely his fault they didn't get all 10.

Indeed, but had the boys been delayed and the girls got back on time the difference would have been £100 and the task would have gone the other way.

It doesn't take much for London traffic speeds to change radically, particularly at that time of night so allowing that possibility to affect the outcome when when more intelligent design of the task could have eliminated it was inept.

Difference is, Jamie had a grilling the week before and then made himself PM the next week, Chris had a grilling the week before ...and didn't put himself up, Jamie wanted to put it right and Chris was scared to

As for being a hero, there's nothing heroic about pretending you need tartan for your gran

He was PM last week, it's very rare in The Apprentice to be consecutive PMs in a row. In fact, I can't remember one. Has it happened before?

And who told them to get a story ready, may I ask? To be honest, I saw the thing as hilarious rather than deceitful. ALL of the vendors they talked to knew they were lying but decided to give them a discount. It helped break the ice to be honest. And LOL to people who say, OMG, he lied. Don't tell me you haven't lied before, because that would be lying.

The boys managed to source all the high priced items and buy at nearly cost price, so therefore won.

Yes, and Lord Alan is looking for someone who can't plan far enough ahead to take in to account travel problems.

"Sorry Lord Sugar, I couldn't make that multi million pound deal because I didn't leave enough time to get there and got stuck in traffic so our competitors got there first"

Very business savvy, or not!!!

its is hilarious that it proves you can fail at a task and still win.

Exactly, but still no one has given me a satisfactory answer as to how the boys won - the maths simply don't add up

I was pleased the boy's team won but did feel it was a little unfair on the girls.

I don't think the penalties for not buying items were sufficiently high; it almost meant you could win the task by not buying anything at all and just keeping all your money!

If you bought items and did a poor deal, as the girls did in many cases, then you would have been better off not buying the item and just taking the penalty of £50 plus the "list price" of the item. I don't think this was very fair.

After all, the task was about buying things, and the girls certainly did buy all ten items. I think they should have won.

Well the only lie I'd tell today would be if I said I agreed with your post

His fibbing doesn't shock me, just that in comparisons to Jamie's methods, it was inferior, they managed to get 5 items at slight discounts with 2 people, Jamie alone managed to secure two big deals and I think Jamie's tikka deal won them the task even if the girls hadnt got back late