Harry H was correct. Harry M is THE weakest there, no wins, nil, nada. LdAl doesn't like a perennial loser so his chances of getting the tin tack increase every time his team loses.

To say he's been unlucky every week, when he's lost as a PM with his own strategy is daft.

This years main apprentice winner didnt win a task till about week 7 or 8 I think.

Nick was on hand to inform Sugar of Harry's good stuff nd made sure Zara didnt credit for it.

Harry M isnt the weakest. I'd rather work with Harry M over Heya, over James, over Lizzie and over Zara. The only one stronger than Harry M is Harry H.

Oh good I am not the only person that watches out for that dress every week. I even asked my hubby if we could have a whip round and get her a new outfit.

Whoever told her that dress was ideal for the board room should be shot. She should have stuck with a black jacket, trousers/skirt and just changed t.shirts under for colour changes each week, if she didn't have much money to spend.

In total agreement with you there Rhydler.... I think on several occasions tHarry M's teams have lost because they are so determined to the the opposite of what he suggests, when he is quite often making sensible suggestons!

Even last night they were all belittling him - refusing to let him be PM, Lizzie saying he was a bad luck mascot, and insinuating in the boardroom that he needed to have an eye kept on him, and then Hayley pointing out that he hadn't won a task yet...... Thank goodness Nick was able to set the record straight on his input, and Lizzie was sharp enough to pick up on LS and Nick's hints and not take him back into the Boardroom.

Did anyone see how awkwardly Zara was sitting on the chairs before going into the boardroom? I thought she was going to let out a fart or something.


And even Harry H looked rather vulnerable and like a spare part this week. He was lucky that his team won as the other two were primed and ready for the boardroom. Especially James - 'I think he put himself forward for PM for the sake of putting himself forward'. lol getting the first punch in.

At the risk of being patronising, what they meant by "market price" isn't what you'd expect to pay at a market stall, but what the generally understood price of a given item is (for cars I think it's called the "book price".) So someone would have done some research and found that (for instance) the average price for a reasonable left-handed guitar is £99, and used that for their judging/penalty criteria...

God I forgot about that 'keep an eye on him' comment by Lizzy, how patronizing is that coming from a girl who sent a frankly embarrasing set of flowers to a ruby wedding function.

This would be the girl who PM'd the winning team that week, and has only ever lost when in a team that included Harry M?

Winning as PM certainly doesn't mean that you won the team the task. They were damn lucky to win that one

I think that she was worried about the seams as it looks rather tight when she sits down.

Lizzie is my favourite contestant and I'm so glad she didn't get fired, but in all honesty she probably deserved to be, if only for her weak leadership. She said in the boardroom that Harry M insisted on going to Jermyn Street and Savile Row (I don't know London at all and even I know you wouldn't go there for a bargain!) and that she wanted to go to a market but Harry M wouldn't have it. She was the PM, not Harry M! She shouldn't have allowed him to overrule her when she knew he was wrong. Similarly, if Lizzie didn't want Zara and Hailey to go to Croydon, she should have vetoed it.

Also, while Lizzie seemed very organised to start out with - far more so than Haya - it seemed, as someone said, to fall apart as things progressed. From what Lizzie said in the boardroom, it seems like they'd only organised the first three or four items and were trusting to luck after that. Couldn't they have planned a little further ahead?

Finally, while we don't have a breakdown of the fines, it seemed like the fine for not getting any discount on the shoes was substantial. In the past, contestants have asked for discounts of 1p to avoid this penalty. I think Lizzie should have pushed hard for at least a 1p discount. If she failed to get it, she might have been better failing to get the shoes at all.

I love the white dress!

The perennial pitfall of this task is people treating it as a treasure hunt, not a buying task. But Lord Sid doesn't always make this crystal clear (many of the grownups have fallen foul of it) and the fines didn't seem to be outlined at all - hence Lizzie having to ask what the largest fine was and even then it wasn't revealed how much Sid decided to put on for the shoes.

This task was almost an exact copy of the one in series 6 (only change a few genders on either team). There the subteam of Laura and Stella also went travelling very far, so it is something that happens more often on this task (it is like children, sometimes they wander off without our knowledge).

It was also a bit shady how none of their team seemed to know London that well, while I got the idea that the other team did (always a bit of a vague advantage there).

By the way, just like in series 6, the task was lost for the team with a PM called Liz



This annoys me the most. As we do not get a clear view of the fines (when do they get fines and how much?) and neither do the candidates (otherwise they would not have bought the shoes).

Even Nick didn't seem to have a clear view on the value of the fine - saying something along the lines of "that'll be for Lord Sugar to decide."

Harry Sloane and Harry Raaa - pistols at dawn!

Forgot about that!
It makes rather a mockery of the whole task really, doesn't it? How is Lizzie supposed to work out if its worth missing out on the shoes if she doesn't know what the fine is for not being able to get a discount?
Note that she did ask for one, it was just one of those places where no leeway was allowed. (Reminds me of "Not one penny!!!" from last year)

She's wearing the same dress every boardroom, because the show requires them to. All of them are wearing the same thing every boardroom.

The only reason you notice it with her so much as compared to the others, is because what she's wearing is visually very striking. That backfired on her, because while it made her very noticeable and looked fashionable once, now everyone's gained the notion that she blew a limited budget on one dress.

In the regular Apprentice, fines are for not getting the item, not on the discount, based on what it would have cost plus a fixed amount, so paying over the odds has resulted in failure against a team that did not get all the items. IIRC.

Indeed and as the negative consequence of not getting a lower price is already allowed for in the winning calculation - because you by definition get a higher price - how was she to know that there was an extra consequence for not getting a penny taken off. As you say she can't possibly calculate the consequences of buying the shoes at that asking price or leaving them on the shelf.

Someone was making up rules as they went along.

And who on earth barters for shoes in shoe shops, and where do you find sales assistants who are empowered to set their own prices.?

The contestants get a set of task rules beyond what we see. These will have made it clear that there was a penalty for not getting a reduction, even if they didn't specify what it would be.

Assistants will not be empowered to give discounts, which is why contestants would normally try and speak to the owner or manager. If they can't, it might be best to abandon that shop.

This whole negotiation thing is a bit rum, though. Maybe I should try it when I go in the shop for my What's On TV; tell them I won't pay 49p and ask to pay 35p. How do you think I'll get on?

Did you see Dara O'Brien's hilarious "How to Get Hired" shortly before this year's The Apprentice final. In it, he pretended to negotiate with a guy in a shop for 15 penny sweets, starting at 10p and then being negotiated up to 11p, 12p, 13p and eventually 15p. It was so funny, but then so was the whole programme! If you haven't seen it, I do recommend it!