As you say, as a philospopher, Max probably even has a piece of paper to say what a great thinker he is and how he is an expert on other thinker's thoughts. He's doomed.

Max also committed the other mistake of standing back and letting Patrick lead as PM on a task that fitted his own claimed interests even better than they did Patrick's. He demonstrated he wasn't prepared to lead, then showed he wasn't prepared to do anything else, and he didn't even add ideas to Patrick's

The adult equivalents of Amy tend to do better than that - if she has a good idea too she might make the last rounds. He's noticed Ashleigh in programme one and made some very favourable comments (for him) -the few people he's noted that early for getting the igures right also tend to do well?

If the edit is anything to go by L A made the right decision. Patrick at least made some decisions, was clearly proactive and very creative. Max is intelligent apparently though this wasn't particularly apparent and the fear in his eyes when he might have to talk to the public was too off putting.

Max reminds me of a young Boris Johnson.

I wouldve liked to have seen a bit more of Max, looks like we had 3 of the main characters up in the first episode which is a shame.

without any personality

Haha, you'd think I'd written a piece slagging them both off!

I do think they both have potential and I do like Amy based on her first episode. However, I thought that she did make mistakes apart from that (the washer-drier fiasco for example) and she can do better. Would not surprise me at all to see her reach the latter stages.

As for Ashleigh, Yes she did well on the figures, but I thought she came across as being a bit arrogant and on Day 2, she was clearly ready to scapegoat the sub-team at a moment's notice. But perhaps, I'm being overly-harsh.

I wasn't particularly criticising either of them, but just saying they had potential and it was my intention for Outsiders to be a good thing rather than a bad one.

Max seemed like a very intelligent guy, someone you would definitely want in your pub quiz team but he was never going to win this competition. To be Lord Sugars apprentice you need to be clever as well as be able to work and communicate with people - a key skill Max was lacking. A lot of the time when he was talking to someone he would mumble and look to the floor - he may be a shy lad and that's fine but this makes him a weak candidate for the apprentice in my opinion.

Also I cant remember his name...Patrick?? What was he thinking creating a swimsuit dress thing??

Sugar was correct: he sacked Max not because he was the most culpable in losing the task but because - of those who were the most culpable - he had the least potential...in terms of what he's ultimately looking for...