It does, in that it confirms my original thinking (which always helps ).

I assumed that the market price for the kandura was what was originally quoted for it. Now I don't remember what Neil was quoted but I do remember him buying for 60D (dirhams) and saying that he got it at half price indicating the full price was around 120D. This (as I said above) was about £20 give or take 2 or 3 pounds. However, it sounded like there may also have been a fine for the kandura for getting the wrong item which was in excess of the market price.

This is where it's very difficult for the viewer to gauge exactly who is to blame.

If the fine for the kandura is simply to deduct market value then Neil is hardly more culpable than Kurt and Zee's bringing in of Natalie is more understandable as neither male really made a task losing mistake.

If the kandura error invokes both market value and another nominal sum then we should know what that is. Again, if the nominal sum is £20 or around that, then Neil hasn't really made an error that has had that much impact on the overall result.

So here we go - the viewer is encouraged to see Zee's actions as purely sexist because he brings in Natalie (who has had her cards marked earlier by Sugarplum) and lets two males who made mistakes get off scot free. How dare he? Well if neither mistake came close to costing the team the task it's far easier to understand don't you think?

I don't think it makes mathematical sense, based on the numbers, for the fine to be the initial price/market price offered to the other team.

From Evolve's totals as given out in the boardroom, we know the fine for the tiles and falcon hood combined was £383. Knock this off Endeavour's total spend of £783, and you're left with £400 for the other 6 items.

We're shown the Evolve negotiations for the oud (initial price 1850 dirhams), the kandura (initial price 125 dirhams) and the coffee pot (initial price 350 dirhams) that they bought. Combined and converted this comes to £402 (ish, using the exchange rate in the above posts). You're already over the total, without taking into account the other three items left over, which were bought for about 300 dirahms (75 for the plant, 200 for the flags, probably 20 to 30 for the crystals based on what Rebecca paid) - about £50 to £55.

To me, Occam's Razor would suggest that, for simplicities sake, a guide price is set for the items before the task is run and that is used as the "fine". I swear in one of the earlier iterations of this task it was actually referred to as "the guide price". I suspect what happened in this task is that the items were being offered to the mall subteam for somewhat over this guide price, and they were knocking them down.

If you actually watched the episode, you would see that the biggest moaning came from Alex, not Leah . . .

I guess no-one on the week Adam appeared on You're Fired felt that strongly about it. It's a bit of a lottery in that sense.

If they weren't happy with how he was treating them or acting towards them, just say so, there's no reason to resort to accusations of sexism.

Leah was the main cause of conflict between herself and Zee this week, she'd objected to him becoming PM right away, threw her toys out the pram she wasn't picked, started saying how he'd be terrible before he'd even started, went against his instructions by going to the mall - completely undermining him, slagging him off to her sub team... She treated him like shit, imagine if Zee had turned to her in the board room and said "do you have a problem working with Asian people". There would be uproar that he'd stooped to that level and that should have been the case when Natalie and Leah thought it was appropriate to make very offensive and serious accusations on national TV, based on so little (and very possibly, if we're honest, a bit of racial stereotyping).

Fair point but from other information we have it seems Zee brought Natalie certainly and Leah possibly in order to save his male friends. He said on You're Fired he didn't want to bring back Kurt (I think, I may have my names wrong sorry) because he was sure he would have been fired and he himself said he was thrilled when Zee picked Natalie and not him as he knew he'd been saved. So sexist or not it was certainly not totally about performance.


I get the feeling we haven't seen everything between Zee and Leah because what we did see doesn't really make sense on the surface. However from what we do know: As much as Leah wasn't happy not being Team Leader and Zee getting the job he wasn't happy with her being sub leader and yet we heard in the board room that that had actually been pre-arranged but still he didn't want to allow her this role.

We also saw Zee over ruling Natalie and not letting her access to the materials him and Kurt had use of and we heard him asking to speak to Neil (may have the name wrong sorry) when he didn't like what Leah was saying which was bizarre and seemed pretty dodgy.

Finally regarding the negativity shown to Zee which was was awful and totally out of order Alex was far harsher and far more negative than Leah but he seems to have got away with it from Zee and from posters here for some reason.

After rewatching You're Fired a couple of times, I'm not sure the attack was sustained or out of order, or even much of an attack since it included a digression to compliment Zee on his handling of the flag error.

What I think is questionable is whether You're Fired should have shown such blunt criticism from the other candidates: "I've never worked under someone so incompetent," "not a clue ... and what he didn't know he made up".

This is heavily out of tune with the contracts reality show contestants sign at casting time.

I can't say I know this for sure, but I don't see why the Apprentice would be any different than the hundreds of other reality shows where the contestants contractually bind themselves from future litigation.

I don't think a contract is legally binding if it has clauses in it that deny you your legal rights.

The show has always included blunt criticism. In series 2 Sugar told Alexa - a management consultant - that she was a terrible manager.

They have definitely talked about a guide price before, but certainly not in the last couple of times we have seen the task. I suspect we're talking semantics anyway - a guide price is surely based on a reasonable market price anyway. We can be sure that any guide price for the kandura would have been probably, say, 150-300 dirhams, and for the oud, say, 1500-2000. The fact remains that the oud was hugely important to the success of the task, the kandura much less so, and so on.

Although it has to be said, many management consultants *are* terrible managers, just as in any other walk of life. I think that blunt criticism from fellow candidates is all an accepted part of the game - but the accepted norm for panel guests is somewhat softer. Whether it's appropriate for a guest to be quite as blunt as [sorry, I've forgotten her name] was last week is a matter of personal interpretation. Personally I thought her attacks on Zee were OTT and inappropriate, but others will (and have) disagreed on both counts. Horses (or should that be buffalo?) for courses.

As Mr Prosser says, I think that would negate the contract. Could someone turn round in the boardroom and say they didn't like you cos you looked funny at kids? Or they think you beat your wife? Zee's just been given a label that will stay with him long after this show is finished - and not just that of looking like an idiot, which most candidates end up with - but one that is specifically a gross misconduct charge in any workplace I know. It was not investigated or proven, just alleged on screen. I think it's very wrong of the beeb to air that allegation without substantiation. How different is it from Sally Bercow?

Again, I am not taking a stance on whether he is or he isn't, I'm saying I don't think it's right that such a serious allegation can be aired without a more thorough process.

Agreed. As I've said elsewhere, I think it was below the belt for Natalie to have raised that allegation in the boardroom, even if it was actually true. There are many ways she could have criticised Zee for his actions on the task without actually calling him sexist. As others have said, in the real world such an allegation would have to be investigated properly and, regardless of the outcome, leaves a nasty taste in the mouth that doesn't go away. In the artificial world of The Apprentice, such an investigation doesn't happen, although it wouldn't surprise me if it had led to an off-camera discussion with the producers and possibly legal people that we never got to see. Either way, given what a loaded accusation it was, I'm surprised it was allowed to go out to broadcast, given the amount of other comments from Natalie which were apparently cut because of language.

Maybe he should have made that accusation to Natalie in revenge for her sexism claim? She brought both Uzma and Sophie into the boardroom when she was PM when there were other candidates more responsible for the failure, certainly more so than Sophie.

Oh, I'm not saying that some management consultants aren't terrible managers. What I mean is that in her line of work it was a very damaging thing to brand her with - more so than it would be for someone whose day job wasn't management eg a sales rep.

He should have countered the sexism card with the racist card - just for the hell of it. That silly Irish cow totally undermined him from the start when she didn't get her way, He could have claimed it was because of his race, that would have been mildly amusing.