It was made very clear that it was a prestigious hotel, the contestants visited it at the start. They were told to buy quality at the best price not tat (to use Lord S' words).

I think it was an understandable mistake, but it was his unwillingness to listen when it was suggested he'd made a mistake that did for him.

Some posters have it that Leah sabotaged the task by not trying. I saw no evidence of this, but if it was so, what's Zee's excuse for doing pretty much just as badly as a sub-team that weren't trying?

No, it's like Sandeesh bringing back Liz and Chris back in S6! Liz and Chris made mistakes but they were much stronger candidates. Sandeesh had no chance.

If you bring two strong candidates in, then you've got no chance. Neil and Leah have both been the strongest candidates by far! Yes they're abrasive but they're also incredibly resourceful and very business-minded. Zee would definitely have gone if he brought them in.

He brought Natalie back in which was the right thing to, but he also should have brought back Alex - who had not contributed a thing to the task - except for some backstabbing and bitching. Alex is by far the weakest candidate. He should have gone. Natalie is alright but she should have gone home otherwise. It's the sexist card which got her through.

This task was his chance to shine and he blew it. He made mistakes, team members made mistakes. He promised a lot, didn't deliver and then made the fatal mistake of taking the wrong people into the boardroom. He has blind spots which sometimes lead him to make bad business decisions and that was why he went. He was the right choice to go last night.

I agree that he took the wrong people back with him - I can understand Leah, perhaps, but if Natalie didn't contribute then it was, arguably, down to Zee himself not involving her.
He brought her back because he thought she was out of chances, and while Alan Sugar sometimes uses some strange logic for firing people, I don't think he's going to be manipulated into firing someone by the other candidates.
Having said all that, it might simply have been that it was Zee's turn to go this week, whoever went in with him - but I think he might've had more of a chance if he brought, say, Kurt in.

Well, Zee said he knew the city like the back of his hand. Firstly, the Oud. The female of the sub team (I forget names) called him up and said "This is NOT a perfume - I want to go looking elsewhere" to which Zee said no and shot her down. The other female (with dark hair!) attempted to get involved in the task several times - like in the car. Whilst Zee and the other male were doing nothing, she attempted to get the ywllow pages, which Zee *refused* to give her. He *refused* to listen to her at all and completely shot her down. The blonde subteam leader, the first time she spoke to Zee on the phone, he IMMEDIATELY asked to speak to the men as opposed to her.

Apart from his sexist attitude, his major downfall was the fact he brought two females into the board room - keeping in mind that he went out of his way to exclude them from the task and shoot them down as much as possible. He was the only smart choice to fire.

I actually felt really sorry for the dark haired woman - she really tried to get involved in the task throughout and Zee refused to let her, yet she *still* got a bollocking off Lord Sugar... Zee was 100% to blame for the choices he made.

To be honest "Zee's mouth has been writing cheques his body can't cash" for weeks he was ok in the beer task, failed twice on the furniture task, and was largely absent last week in the produce task, which would of been ideal for him, out on the streets selling.

That's true, but equally no one has ever been penalised for buying a shoddy product - merely for buying an incorrect one. There's nothing in any of the specs we see that ever specifies a certain level of quality: for instance, the kandura needed to be traditional rather than modern, but nothing was said about the standard.

I very much doubt quality ever comes into the equation. And why should it, as it's such a subjective thing? What makes an oud 'quality' or 'crap'? It's hard to define, but you can state that it should be made of Egyptian mahogany and come in a standard size.

In the real world, obviously, the hotel would make some specification as to product quality. This task - like every other Apprentice task - was hardly the real world, though.

It was me that started the quality thing. What I meant was that by rushing everyone to the market, they were missing another thing that may have played a big part. The big ticket items was where they could possibly make the most discount. They misidentified the oud, and the falcon hood looked like a red herring, but neither team semed to try (too hard) for the marble tiles.

Also because the "client" was a posh hotel, chances were that none of the items were going to be "common as muck, first stall in the souk" to find.

Heehee it's easy to sit here and say how I would've played it differently, but ignoring even the potential for information at the mall was unforgiveable.

This is rubbish. Whilst they were playing the video of Shugs telling them what the task was, he specifically said, I dont care if you go to the mall or a souk (or words to that effect). So no, it wasnt made clear they had to buy quality - not sure where you got that from. They had to buy the cheapest.

Ah, I see. Absolutely - as we've said on another thread, the value of having lots of helpful English-speakers at the mall did seem to be underestimated by Zee.

We never saw it, but I did get the impression that this week both teams had attempted to prioritise the products by value (but it was edited out). It certainly looked like they were targeting the more expensive ones first: the palm tree for sure, the oud was an unknown, but the flag and the falcon hood also both sounded expensive (although the flag in the end was only about 30 quid). Equally, we didn't see anyone bothering about the frankincense crystals until the end of the day, when we saw a little montage of cheap deals being done.

Obviously if the teams make a good decision that's a bit dull so the producers don't bother showing it.

On the subject of the tiles I also found it interesting that we didn't see either team going after them, even though I'd immediately pegged them as a high value item. My guess is that they quickly discovered one of two things:
1. It involved an out-of-the-way trip to a specific supplier - it doesn't sound like the sort of thing you'd buy in a mall or souk - and they decided that it wasn't worth the time it would cost to do so, which is fair enough.
2. They spoke to the supplier on the phone and realised they wouldn't get a big discount. That wouldn't surprise me at all - it's not the sort of product that would naturally need a big discount to be offered, as it's such a specialist product and you can't just pop down the road to a competitor. Just because a product costs a lot doesn't automatically mean you're entitled to a big discount - laws of supply and demand kick in.

Agree, I would assume the tiles, would be found in some out of town like industrial area, and would be to far to travel. The falcon hood I would of thought would of been fairly easy to source, the middle east is into 'falconing" and I would of thought there would of been several shops suppling this stuff.

You make a good point.

It would've been nice to see a team take a risk on them though (if they had found a supplier), because any discount may be better than being hit by their value in the boardroom.

Anyway, thinking back, did either team buy any (correct) item from the souk? It would've been funny if Shugs had said the souk was the red herring because it's the natural assumption to think "gonna get the best deals there".

It's like the coffee pot, why didn't they find a catering supplier, why go to a market and start looking in "gift shops"

Or better yet, phone the Waldorf's competitor and ask to speak to their chief buyer.

Didn't someone do that once?

Yeah, on Gavin's team when they were doing the "look for 20 ply toilet roll/ what on earth is a cloche?". One of the girls, possibly Zoe, thought it the cleverest idea of all time to phone the opposition.

I'm still gutted Gavin went before her.

Series 7 - discount buying for the Savoy. Basically the exact same task but in London rather than Dubai. It was Natasha Scribbins ("sex sells, yeah?") who tried to phone up the Ritz, ask them for their supplier list, then seemed surprised when they opted not to divulge such confidential information with her. I believe she even told them it would be a "win-win" for both parties - in much the same way that fox-hunting is win-win for the fox, I presume.

Gavin was fired as the losing PM, and yes, it was the episode with the cloche ...

I'm guessing that specialist suppliers or whoelsalers were specified as being off limits for the teams - would have made the task too simple. Equally, it might have required them embarking on a long drive to find one. I think they said the hotel was 1.5 hours outside the city, which already meant the teams spent a lot of their day in the car just travelling to and from Dubai.

Aaah Natasha yeah, the hyper-active-but-getting-nothing-done candidate, yeah. Thanks.

OMG that was such a great series, her "lads mag" is one of my fave episodes. I must go rewatch...

It was a very good series, although I'm amazed how many people still think Helen rather than Tom should have won.

Lads' mag was a great episode too, but a little depressing. It was another one of those tasks where what was clearly the poorer product in terms of quality won because it appealed to a lowest common denominator.

Helen would've walked it if it had been looking for an employee. Her grand idea of a concierge service may be the worst idea ever put forward in the last couple of seasons. Okay it wasn't her first choice, but I fail to see how her "I worked for Greggs, I'll open a Greggs" was going to part Shugs from his money.

The lads mag episode was great and can be summed up in two words... Coffin Dodgers. It was more the having a bad idea winning over having a great idea then throwing it all away by being even more patronising than "sex sells".

Worse than Jade's call centre?

Call centre, the polite way of saying telemarketting scam. For me Helen still tops the list because it was the idea of "In these tough economic times, what you need is to pay me to ring a dentist for you".

Yeah that was dire too, but I've tried to block Jade from my memory as her voice still has the power to make me grind my teeth.

Yep, that's exactly right. Helen would have been a perfect 'old style' Apprentice - someone with great PM skills. What a lot of people failed to realise was that being a business partner is not the same as being a great PM. Tom had a track record of being a successful inventor/entrepreneur, and Sugar was right in overlooking his frankly awful business plan to go back to his original business. (Also, Sugar has operated in health & beauty markets before, so he would have a degree of market knowledge and credibility in opening doors for Tom with suppliers, retailers etc.)