Just a quick search on google shows that oud is a musical instrument but also a perfume.

http://byredo.com/en/product/67/oud-immortel
http://www.arabianoud.co.uk/flash.php

So Sugar was wrong . He should eat humble pie, apologise to Zee, and reinstate him .

Sugar was correct. It is both. However, the clue in the task said 'English mahoganey' which should therefore have led them away from the perfume side of things. Even when this was brought up to Zee early in the board room, he still didn't get it!

Lots of perfumes come from woods . So Zee was correct.

Yes, he was correct, but he shouldn't be reinstated. He wasn't fired because he didn't know an oud was a musical instrument, he was fired for many mistakes and problems.

Standard size perfume?? There's no defending him.

Yes, you can buy standard size bottles of oud or any perfume.

Do you mean the many mistakes that Natalie and Neil both made but were kept on? Right, I see.

Hmm no.

He may be right on a technicality, but it was obvious that no perfumers had a clue what Egyptian oud, mahogony, standard size was, yet he pressed forward insisting that a fragrance was all it could be.

The other team thought it a fragrance too, but they had the right idea in asking if anyone knew it as something else.

The idea was to read the description to find the right thing. If they request a Mahogany Oud you can't return with a bottle of Oud (Agurwood) smelling fragrance.

The traditional/modern Kandura seemed like a bigger trap as even the internet gives no clues to the difference.

Despite the task setter quoting things in non SI unit of measurements when things needed to be converted to do business there, they really should have double checked before ordering the flag.

You are being ridiculous. There is no 'standard size' of perfume.

Seriously? You are really going to go here? Yes, some perfumes have woody smells. But not to the point where they say things like English mahogany. I see you are not going to give up on this, but as I said in the last response I wrote, you are just being ridiculous.

Just watched the episode back. Zee was awful to Natalie in the car.

Calm down dear . Have you not heard of Cedarwood, Sandalwood perfumes etc.

You realise that you just quoted both Michael Winner AND David Cameron simultaneously?


No, he really shouldn't.

This wasn't the reason Zee was fired anyway.

Do they sell itr (perfume) like ood in wooden bottles? I always thought it was glass or metal.

Zee should have just said he did not know what it was or he thought it might have been a perfume but was not fully sure. He just made out he knew exactly what it was and was so confident and I felt that was his downfall. Nonetheless, Natalie should have been given the boot too.

What I don't get was that they obviously have a smartphone with them, surely there is like a units converter in it for them do make those calculations? I would think that Kurt and Neil definitely got away with it. I would bring Leah, Neil and Kurt from his team into the boardroom if possible. I am NOT impressed with Leah. She's so fatalistic and obviously was personal when she couldn't get to be the team leader, and was trying to prove Zee was wrong from start to finish.

He was rightly fired for a very good reason - he was useless

He claimed to be useful, that proved to be his downfall.

If you indeed lived in Dubai for three years as he claimed, then you would have known oud meant two things straight away. Surely???

What a pile of tat. So someone in Britain should be reinstated for not sourcing a pair of cotton drawers because they attempted to find some furniture storage items specifically for storing cotton? Okay perfumes can be made from wood - sandalwood and cedar wood have been mentioned - but has anyone (I mean ANYONE) ever heard of a mahogany perfume? No? Didn't think so. Likewise, while some perfume bottle sizes may be more common than others, has anyone heard of a standard size? So coupled together it's fair to think that maybe, just maybe, the word might mean two different things. Like the word table could mean a piece of furniture or a diagram containing data.

You find any evidence that oud perfume comes in a mahogany variety and a standard size and I'll concede you have a point. Otherwise - nada.

Just because you live in a place for a few years doesn't automatically mean you know about everything. Perhaps he never went shopping for musical instruments, or it never came up in conversation or perhaps didn't know the instrument by it's proper name.

Why should it be a given, that because he lived in Dubai, he knows about the musical instrument called an oud?? I don't think it's so bad he got it wrong, but if he really wasn't sure should have said as far as he is aware, it is a perfume, but double check that if you can.

Indeed, although Oud is also a perfume having checked the specifictions it doesn't match .

Myles' team made the same mistake for a while.

Yes, look at previous similar tasks . Most of the candidates are from the UK but remember the fun and inability for some in trying to get a candelabrum .

True point, I remember that.