It was all a bit of a farce really. The tasks to "get a sink" or "get a diamond"..we don't know who got the best value for money. The first sink bought was obviously in much better condition, so they were not preparing like with like.
Same with the diamond, I'm willing to bet the diamond at £50 wasn't worth the same as the other at £180 or whatever. The dealers there aren't stupid. You can pick up cheap wholesale diamonds all day long in Hatton Garden, small and unfaceted they're often used as accent stones in rings. Would one of those counted ?

A skeleton IS an articulated collection of bones though, anatomically correct - by definition. A random assortment bones is not a skeleton.

I don't know why people are finding this so hard to understand?

If he'd asked for a a complete, working Rolls Royce and they came back with a set of Lego would that be OK?

They should have measured it out - as they did with the sink. You need to specify exactly one metre if you want exactly one metre though . And then you hit the question of what exactly means. If he's being pedantic, how careful do you have to be? 1.7 metres isn't metre - is 1.1? In real life, would Sugar worry if someone brought him some extra rope for nothing. He can hardly complain that cutting it himself is onerous.

Old rope was another undefined issue - how old, how used, how useable, whats cord and whats rope?

The sink was another . Mark and Katie checked its size - the other team went for something smaller - was it ever measured? Did the instructions say at least a certain size for the sink, but not the rope?

Again the sink had to be useable, but when does a sink with chips become unusable, or a germ trap?

And the diamond mystery was why one diamond started with an asking price below the final knocked down price the other team achieved. Were the diamonds the same quality, as well as size, weight, and colour? Was that bit of the task won by accidentally picking the right shop, research we didn't see, Roisin doing a Jedi Jim on the dealer, that team asking for something with a cheaper spec, or them being offered something cheaper and worth less.

Basically , Lord Sugar rejected a skeleton that didn't meat his interpretation of the rules - but he might have decided that the sink was unuseable, the cheap diamond was rubbish, or the rope wasn't rope if he wanted to. And the difference in asking price of the diamond alone could have decided the win .

Did the other team present real bones?

Does anyone remember any of the products in this task being in previous episodes apart from diamond, skeleton, kosher chicken and nigella seeds. I don't remember rope, the tea, the scallops, the oud or the dingy sink. I think this and the first task of this series were easily the worst in 10 years in terms of unoriginal and a bit nonsensical.

Because the poster would not have been the item, it would have been a picture of it. They DID buy a skeleton and it was the right size. Just because the specification was sloppy doesn't mean they should have been penalised.

I agree with all those points - I've made the same observation about the useability of Bianca's sink.

Ultimately, here's what it boils down to for me: precedent. Allowing Felipe to get away with his creative solution sends a signal that it's okay to exploit loopholes. That could lead to chaos, with everyone desperate to try it on, which would make a mockery of the tasks.

Set aside the rights and wrongs of Skeleton-gate - I'm not unsympathetic to the outrage, I just don't agree with it - and when I look at the bigger picture I don't see how Sugar could have decided any other way.

To go even further with this, if one team had returned with a skeleton where the two big toes had been placed on the wrong feet, if this had been spotted, then technically this is an anatomically incorrect skeleton, and could have failed the task on those grounds. Even though such an error would not have been noticeable to the untrained eye, it would still have fallen foul of the specifications.

How much worse then is a flat package full of unassembled paper? It's clearly unacceptable.

i did wonder about that. Last year we had an oud (as in a stringed musical instrument) rather than oud oil in the Dubai discount buying task, although there was confusion over exactly what the oud was. (One team thought it was perfume, I think?)

I agree. I was watching the episode thinking, "there's no way LS can let them get away with this"

Yep. As a reviewer, I have the opportunity to reflect on what I've seen before the episode airs. I watched this episode on Friday evening - in my notes I've written three question marks and circled them in the margin to express my disbelief - and immediately thought, as you did, that Sugar could not possibly let this one go. Five days later, my opinion has only been reinforced because of the precedent it would set for future candidates and tasks. I don't care whether it was allowed in the small print - take a step back and it is clear that this was not what Sugar asked them to buy.

Your post is very apt, and blame lies firmly on the Producers.

Yes it was. It was like dumbledore giving gryffindor enough points to win the house cup. Whatever else they did, they were going to get fined enough to lose the contest, i think.

And the truth is, a paper/card model of a skeleton is as legitimate as a plastic model of a skeleton.

A real skeleton is made of bones.

Sugar was completely wrong.

Shame all four of them didnt have the guts to walk out.

And why didnt the other lot get fined for bringing back a damaged sink?

Fair enough. But the same criteria should apply to all the items. The sink for example, if you were trying for a cottage style look for your kitchen, would you be happy if your builder came back with a scruffy old chipped sink ? Sugar has made it a task where he almost encourages them to cut corners, there's no emphasis on value for money. We don't know the real value of any of the items bought, which bears no relationship to how anyone in business would view it in real life. It's really just a task involving sourcing things in a limited time, the bargaining side of things is really just nonsense because of the difference in quality. Even something as simple as the scallops or Kosher chicken can't really be compared, they vary in quality as well.
You could argue that the paper skeleton (once assembled) would be a useful aid to medical students. Not as good as the real thing of course, but not totally useless either.

Yeah, and the skeleton didn't have any guts either!

Shugsy just doesn't like anyone to outsmart him. He came across as a spoilt toddler tonight, throwing skeletons out of his pram.

Gotta admit, the fines levied on Daniel's team felt "off" a little.

Still, I'm not sure I would describe the episode as a farce, more of an inconsistency.

As someone has posted on another thread, it's pretty nifty when assembled. I like him looking in the fridge 🙈😂

http://m.ebay.com/itm/190353022957?_mwBanner=1#

It wasn't a random assortment of bones - it was exactly the correct assortment of bones which comprise a skeleton. A set of Lego would not constitute a "working Rolls Royce" - it wouldn't work - so that would quite explicitly infringe the rules in a way the paper skeleton did not.

I dunno, I do kind of see your point. But I think the description provided of the skeleton was so minimal that it did leave some room for interpretation. Given that, it doesn't seem reasonable to argue that both the skeleton and the rope are unacceptable.

Christ, I've got to get up at 6am.

The point is, SA likes to say every week that there's a reason he's set the tasks, and there's a lesson to be learned from everything.

Monopoly is a completely different concept to the Apprentice and I've never played a "straight" game of Monopoly anyway. Me and my sister (the only person I knew who had a strategy that didn't just involve trying to get a hotel on Mayfair) used to play "Thatcher's Monopoly" where every square was 'privatised' apart from Community Chest and Chance.

Christmas Day must have been a barrel of laughs in your house.

Even an 8 year old knows aiming for a hotel on Mayfair is a loss making strategy.

I'd have one. Bond street is a bad set.

Not sure of preceedent. If you have a child who asks for a full sized skeleton for Christmas - he probably wouldn't be upset if you gave him a kit. Nor would a poor medical student. If you want an assembled one you have to say assembled one in that case - because they come in both types, and both would be suitable for some children . Does this meet his lordship's specification - it looks the same as Sanjay's - but comes in 200 pieces?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientific-A...productDetails

Now if you asked for a computer, and got a kit to make one I can see why you would be more likely to be disapointed - as fewer people build computers than plastic models. Same if you didn't specify a used working watch in the YA episode, and they bought you a box of bits to assemble.

I don't think many other items they have been told to find on this task over the years could be defined in multiple ways. if you said buy me a car, you wouldn't expect a kit - as they are not usually sold as kits. If you say scallops, or rope, or oud oil, or sink, its common sense that you can't have, and don't want, one in kit form .

The preceedent it sets is someone interpreting the rules in a way that the rule setters didn't think of and exclude - and that doesn't match his Lordship's view of what he wanted. But thats a pretty arbitary concept . It really means don't think of the bit we forgot , and do second guess Lord Sugar - which he's told past teams they shouldn't try and do.

Alan's mistake here. Will he ever admit it? Lmao, of course not, because that's what these guys do. Blame someone else if it's not black and white.
That's what you have to do to get to the top. Alan knows it, his apprentices know it. He's not going to take the rap for something this big.