Serious question!

The cheese cost a little less than 15 euros, and you can eat it.

The manure cost nothing, and you can always dump it on Katie Hopkins doorstep.

The mirror can always go to an antiques shop in Kent- so you get most, if not all, the cost back.

But £250 is a lot to pay for a dinghy. So- does the BBC and/or Lord Sugar now own a £250 dinghy they have no use for? Or are they all 'nominal sales' and no business is really transacted?

I'm surprised that the BBC don't auction all the non-perishable stuff on eBay and then donate the money to charity or something.

It'd be a nice little PR stunt.

If they did that with ALL the stuff that gets created through the series (selling 200 bottles of "Western" shampoo etc) they could raise quite a bit of cash and it'd generate continual interest with different items being auctioned every time there's an object-based task.

£250 is a tiny, tiny sum compared to the overall costs of making an hours telly. I expect members of the production team may take home stuff they want, the rest is probably dumped at the nearest charity shop. Controversial or amusing things like the paper skellington will be held back for the "Your fired" programme though.

Paper what?

I imagine one of the production crew is now the proud owner of a £250 dinghy.

That was the paper skeleton by Phillipe?

and well i'd assume if the member of the production crew paid whatever was paid back then fair do's as its better than entering the BBC's props department for 30 years unused to just be dumped.

Oh I can't see anyone paying for it. Maybe Claude gave it to his grandkids (if he has any).

Or maybe the whole thing is virtual. They agree the sale, shake hands for the cameras, hand the money over. The shopkeeper gets her 5 minutes of fame and the 'theoretical' purchase price has been agreed. We saw a man wheeling out a box but that proves nothing.

I would concur that this is probably what happens

The sales on these tasks go through. What they use the items for I have no idea but the vendors get and keep the money in question. Likewise on sales tasks to the public, the public keep what they've bought and on tasks where the candidates pick and sell products on others behalf, those sales are real. The only "fake sales" are the ones where the candidates design and then sell a product themselves to major retailers because the sums of money involved are ridiculous. As someone said upthread £250 is sod all for this show's budget they probably spent more keeping Karren in make-up.

I noticed the till receipt for the dinghy said the time was 11.17am, although the show was edited to make it look very late in the day when they bought it.

The date was 9th April and a bit of research shows the London Pet Show, venue for the next task, was held on 9th and 10th May.

A month between tasks seems long? I thought I'd read the do a task every 3 or 4 days?

I'll take your word for it, but if you're right that's a really good spot.

We realise producers use a bit of 'artistic licence' but to imply it was bought late afternoon if it was bought in the morning really is misrepresentation.

I think its more likely the till's date and time stamp were out tbh.

Donate it to a local sea cadets (not the crappy toy dinghy of course, but the real one)?

Maybe the items were a real shopping list for someone on the production team?

Seriously though, it was a fascinating task in many ways. I think both teams were badly organised but the boys showed some flair and got away with a gamble on the toy boat. Failing to get the mirror was obviously a big mistake for the women.

That sort of task can come down to luck, but I would have thought that anyone who is a candidate on this show should know that they will have a shopping task eventually, without the aid of the internet, so they should plan ahead of time how they should approach it. I certainly would, but then I'm not interested in being humiliated on TV.

That's really interesting and slightly odd as clearly they had been to the shop several times before buying the dinghy and also Kenny said that they started the task too late in the morning to source the fish in the most logical way - ie a fish market, mongres or market stall so had to resort to Restaurants.

As somebody else said, the till clock might have been faulty. Even something as basic as not having been changed for daylight saving, only a couple of weeks before would make an hours difference though even 12,15 seems very early considering how long they'd been driving round by that stage.

I did get the impression it wasn't the last thing bought though i they did have more time but Vanna just wanted to know it had been bought so crossed off the list.