But Adam didn't bring Paul back into the boardroom. As project manager, Paul was in there anyway and he was fired because of his ineptitude. Katie clearly couldn't handle the fact that her nemesis had survived at the expense of Paul, because, in her view, Paul has the right class and the right accent and is not a "stupid northerner" (her probable view not mine I should add!).

Her rant about Adam's drinking was IMO very unprofessional, and I was actually quite shocked that people in the corporate world would actually behave like this. Backstabbing yes. Uncontrolled rants most certainly not. I think it reflected for worse on her than it did on Adam.

Katie apologists will no doubt say Adam deserved it because he alluded to her and Paul's relationship in the previous boardroom. I actually think that Adam showed a great deal of restraint here. He was asked a direct question and answered by saying Paul and Katie were "close" - its quite easy to be close to a member of the opposite sex in a platonic sense. It was actually Kristina who came out with the fact that they were having an affair.

Katie is a nasty, conniving piece of work clearly with her own agenda and hopefully SAS will see her for what she really is very soon. When I saw that this tread had three pages, I was absolutely gobsmacked until I saw that most of the posts were negative. There doesn’t seem to be much love for Katie out there and I for one am not suprised in the least.

Hmmmm I think your hatred for Katie (and it comes across as hatred - for someone you don't even know) is clouding your objective judgement.

You are referring to the Adam/Katie confrontation in the boardroom last week - correct?

Therefore, the comment that Adam "brought Paul into the boardroom" was in fact a reference to Adam raising the issue about Paul in the boardroom. And therefore made it personal. Katie just retaliated with a bit of personal back. In no way did she start the argument - Adam did.

To say that Adam showed remarkable restraint and was only asked a direct question and it being Christina who blabbed is actually referring to the week before.

And to say it was an "uncontrolled rant" is ignoring that it was wonderfully articulated - the whole "slow slow slow" bit still tickles me

.. in the Big Brother DS forum there is a generally accepted rule that "appreciation" threads are for positive supportive comments only. I wonder if that courtesy could be extended to this thread too?

Katie is excellent. She is intelligent, articulate, decisive and inclusive and she always makes a positive contribution to her team even if she disagrees with its direction. People confuse her comedy pieces to camera with her positive behaviour in tasks and to the team members.

Exactly! Katie was the one who was unhappy with the direction the task was going last night. And I think her comment about Kristina and Naomi being "arse coverers" was right on the mark. I feel that those two, don't try and do poistive things in the tasks to make them stand out as good canditates. Instead they try to let people do negative things and make them look like worse canditates. Its a case of being less rubbish than the others rather than being better than the others.

And Kristina gets very personal too. Anyway its great to see this Katie appreciation thriving

It's not nice to wish someone dead. Of course, Katie herself has done that three times now. It doesn't make it better just because she doesn't hide behind anonymity.

Indeed, and it's not just her looks. I have seen some very crude and gross comments as well. Misogynists relish any opportunity for their hatred and their crassness.

It makes her less of a hypocrite, in my view. All the people who rail on her for looking like a horse, who mock her accent or class, who want to eviscerate her... criticise her for nasty comments which they themselves have a seemingly endless supply, without any fear of retribution. They don't even get a hard time on the boards for it.

So, yeah, it's not nice. She's snarky and cynical and makes harsh judgements about people. And she's upfront about it, knowingly under a camera. She's not there to be nice. She's there to show that she can be a canny businesswoman.

I'd rather work with her, and see the knife coming, than ever work with Kristina.

Another reason to appreciate Katie! Her astonishing ability to bring some Ash and Grace fans together.



I stop my appreciation there, but am struck by the comment on the attacked. Attacks on Grace and K are v. similar, even down to "horse" comments.

What I admire about her is her sang froid and poise delivering a pitch as in the last programme of an albeit crap product ('t trainer of dubious fame er "jam" was the lame name remember) The whole concept was not her fault but she sold it the best she could. Compare her calm adroit nervouslessness to some on the "Dragon's Den" where many would-be entrepreneurs sweat buckets and frequently dry as I recall did the Scottish lady contestant in an earlier task (who incidentally was not fired - surprisingly I thought - for that lapse)

Oh well, if she's going to stab you in the front and wish you dead in front of you, that's all right then.

Seriously, I'm not meaning to sound like I'm having a go at you. I personally agree that some of the comments being made about Katie's physical appearance are not very nice, and are actually irrelevant to whether or not you like a contestant. My personal dislike of Katie is that I think she would do ANYTHING to get to the top, and would not care who she hurt or how much she hurt them to do it. Some of her comments, wishing her fellow contestants dead are particularly nasty, and I don't agree with people wishing the same thing upon her. She's just a nasty person. I can't judge her on her looks. I don't want her dead. But I don't want her to win.

Yeah, it's a shame some people can't understand the word "appreciation"

Yes, most people do accept the convention about appreciation threads.

The language referred to is nothing but abuse, certainly misogynistic and prohibited by the terms and conditions of DS.

But describing Katie as "backstabbing" ??? Katie has shown us she prefers frontal assaults. I wonder if some of the posters are confusing Katie with Kristina, both their christian names do begin with the letter K........

Add to which I don't understand why people care what people say about other people as wrong as the essential point behind it seems accurate. Nikki on BB7 wishes Suzie was dead but the important point is her question "what is she here for?" - a question which Davina gets to ask months later for vast sums of money. Its the same here. I think Katie has been spot on with most of candidates. Paul had more merit than Adam - even SAS agrees. The important point about Adam is not that she said she wanted him run over but that she correctly identified him as arrogant and hopeless. She's spot on too that Kristina is more interested in covering herself by saying what is wrong than she is in saying whats right or trying to get a success for her team.

Much as I like Katie, the way she keeps wishing violent deaths on people is getting a little alarming... Hoping that Kristina gets "fired" and not in an employment sense? Eek!

As an admirer of Katie - a better candidate than those put off by her asides will admit - I have to say she had the look this week of an eventual loser. Seeing her body language in the boardroom, it seemed she'd realised nothing would save her from Sugar's prejudice except winning the task. Which of course she did, making her the only surviving double-winner as team leader.

But Sugar wasn't going to let her off the hook or reassess her; he'd already blamed her for being on the losing side repeatedly, no matter the quality of her contribution. All her over-familiar wiles were wasted on him, this time as last. She is no Michelle (thank heaven), and the Big Yun has in any case learnt from his mistake there in allowing his loins to overrule his head. Heaven knows why Katie did it - perhaps the strain - but all that fake, fluting laughter and those weirdly flirtatious glances across the table showed someone seriously losing her composure, without even the gain of taking out a competitor (as in her demolition of Adam). And her head-hanging, downward-staring posture even at a moment of triumph said a great deal, if unconsciously (even if it was only, "Five hundred pounds at Selfridges - how very generous).

My instinct is that it's not the issues that people have been talking about here that have raised Sugar's hackles. The catty remarks are irrelevant: just entertainment, and nothing to do with the way she relates to people in the tasks. The alleged seduction business is in the past, too. His dislike of her is much more that he's consistently uncomfortable with intelligent, articulate people who can argue their corner coherently: contrast his criticism of Lohit, defending himself well, with his indulgence toward Tre, spouting bombastic, empty twaddle (though admittedly we might detect there the hidden hand of Mark Burnett Productions, unwilling to lose this season's Syed before he's been fully exploited).

Sadly, Katie is living on borrowed time, and I think she knows it. Mind you, presenting on a QVC clone channel might be just her thing - gift of the gab and charm are what you need - so perhaps another week's reprieve is in prospect? I do hope so.

Completely agree with you toymaker
Intelligent perhaps slightly less rough around the edge people are not sir alans type mores the pity
We've all witnessed his mistakes in the past

Interesting points, Toymaker.

I'm not convinced the "flirtatious glances" are really so weird, though. If the BBC 2 show didn't make such a big deal of them, I'd not have thought twice.

Speaking of the BBC 2 show, do they have it in for Katie or what?

Again she was criticised as if she'd timewarped from the 80s, but in tonight's main show she didn't actually have the 80s management style the BBC 2 show was complaining about. Indeed, the atmosphere on her team was good, and it was all done in an enthusiastic and cooperative way.

It's like if Katie does something wrong or bad, they tell us; and if she doesn't, they still tell us she did!

They also made the obviously false claim that she always wore a white suit into the boardroom.

The studio audience knows what's expected. When Tre's numerous sexist remarks were shown, hardly a word. But when the show turned to Katie, the boos didn't wait for anything beyond her name.

So why can't one make valuable, constructive criticisms of someone in an appreciation thread? Does it all have to be hero worship?! I appreciate Katie's good points, but why should that mean glossing over the bad things about her and pretending they don't exist?


I thought for a long time that Katie was a great contender for the job, and I think she does have a lot of very well-honed skills. I was very surprised when she didn't use her expertise last week for the branding campaign. At first, I wondered if she'd done it deliberately to get rid of Barbie doll Ghazal, because I've never seen Katie lack nous before. She's normally very sharp and on the ball.

I do think that she is a good businesswoman and hope she can pick herself back up again. She has a lot to offer, I think.

However, she displayed such unprofessionalism in the boardroom over the last 2/3 weeks, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it.

I'd certainly never say she's vile or horrible, there's just no need!

I think Katie is certainly one of the more, if not the most qualified, candidate at this stage. All this business about her losing so many times is a bit misguiding. The way Sir Alan was talking last night one would have thought that all the tasks had been down to either Katie or Tre alone. I think she's been unfortunate in having some pretty rubbish PMs i.e. Ghazal, Paul and having to work along the numpty that was Adam for so long. She evidently has great business skills in winning both her PM tasks, and always seems to rally people together even when she has had open disputes with them in the past. Her contributions in the tasks are usually pretty good as well and she always seems to have a good grasp of what's needed for a particular task. As for all the bitchy comments, I must say I find them quite entertaining, but even so, we've got to remember the context in which they are being made. It's got to be really hard living amongst those people away from everyone you know. They have to be your friends, colleagues and enemies all at once. I think her bitchy comments are her means of dealing with that - stress relief. Gosh, we've all done it I'm sure. And her comments are usually pretty accurate. Unfortunately, I don't think SAS will choose her because she's not "his type" and I think he only likes people who really respect him, whereas I think Katie recognises he's not the God of the Business World.

.. just popping in to share my appreciation of Katie after last night's task - she handled her team well, was friendly and enthusiatic throughout and, according to the current rankings is rated as the most accomplished remaining player with 2 wins as projectect manager out of 2.

I've liked her all along, and I'm glad she proved her leadership credentials once again this week.

I think people needed reminding.

I couldn't believe the appalling slating Katie got on You're Fired last night, from the Panel, especially Karren Brady, and the entire studio audience. Yet they praised Tre to the skies - a thoroughly unpleasant, aggressive, sexist. Un-bel-liev-able!

It seems if you swear like a trooper and are deeply unlikable, somehow in GB 2007, this is interpreted as "a winner".

As if Karren Brady has never used her feminine wiles in her business career - ever!

I thought her treatment on that show was appalling. Asking the studio audience to rate her on her appearance, indeed. Like that's relevant.....

A man would never get subjected to that kind of treatment, no matter how 'vile' they were... It's deeply mysognistic, and has gone far too far now.