Shocked to hear that Simon won. Now wondering if Kristina was ever destined to be in the final if Katie hadn't stepped down. Obviously SAS must have been "favouring" him for sometime, if he picked him as a winner.

Well considering the poor quality of the products produced under the Amstrad brand, ie. the emailer telephone (anyone ever purchased one?) the choice isn't surprising

I think Simon and Katie would have be in the final until the "horse" bolted.

She would have been, she came out of last week's interview process with a totally glowing report

It looks from what we are hearing, as if SAS wanted someone educated who sounds and looks right to develop and sell expensive property in the South East.

Simon looks the sort to talk about golf courses. Katie has the accent and the education and the sales ability.

It looks ominously as if Simon was going to the final if those were the criteria. It also looks likely that if she hadn't been playing other roles at the time, Katie would have beaten him. She could be left on her own, she could mix in the same circles, their academic achievements were similar and she out matched him on presenting, selling ability and experience.

Yes, she would, because SirAlan was about to withdraw his ofer to Katie anyway.

I think Sir Alan realised quite early on that Katie wasn't actually in it for the job, more for the publicity she would get as the 'pantomime dame' in order to get herself a job in the media. I think he probably called her bluff by offering her a place in the final and was fairly confident she wouldn't take it. He would probably have chosen Simon as the other finalist, so if she double bluffed him and accepted the place he would have given the job to Simon anyway.

I assume not - I presumed last week it was going to have been Katie and Christina but he obviously was gunning for Simon to win so I reckon he'd have kicked Christina out in favour of Katie!

He says so now but I find that hard to believe.

He has also said that he sees more than is shown and the editing did not show Simons abilities.YET on the BBC2 "You're Hired" show he made out that he hadn't seen any of Katies bitchiness until then.Surely he can't have it both ways.

It was staged IMO.

Why give her the opportunity to think she could have won it then? Surely he would have fired her because he thought she was a gameplayer? The reason that James Max (series 1) was fired was because his colleagues suspected that he wanted a media career and wasn't interested in working fof Sir Alan.

My personal opinion is that Sir Alan was schmoozed by Katie.

The following quote by Grace Dent just assures me that it was good that Kristina didn't get the job:

"I once read an interview with Tim Campbell, who won the first series. The journalist went to interview him in his "modest" office at Amstrad HQ (cough, a filing cupboard in a cellar). Reading between the lines, Tim didn't seem very happy. There didn't seem to be much helipad and Rolls-Royce action going on. Not a lot of Sir Alan's face popping up on a big screen barking orders. Or having to meet Sir Alan by the London Eye, where he would arrive by rocket boots and set a task about dog baskets and the reward was a day at Champneys."

I thought so too, but from what he said on the 'Why I Fired Them' programme it seems that that wasn't the case. He did, however, immediately note her reaction (or lack of) to a place in the final and said he'd have fired her if she hadn't resigned.

Katie v Kristina if she hadn't walked

Good TV possibly? You've got to admit keeping her in as long as possible and then laying it on the line to her and watching her squirm was pretty riveting stuff!

Yeh I think Simon would have gone not Kristina

Too similar I think - one ruthless and one very very ruthless..suspect Kristina would have been replaced by Simon

SAS was very shrewd in how he dealt with Katie, calling her bluff on her commitment to the potential Apprenticeship. I believe he already knew she wouldn't be able to commit herself and called her out on it, by offering her a place in the final. She had to then and there decide on her future, in front of camera.

Kristina and Simon were already in the final in SAS's mind, he just needed to push Katie to see how ruthless she would really be, to deny someone else the opportunity of being the apprentice.

According to Tre, he didn't notice anything because someone took him out and pointed out that he had just picked a finalist who might well not be there for the final in 6 months time . What we see is the patch up retake job after he has his mind changed and some unseen conversation and negotiation occurred.

Do you think he was shrewd ? I got the impression he wanted her in the final two, and only at that moment he did it dawn on him that she might just be taking the piss.

I'm not sure. I keep changing my mind. The whole thing was weird. I felt as though someone had warned SAS at the last minute.

Well if that's true, that explains a lot. That makes more sense.

Yep. In terms of entertainment it's great but I'm beginning to think that many aspects of the show are 'set-up'.

Kristina and Simon were already in the final in SAS's mind, he just needed to push Katie to see how ruthless she would really be, to deny someone else the opportunity of being the apprentice.[/quote]

Quite right............it was reconfirmed by the SAS interviewers, that she more wanted to win the game, than eventually having to play it

One theory is that Sir Alan grouped the candidates according to type and then picked the best of each type. Thus it didn't matter whether Simon was better than Kristina, Lohit or Naomi because they were in different groups. This kinda makes sense in that he'd be choosing finalists that would give him the most options when he makes the decision in 6 months time.

In this case, it's likely that Kristina benefited from Katie's exit, because she is more likely to be in the same group as Katie.

^ I have a similar theory but with different groups.
I think that Simon and katie belong to the same group: Good presentation, communication skills, and arguably creativity while Kristina belongs to the group characterised by effective selling techniques.

This way Simon was the one who benefited from Katie's exit. Kristina and Katie would have been in the final and katie would have won. Over the last 3 series, apprentices who are motivated by sales usually lose the final, i.e.. Sara and Ruth.

I also think that he would have chosen Simon over Kristina (or is it Christina, sorry I don't know how to spell it! ), simply because there's no way on earth Simon should have won this week and so there had to have been an element of age/gender/background prejudice at work there.

Don't let all that "Just because I came from a council estate and worked my way up" stuff fool you. People like that are probably the biggest snobs of all because they are still trying to prove to themselves that they are as good as everyone else, even when they have pots of money. Sir Alan was impressed with Simon's membership of Mensa and Cambridge degree (and possibly to a certain extent his male appendages), not his actual abilities. Well surely it can't have been his abilities, can it?