Yes I noticed the hair. I wondered at what point it would cease to look effortlessly cutting edge cool and just look a mess in a business context.

The whole family aren't very good socially - both parents and sister are painfully shy and I believe Nick (sorry i refuse to call him Nicholas - he never was!) has tried to overcompensate for this.

That's quite sad. I almost feel sorry for him!

Am i right in thinking he was wearing blue contacts in the boardroom? the colour of his eyes looked different everywhere else. he reminded me a lot like Katie from last series.

I noticed that but contact lenses never occurred to me! I thought it was just the lighting. It could be though.

I think that Alex and Nick definately deserved to go into the boardroom. Nick fluffed a very simple task, and worse than that he refused to believe he'd made a mistake at all. I work in a demi-managerial position and it drives me mad when people mess up and then deny it was their fault. He failed at pricing and caused some big losses. He was the one I would have fired, based on the footage from throughout the day and based on his bizarre performance in the boardroom.

Alex isn't without blame though. Yes he delegated the jobs, but you can't delegate a job to someone and then wash your hands of it completely. He wasn't to be expected to follow Nick around checking the prices, or to stand over Raef and ensure everything was correctly labelled, but he was supposed to be aware of the task as a whole, and I think he got a bit caught up in doing the actual selling and lost that awareness of the income, of whether everything was going right, of how to boost sales. He should have been in the boardroom because he didn't do a good job as project leader, but he was nevertheless not terrible.

I dislike Raef with a passion, but I don't think I'd have picked him. He fluffed the labelling but the biggest failure after Nick was Michael, who completely failed in selling the excess stock. He either knew it was worth £130 but settled for £50 (which was unforgivable) or he didn't bother to get a figure in mind of the fishs' worth (which was unforgivable). He'd have been in that boardroom if I had a say

Good observations Aenaryn. Alex took into the boardroom with him the two people who were most actively opposed to him, whereas if he'd chosen on the basis of effectiveness in the task, he might have chosen Michael.

Nicholas struck me as someone totally out of his own environment without him realising it.

In the same way that dreadfully deluded people can't understand why they are laughed at on X Factor because their Nan has always told them they have a lovely singing voice, he seemed surprised that everyone didn't fit into his view of the world or share his opinions.

I did laugh, but I feel sorry for him too. If he wants a successful career of any kind, the 'real world' where people have different opinions and where everyone makes mistakes and 'fails' from time to time, is going to be a bit of a shock for him.

Did you notice that he kept saying on "You're Fired!" that he felt "deluded"???

I've read another interview with him (on teletext) and he said he felt disillusioned.

While I have no doubt that he IS completely deluded, I think this is what he meant to say to Adrian! Another example of his Barrister's withering eloquence, then...

I didn't like him last night, but I do now
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/realityt...e-hopkins.html

It's up there ^^^^

Oh Gadders if only Sir Alan had known about the biscuits - I'm sure he'd have invited you to the board room! lol

I think I saw the split occurring at the point where Alex said that many of his team were "angels", or "gold" or some such OTT inference that they were wonderful and could do no wrong and then saying that others had made a complete cock up and then clearly dividing the group into those that had cocked up and those that had not before sending the cock-up group away.

I think this was wrong because:

a) he was clearly making scapegoats without explaining how they could redeem themselves
b) he was thus alienating that part of his team
c) he was allowing the alienated ones the time and opportunity to discuss this and build up resentment behind his back, rather than bringing them back into the fold and motivating them.

I think Alex was primarily responsible for the mistrust this created and strategically inept. But yes I agree that He survived because he is more likeable on the surface of it, and has more backbone than the other two.

I think Nicholas shot himself in the foot with his..... I couldn't have a conversations about football.....remark. He was fired - so that was that....However I think it was Raef who led him to that remark. Raef was the first person to comment on the rift in the group. I think he overstated the situation in the car because he wanted to deflect comments away from his fish identification errors..... I'm not saying there were not differences.... (caused by Alex giving poor feedback to Nicholas and Raef) but I think Raef made the situation worse.

In the end thou Nicholas was the right person to go.

Nicholas was the right person to go. Alex was the only one I thought was any good. Hopefully Raef will be out next.

I think this is where the format is eating itself slightly, your points are valid points if we were talking about a real life team leader. However Alex was running his team in quite a clever way if avoiding being sacked in the boardroom is concerned. He ensured that he praised the people who did Ok and so had backers in the boardroom, he made sure that the cameras saw exactly who made the mistakes and didn't let them forget it. That isnt great management but it is a great way of giving yourself the best chance when Sir Alan is making his mind up.

Trust me, it works quite well in the workplace too, I've seen it all too often. I still think it's a rubbish way to carry on, but seeing as how it's that way in most corporations they still manage to compete because they're competing against like for like. I'm sure there are better way to go, but finding the right people to go there would be very hard.

I agree with you about how it works in some big corporations and how scapegoats become almost a daily exercise to save lazy or ineffectual team leaders their jobs.

However, I was bitterly disappointed with Nick's performance in the boardroom and I think the fact that before he was hauled in there, many viewers and I'm sure even Sir Alan himself, were looking forward to him redeeming himself by showing how he could get himself out of any scrape with a courtroom type play of clever argument.

It didn't happen..and I think that was essentially why he was fired in the end.

It didn't seem to matter that (if other series' are anything to go by) Alex as a dismally poor PM should have been fired as the buck starts and ends with him. But it was more to do with Nick coming across as a twit when throughout the programme, we heard how much of a brainbox he was. I.e. he could get himself out of any scrape by giving an intelligent argument.

I disliked Alex's management skills as they reminded me too much of typical sales manager's looking for the easy route and taking all the glory but no blame when someone on their team has failed to deliver.

That all said though, Nick was the one who showed a lack of the skills that he so clearly bragged about throughout the show and deserved to be fired on the night .....IMO

They were ginger if anyone's interested - and he put them in a box decorated with Pooh and Piglet.

Totally agree. In the first series there was only 2 posh people and the show was less about the 'characters' and more about the challenges. There was a tall guy who was out of his depth and a bit quirky but he wasn't a main feature. The only other characters were Saira Khan and Paul Tomosei. Had he have been in it now he would have been featured in this new show for 20 mins! Series 2 was a lot more about the characters, Ruth Badger, Syed and the Brummie curlie haired woman but you still cared about the task. Series 3 was blatently about Katie and Tre.

Late to the party here....

True, although KCL does have a plus for anyone studying Law - the main building is literally within hopping distance of High Court.
___
I was just gaping at Nicholas's performance in the boardroom. Conventional bookies don't take bets on the Apprentice, otherwise you'd think he was trying to get himself fired as a gambling scam. Who the hell goes to Alan Sugar and says 'Basically, I'm on the side of people who are overeducated, pretentious and think anyone who has anything to do with football is sh*te. How are Spurs these days anyway?'. He'd have had a better chance of surviving if he'd injected botox into his tongue.

Particularly odd since it seems that he's really just a bright(ish) kid from a working class family who's chosen to coat (enrobe?) himself in toffee. But then maybe that was the problem.

Alex was very poor as a PM and in some danger of getting fired before Nicholas committed suicide. It was him if anyone I wanted to punch. Based on his performance I very much doubt he has what it takes to win the show.

I think he hit the nail on the head when he said he realised the apprentice just wasn't for him. It is interesting that he said only a fraction of the boardroom chat is shown on TV and it showed his worst bits ... reality TV for you ... justifying why ... maybe

He came over on his interview on Heart FM the following morning really well and showed he had a great sense of humour with Harriet. I changed my mind about him then but he said even on there he wasn't the type SAS was looking for

What a stupid thread, why would you want to punch him, what has he done so bad?

I thouht he was unlucky to be fired, it seems people take an instant dislike to anyone from a public school background.