I've just finished watching The Apprentice from last night ..

Raef is lucky because he didn't appear in the boardroom, apart from week one? *scratches head*. Furthermore, he doesn't get a second chance, yet mini me has more lives than a Syed.

Sounds fair to me.

The thing that shocked me is that he fires Raef, supposedly for supposedly not playing an active role throughout the series (which is utter BS anyway), when sat right next to him is Michael who has done not ONE thing right all series long.

Utter hypocrisy.

I still don't understand why he saved Michael.

I don't even know why he saved him the first time, let alone this week....

I don't get why Raef was made project manager, especially when Micheal has been practically begging SAS to let him do it for the last two weeks?!

I find it suspect...the past two episodes had ended with Michael saying make me PM, yet on both occasions SAS has ensured he ISN'T the PM the following week by selecting someone else for the role...it seems to me like he is protecting Michael as long as possible.

I think it's because they know Michael staying would make it more interesting since he is such an idiot, either that or SAS is in love.

Probably the latter...

The only thing I can think of is the editing of the tasks is not matching the decisions made in the BR. After re-watching the first series although I may not have agreed with him, I understood why the decision was made to fire/keep someone. This series the decisions seem to be all over the place.

IMHO Helene, Michael, Alex, and even Lee should have gone weeks ago but, they're still there. They must be doing something other than bitch, back-stab and being absolutely vile or they wouldn't still be there, but, we're not seeing any of it. It makes me wonder if the producers have told candidates not to worry too much about the tasks as the BR is the most important part of the programme. As a result we see very little effort put into the tasks and the "loud semi-articulate" candidates pushing ahead.

What you have to understand is that there is no logic to SAS and there doesn't have to be. He is the boss, he is responsible for hiring and firing, he can change the goal posts weekly, hourly if he wants - it is actually more like the real world of business than people give it credit for apart from the fact that he actually has to make up a reason why he has fired (or not promoted or appointed) someone. In real life you rarely get that. That's why I work for myself.

If I was a future contestant I'd seek to be on the losing team as often as possible and plead to be brought into the boardroom at every opportunity.

After all, Alex, Claire and Michael have survived haven't they?

You are right it comes with the job often. My last head of Department inevitably recruited the wrong people despite overwhelming advice to recruit other people. The result was heaps of people being recruited for having CVs that looked good but were irrelevant to the job and then the people who should have been recruited being recruited years later as the people recruited inbetween proved useless and sloped off to do their own thing. There is actually no reason why getting to the top of any tree requires any ability to pick who should join the lower branches or to know where the organisation should go next or what it needs to go there.

Maybe he's SAS's son ?

Well SAS has really blown what credibility he had after last night- how motormouth and dipsy survived at Raef's expense is criminal.

How many second chances as SAS given those two- makes me think he didn't want Raef in the competition full stop.

Shocking way to treat a good candidate

Yes, if people even put aside whether or not it was right to fire Raef (although most would say it was not the right choice I would guess), the way he was dismissed was awful for a guy who has shown himself to be a thoroughly decent, polite and principled man. SAS has shown more respect in firing some of the nastiest candidate to ever appear in this show than he showed to Raef last night. It was appalling.

IIRC Siralan said, before the 3 came before him for sentence, something along the lines of "lets see who wants this job the most."

So the more pleading you make for "another chance" and "make me team leader" and how you are "determined to succeed" the better your chance of survival. Michael is very good at this.

Winning the tasks means you avoid the boardroom and last longer but it doesn't increase your chance of survival once you get in the boardroom. e.g. Raef.

I don't see how Raef would have given the impression he wanted the job less than Michael in that boardroom, in fact he showed Michael up big time. He actually defended himself pretty well, without resorting to personal insults or telling lies.

In which Raef went on to speak some brutal home truths about mini me. The only one who showed any passion, intelligence and hunger in the boardroom was Raef.

Could be because they share the same faith?

Indeed he did but he didn't demonstrate to Siralan satisfaction, as Michael has done before, his utter determination to get the apprentice job.

Remember how often Siralan asks people why he shouldn't fire them He doesn't just judge on how they've have done their task (in Michael's case its seem totally irrelevant)

I thought he had already proven that was just another piece of bullsh!t - if what you was saying was true then surely Siralan would have fired him for cynically attempting to use his faith as way of impressing him, in which he failed miserably. If he is keeping him on for a reason, I seriously doubt it's for that one.

Honestly the firings should have gone like this.

1. Alex
2. Jenny
3. Kevin
4. Claire
5. Jennifer
6. Kevin
7. Jenny & Michael
8. Michael
9. Michael

So what SAS has made two good firings out of a possible ten. Even worse record than last year.

Sralan picks the people he likes and who he thinks he will find easy to work with (usually those with rather flexible ethics and an ability to suck up to him whilst stabbing colleagues in the back) rather than the people who do the best in the tasks or who show real business acumen.

He just didn't like Raef for some reason. I imagine that Sralan thinks about who he'd like to deal with at the office when he decides who to fire.

One is not amused.

I think had this task been in the first couple of weeks, the firing would have been justified. But surely by this stage in the contest the performance over all 9 tasks should play a part.

Sir Alan was completely wrong to say Raef has been "lucky" to avoid the boardroom as in weeks 2-8 he won 5 and lost 2 tasks (pub food and ice cream), neither of which he was especially responsible for. And the majority of the tasks his team did win he played an integral part in that success - hardly a case of "hot air".

I suspect Raef would have survived had he had someone like Lee or Lucinda in the boardroom with him. As it was, he had the two serial boardroom visitors who SAS has clearly shown favouritism towards in previous weeks - he never had a chance in hindsight.