Indeed, but looking at the prices involved, maths will not tell you about the particular market.

Helene clearly (and not unreasonably, I agreed with her - as did Nick Hewer) believed that it would be extremely difficult to sell such expensive dresses at the NEC. She may well have been wrong but with no time to do the sort of research required it isn't a serious indictment of her competance. On another day the results may have been reversed.


Yes, listening to Michael is a mistake for any PM


This is the one thing I've seen for which I would seriously mark her down. Not only a bad decision but her people handling skills as represented by her dealing with Lucinda were poor, to say the least.


Now, here is your starter for ten:

Do you believe that the reason you haven't seen Helene doing anything but criticise people is because:

a) Helene never does anything but criticise people.
b) The editors and producers only ever show Helene when she's criticisng someone.

Don't you think that if Helene had done anything that was fundamental to winning a task, they would have included it in the edit? She does not feature in the main program, in the previews, or even in the unseen footage. Even Lohit last year had more visible contributions than Helene. He was certainly a better PM and with Jadine they made a very good sales team. No I don't think it was the case of the edit being unfair to her. I think she playes her part in the tasks but was she a fundamental factor in winning any of the tasks? No. I really don't take the edit very seriously and I always look for signs within the edit to be able to evaluate a candidate correctly.

Helene is not only ineffective, she was the first to blame Shazia in the boardroom, she talked about Jenny M behind her back and then denied it, and she was unable to handle Lucinda. I don't really have a high opinion of her.

This is what I find so odd.

She hasn't been in the boardroom often so if she is such dead wood it is even more impressive that the teams she has been in have done so well.

When she has been in the boadroom she was only criticised for not doing enough when she was PM and that was by people who where desperate to shift the blame.

I'm not saying she is particularly good but by the same token I do not agree that there is sufficient evidence to say she's particularly bad.

I do think that if she was that bad her name would have been cropping up a lot more as people analysed what went wrong on their tasks (as both teams do before the results are known).


Well, you are a great deal cleverer than I am, then!


I'm not saying she's perfect by any means but she seems no more prone to dishonesty and blame shifting than most of the others

She has an image of a competent person and with her age and experience, she must be respected by the other candidates and considered to be a formidable opponent. Even I, at the beginning thought that she is a capable lady who doesn't suffer fools gladly but as the weeks progressed I became more convinced that she has nothing to offer.

There are many candidates in the four series who just went under the radar and were not brought to the boardroom. Helene is one of them.

I'm not so sure and the annoying thing is that we may never know for certain.

Raef can recognise the talents within others but what exactly are his talents? What skills is he trained in? If any of the others were pm what task could they single out for him to do? Personally I’m struggling to pinpoint Raef’s core skills, I don't think he has any.

Kevin actually led the second negotiation but it was Raef who declined the final price, he should have taken the decision as PM to jump in and renegotiate the £200 offer if he thought it was too low. I will also add that Raef was amongst the group of 4 that got shafted by the lawyers during the fish task. And whilst Michael got taken to the cleaners, Raef Kevin and Nicolas pretty much stood there looking gormless. I suppose it could be suggested that he was gallant enough to suggest they all took the blame but as far as I’m concerned it was a given that they were all to blame.
As for his negotiation technique on the cowhide, I found it laughable how much room he gave the seller to back out.


He did? As far as I'm aware he had a problem with Alex only.

As I’ve said none of the 4 were aware of Raef’s complete lack of respect concerning how hard they were working. This is one of the main criticisms being levelled at Raef - that he puts on a front. While he is completely charming and all embracing of his team to their faces he was disrespectful and dismissive of them behind their backs. If Raef was in full control of his team they wouldn't have been on the phone in a panic to him so many times.

It became apparent in Raef’s next, quite frankly poor, attempt at project management that his ability came under fire. His team was not so complimentary about him. When he suggested in the BR that Michael's good ideas were approved by him and the bad idea’s were all Michael's own fault, SAS quite rightfully caught him out.
Come to think of it Raef was very sly in the BR before Michael decided to embellish the truth. Raef was first to try to pin most of the blame on Michael for the removal of the tissue box. Yes Michael did suggest it but IIRC on a second viewing Raef was just as eager to remove the clip, after all it was “tackiness par excellence“ in his words. Even worse he had the final decision as PM.

They should not have taken the first price the chap offered. I don't think we're going to agree on this one

For the rest, you make some good points, especially about the washing task.

So he can recognise talents within others and delegate correctly. Something that Alex and Helene are unable to do. He can lead, he can come up with ideas (the singles day), he recognises a winning product (the dress choice), and he can work under pressure. He does have some talents. Certainly a few more than other candidates displayed.


Kevin took the decision quickly at the first negotiation. He did not ask for time to consult with his team members. So I don't think that was Raef's fault. He delegated the negotiations to kevin and he didn't know much about him except that he is a banker. Kevin was not expected to mess things up. Seeing kevin's negotiations, Raef was quick to refuse the deal because he already knew that kevin has the tendancy to lower his price and accept the deal even if it was unreasonable. The same applies to negotiating the fish. Michael took the lead and suddenly accepted the deal with the lawyers. I don't expect any of them to undermine their colleague by interrupting the negotiations and it was good that, although Michael was the one who made the negotiation, Raef was quick to share responsibility with him when he didn't need to.


I think Lee argued with him in the boardroom and being with the toffs group and the fact that there was a rift between the group, he did a good job making them all work together and win the task.


I don't think he was disrespectful to his team. As I said if you watch the episode, he was only 3 hours late and worked with them continuously for 4-5 hours. They needed more deals. What could he have done? He assured them that he will be back and I think he did a great job on that task. I don't think that the candidates themselves agree that he was disrespectful to them even after seeing the episode. They all said this task was the most enjoyable over the series.


Yes he did make a huge mistake listening and taking Michael's opinion on board. Michael was the one who suggested that all the good ideas came from him. and he didn't say that Michael was completely responsible for the decision, he said that Michael was the one who suggested that the images should be removed which was the truth. Raef said that they needed the shot of the box and after discussion Raef agreed with Michael.


Saying that Raef has not contributed at all during the series is unfair especially that there are others who are still in the series and contributed less than him. As I said I never expected him to win the series but I don't think that he was a lot of hot air.

No. Generally the edit shows bad things rather than good things.

For me the all-time classic example was s3ep2 the dog task. They showed Ghazal freezing during a pitch. They didn't show Gerri recovering and completing the pitch which got them the biggest order. What Gerri did was fundamental to winning the task, but she didn't get credit in the edit (and she was fired the following episode for not contributing).

But at least in Gerri's case, you can see that Ghazal handed the pitch to her and then seeing the results you can expect that Gerri did something right. In Helene's case, not a single reference in the edit that she did something spectacular to win a task. I find this is quite strange given that she is likely to be one of the final 4 or 5.

Most of these tasks (that have not been won by luck) have not been won by someone doing something spectacularly well but lost by someone else doing something spectacularly stupid.

If Helene had quietly stopped someone doing something fundamentally stupid from time to time she could well have had an enormous effect on how the teams in which she was included performed without generating any particularly telegenic mmoments.

Err no. It's a matter of you not actually remembering what you see. What I am referring to is Raef speaking on his phone in the taxi to the guys at the laundry and promising they were coming back immediately, followed by the shot in the shop ordering the coffee and his joking about it while the others worked. I don't believe his own words were inserted by an edit.

Yes, but they were in the shop negotiating a deal and got coffee while there which they drank in the car on the way back. The guys working in the laundry were seen taking breaks. What the heck is the problem with that?

No, I did not remember incorrectly, I'd just watched that episode.

What you say neither contradicts nor invalidates what I said.

I was merely pointing out that in one shot you saw the guys working in the laundry and in the next you saw the others in the taxi drinking coffee.

Those not thinking things through jumped to the conclusion that Raef et al were slacking whilst anyone thinking a little deeper realised that they were just using some dead time to drink their coffee which was actually a very sensible use of time.

(I did think it a bit rich when the three of them sat there in the taxi criticising the ones in the laundry for whining, though).

I think whining was the wrong choice of word, however I think the ones in the laundry were over- worrying about things to the point where they failed to see the bigger picture - i.e that the other team did still need to secure those extra deals to ensure they won the task. Fact is had the gone back to the laundry the first time it was suggested, they would have lost the task had the girls not been fined. That they managed to finish all the laundry with time to spare does show that the laundry team were over-reacting somewhat.

No not what has he contributed what are his skills?
If he had to pm himself he could assign himself - sales - no, negotiation - no , marketing - no , his presentation on the singles card was not that good. Helen and Claire managed to show a higher standard and more natural style of presentation in the advertising task.
Can he lead that well? As I said during the laundry task half his team were panicking and constantly on the phone to him. While in the car he managed to mumble “just get on with it” he wasn’t able to convey this message to the sweat house workers. His collegues didn’t think he was up to much on his second outing as PM
And you can’t say he came up with ideas - plural, he came up with idea - singular LOL. Oh there was his idea to bring in the weather woman - which in actual fact proved to be completely pointless

So it wasn’t as you originally said he did not take the lead the second time. He again left it to Kevin to lead the main negotiation despite, as you seem to point out, losing confidence in him. What was stopping Kevin from suddenly accepting a low price again?
Michael didn’t suddenly accept, he kept lowering the price, even to £55. None of the others said a word, the negotiations were long and the lawyers were not budging.
All 4 of them were there, they even had time to consult with each other. I would say they all deserve some blame, okay maybe moreso Michael.


When I say he was disrespectful, he dismissed the fact that they were working hard and just said they were “whiners” even though he knew the size of the workload. He could even have delegated and sent Kevin or Michael to help. He didn’t need 3 people to get deals. He was having to jump in on Kevin’s negotiation so why didn’t he leave him in the laundry? Kevin was effectively of no use to him in securing deals. They were short of man power in the laundry. Because there were only 4 guys, a machine was left unused.
It was fortunate that the task was done on time. Had the girls been a little more organised they could easily have won


He didn’t just take onboard Michael’s opinion, he fully endorsed it. He was in total agreement. Raef said it was “tackiness par excellence“. When he was in the boardroom Raef didn’t say “we” thought it was vulgar he said “you” [Michael] thought it was vulgar.
Raef was initially reluctant to take it out but on viewing the advert a second time was disgusted by what he saw and then decided to take it out. Michael then quite rightly pointed out that it was both of them who thought it was vulgar

I wouldn’t say he has contributed nothing, but I’m neither outraged nor surprised by his firing this week. He just wasn’t that good.

Well yes, else we wouldn't know about it. But it's something we picked up by watching closely for clues and reading between the lines. I've had arguments with people where it seemed I was the only one to pick up on the clues. I am confident a lot of good stuff happens which we miss completely.

In this series there have been some good ideas that nobody got credit for. Eg selling tickets to the pub grub, or the celebrity theme for the photography. Obviously we can't assume these were down to Helene, but someone is not getting the credit they deserve.


Well, there is, for example, some Unseen Footage for the Ice Cream task ("Ice cream to Eskimos" - it's still on the BBC site) in which Margaret says that Lucinda, Helene and Lee form a better sales team than the other three, and that they turn to Helene for the figures, and she is always on top of them. So she has been praised, just not in the edit.

I think we are both repeating ourselves here. You are saying that he basically have no skill. I say he does have some and it was clear in his results. I think that he deserved a second chance. You don't think he did. More importantly, I believe he contributed more than at least three of the candidates who are still there. You don't seem to agree.

I won't be able to convince you because we interpret the same incidents quite differently. So I suggest we leave it there.

if raef wasnt that good for some of you

do you define alex as more good and lee as excellent???

raef was the best choice out of the boys in becoming sir alans apprentice

as far as im aware alex is the most useless candidate and lee is gonna lose his rag again this week resorting to violent behaviour

Without the need of a summary, my opinions on Raef's performance are all presented in my previous posts.
But yes we will just have to agree to differ.

Alex and Lee were not in the boardroom this week as they managed to win the advertising task, something which Raef (and his team) failed to do.
If we assess Alex and Raef head-to-head on this task I'm afraid Alex wins. Raef made glaring errors. Alex is not excellent, none of them have shown themselves to be, but he is not useless.
Yes from that clip Lee lost his temper, that's obvious.

What?

When did Lee lose his rag? What possible evidence do you have for saying he would resort to violent behaviour?

Edited to add that Eclipse80 is right - this isn't the right place. But please do start a thread about Lee's alleged violent behaviour.

He has lost his rag twice so far this series, in the cooking task, and, most memorable, with his rant against Sara, but much as I think Lee has a temper on him, I'm not sure his liable to resort to 'violent behaviour'....

Sorry I lost that part when I edited my post.
Yes there is every opportunity to dissect any of the other candidates behaviour and perfomance, this isn't the thread for it

Alex also made many glaring errors across the tasks and I think if we compare between Alex and Raef on a task to task basis, Raef will win hands down.