Does the dog look like this by any chance?http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...nid=04aWHz6CxQ

I would've said yes, but I felt so sorry for her last night, she had tears in her eyes throughout the entire boardroom thingy.

i cant stand the woman,shes as much use as a chocolate wristwatch and has absolutey no charisma.
i was actually praying he would save sophocles at least hes car crash tv.
i cant believe what she said about her fellow contestants to karren brady next week.completely unproffessional.
the fact this horror is still there when raef is gone,words fail me.sir alan must have taken leave of his senses.

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haha.she looks more like brewsters arse.

Agreed.

To be honest, the edit has probably been unfair on Helene in this series. Wedding task aside, she hasnt made a big cock up which therefore limits your screen time. Granted she might not have made any shining best-person-ever moments, but to say she has done nothing is quite unfair. I have a feeling she is a hard worker who just gets on with the job without being all 'me me me'. I have a sneaky feeling that Claire probably closed some of Helene's deals.

Yes Helene does not suffer fools gladly- and why should she? She hit the nail on the head with the irritating Lucinda. She is lazy and attention seeking!

Lucinda may be a technophobe but the whole 'skill set' thing was crap. She wants to work for Alan Sugar in a business environment! She has worked in the IT industry and she winges and flails about saying she doesnt know how to work a computer. I dont buy it. If Helene had asked for her to change a programs binary code then I would feel sorry for her- but all she had to do was retrieve photos off a memory card, open them up and print them. As was mentioned, even a seven year old could do that now!

And it happens at times- sometimes you are placed outside your comfort zone and Helene rightly mentioned to Lucinda more than once (but kept getting drowned out) that the previous week she herself had been outside of her comfort zone but had just got on with it.

Lucinda has proved she is a crap salesperson and Helene realised this and put Lucinda where she would make slightly less harm, and Lucinda winged and winged because she couldnt be bothered to remember what she had been shown- a numpty task! Lucinda is lazy- she couldnt even be arsed to remember the name of the car last night!

Helene has also been right to pull SAS up on his age-ist comments. Fair play to her. I didnt hear any malicious things said by her to anyone last night- or to Sara.

I'd like her to win, but based on SAS' comments last night it wont happen, even if she does do well in the interviews which I have a feeling she will.

Nah, SAS had her spot on; there are hundreds of Helens in corporate life but what do they DO. My guess is that she's been what we called 'looked after' by someone senior in the organisation, but as soon as that person leaves or moved on, she'll flounder and get found out.

She has a vacant vapid personality, I think Margaret? described it as 'forgettable'. Regrettably, she's been embued with unusual looks...SAS likened it to Mona Lisa (bit unkind the the mona lisa actually), but there's not much else to her.

As soon as they got back to the cafe after SAS said he'll be firing one of them, the first thing that came out of her gob was to apportion blame on the ones who had a sales background and how much she was relying on them to sell blah blah.

She also said at the scene of the selling that 'punters want a bit more of a sophisticated sell...' (subtle dig at Claire who was selling her sox off). No, this helene is out of her depth and I think by rights she should have gone last night. But sometimes, you've got to give these no hopers the full length of their rope....the further she goes on the show the more humiliating it will be when she get kicked the hell off! and good riddance too.

It IS possible that the edit has been unfair on Helene. As with Sara, she wasn't always shown much in some of the earlier tasks and may as you say have been getting on with things. The trouble is that unlike Sara, who when we did see her doing things was usually doing them reasonably successfully, nothing that we have seen Helene doing has ever been a success.

She has twice been a dreadful PM; whatever justifications you make, the fact is that in the photography task she put Lucinda in a role (and a crucial role at that) which Lucinda had made it clear that she could not perform. Why? At that stage the teams were still sizeable; nothing would have been easier than to put someone else in that role. At least when it became plain how poorly Lucinda was doing she could have switched roles around rather than stand there screaming at her. I'm afraid it was very clear that Helene was deliberately trying to sabotage her own team so she could blame Lucinda and get her fired. She destroyed her team's efforts very successfully; unfortunately for her plan the other team performed even worse.

On the wedding task the failure of the team was almost entirely down to her, and it's a travesty she didn't go. The decision to divide the teams looking at the dresses was hers, the choice of dresses was hers and everything else failed as a result of those two decisions.

On the tasks where she hasn't been PM, I'm afraid I haven't seen anything that she's done that's worked either.

I never saw that either, to be honest. However, Sara has indicated in interviews since her firing was broadcast that she felt that Helene disliked her, and she's probably in a better position to know than we are.

Like Helene, Lucinda had never sold before. Yet unlike Helene she tried to learn. Because of time restraints, I don't think "shadowing" someone on a task is probably the best thing BUT Lucinda obviously learnt something because she did manage to sell "something"! Ok it was only £65 but, it was £65 more than Helene.

The main difference between the two women is that one looks for solutions, whilst the other looks on where she can place blame.

Sara pointed out that Helene doesn't contribute anything, yet Sir Alan ignored her. Looks like she was right because I am yet to see anything good from Helene and I mean anything. Sir Alan also pointed out he has seen little from Helene. Is she as useless as Jenny C? She might just be

What company did she work for before Apprentice?

To quote Helene herself she was 'in't kitchen cookin for ten hour' on the pub task. This apparently meant she had to do b*gger all in the next tasks

Yes, I felt sorry for her too (& I really do not like her). I thought Alan Sugar was unnecessarily personal in his comments to her and she handled that with dignity. So that is something in her favour. Still don't like her and would be surprised if she gets to the final but hey ho.

Haven't seen the episode, but I would be hard pushed to feel sorry for Helene - how much sympath/empathy did she show for the victims of her bullying?

What goes around comes around - I think they call it karma.

She was actually a pretty good leader on that task. She picked a good theme, and the photography and almost everything else ran smoothly from what we could see. The only flaw in her task, which of course the edit focussed on, was Lucinda.

What else could you do with Lucinda? By her own admission she wasn't good at sales and I don't think Helene trusted her in front of the public. In the production room there were only 2 jobs, both technical. Although Lucinda said she didn't know how to use the camera on her mobile phone, she at least had a mobile phone, and presumably she'd used a desktop computer in her work. All she had to do was print stuff, and she'd be given training. Who could have guessed she'd be quite as useless as she turned out?


Switched with who? No-one else had been trained to use the computer. The only other person in the back room was Raef, and his job was also a bit technical. She could have sent Lucinda home, but that would have meant Helene doing Lucinda's job for her, which (a) she wasn't trained for, and (b) would have compromised her ability to lead (which was Simon's mistake).


I'm afraid I think that's rubbish. No candidate wants to lead their team into failure. If they had failed, it's far from certain Lucinda would have been fired. Indeed, during the pre-results section of the boardroom it looked like Helene was having to carry the can for Lucinda's uselessness.


With hindsight her decisions were wrong. At the time, though, Nick approved of her choice of dresses so that decision wasn't obviously wrong. The splitting of the teams on the first day was more serious, but that was a mistake made by everyone on the team. In fact it was Michael who suggested it, for the plausible reason that it would minimise travel time and give them more time with the vendors.

So yes, she made mistakes, but they forgiveable ones.


She did well on the ice-cream task and got praised by Margaret for it. She gave a great pitch on the advert task. She seemed good at selling in the car task, and was unlucky not to sell (she did sell 2 dresses on the wedding task). She worked hard in the kitchen on the food task.

She's not as loud and flashy as Claire; she just quietly gets on with it. She's not been featured much because she doesn't make many mistakes.

We don't know who came up with the theme. Therefore, we are not sure if she was the one who picked it or not. I think that Helene had many opportunities to avoid the technical problem but she didn't:

1- She was not as forceful with kevin as she was with Lucinda which shows a weakness in my opinion. Both Kevin and Lucinda didn't want to be in the backroom. She listened to kevin but not to Lucinda. I know that Lucinda doesn't know how to sell but she would have been more useful selling than in the backroom. Helene already had many good sales persons: Jenny M and Lindi.

2- Helene attended the training session with Lucinda and Raef. She should have learnt with Lucinda how it can be done especially that Lucinda informed her that she is technically useless. Otherwise, why did she attend the training? Alternatively, she should have sent Lee with them instead. it was a wasted time for Helene and a wasted opportunity for their team.

3- Even Nick thought that she could have rearranged her team and I don't think he would have suggested it if it was not possible. They had technical assistant and they should have used him to show someone from the sales team, they weren't selling at the time anyway because of the technical problem, how it can be done.

I've never liked her. She does nothing but follow Claire around!!
It was great to see her brought down a peg or two this week considering what a witch she used to be! Seems like shes had a personality transplant too.

I got the definite impression that the theme and set up were her idea. It just seemed that way from what went on subsequently.


She had that one right on the money.

If you have two people for a sub-task and neither are strong but one has other skills (allegedly) that are of use to the main task, of course it's the remaining one who has to do the sub-task.


Again, right on the money.

As PM she needed to attend the technology briefing, spending part of the time looking at what Lucinda was being trained on and part on what Raef was being trained on. Then they should have been able to bring her up to speed on either skill set ready for when they needed a break.

The problem was that Lucinda didn't actually learn enough to do that.

What we don't know is if that was purely incompetance or if there was a fault on the equipment.


The interesting point here is that the technical assistant was unable to get them going.

Just what his brief was as to what assistance he could give was never made clear but if the problem with the equipment was simply incompetance on Lucinda's part it should have been sorted out very fast.

Another failing on the part of the programme producers for not making clear what had gone wrong.

My suspicion is that there was a fault on the laptop's card reader as it appeared to flash up an error dialog as soon as the card was inserted.

Not really something you could blame Helene for, though, unless you were desperately looking for ways to nail her.

Sorry, I didn't get the impression that Helene came up with idea. It is just an assumption on your part.


The problem is that Kevin is much better than Lucinda technically. He is a banker and he deals with computers on daily basis and would have been more comfortable than Lucinda in dealing with the equipment. So it is not the case of "If you have two people for a sub-task and neither are strong but one has other skills (allegedly) that are of use to the main task" it was a case of "If you have two people for a sub-task and neither are strong but one is stronger in both subtasks" I would give that person the technical job. Why? because I already have people who are very strong in sales while I have a very incapable team in the technical side. This way she could have a more balanced team.



But you forgot that Helene admitted in the boardroom that she is more technically useless than Lucinda!!! So she didn't go to be trained, she wasn't looking at what Lucinda was being trained on, because she herself didn't have a clue. I think it would have been much better to send Lee with them. He was responsible for the photography and I didn't understand why she sent Jenny M, kevin, Lee, and Lindi to the auditions instead of having one of them in the training since both Helene and Lucinda are technically useless.


The technical assistant was able to get them going but the problem occured again after he left. She knew that Lucinda was unable to solve it the first time. Therefore, she should have asked one of the sales team to attend and learn how it was done. Nick suggested it in the boardroom and he was right. I believe it would have been much better than leaving Lucinda to do it again on her own.

In answer to to the thread title:

No Helene is not a bully. However, she has no respect for others and I don't trust her.

As much as the idea that she didn't is an assumption on yours


I'm afraid that's an assumption too!

I assumed the Kevin, as a bank manager would be good with numbers but as we saw on the fish task he was barely numerate.

I wonder what sort of bank he manages - blood? sperm?


But the ratio of sales to backroom needed to be high.

Had the backroom stuff been going well as she had every reason to suppose it would they could have used all the sales they could get so sending the technically weak but sales experienced person to help with those sales was the correct decision. (Until you start to use hindsight).


I think this is a hindsight thing again. The equipment was supposed to be easy enough to use that non-technical people could use it - otherwise the training would have needed to be much longer.

If it had been as straightforward as it was supposed to be Lucinda would have been able to use it.

Have you never experienced people who believe themselves to be useless with computers? They blame themselves for everything.

It's actually far more likely that the equipment had a fault.


The fact that the tech person 'got them going' but the system failed again indicates to me that it was an intermittent fault.

I don't know if they were using 'doze or a mac but windows is notoriously fickle with anything plug and play (read: it often gets it wrong).

If it was an intermittent fault, which seems likely, it wouldn't make any difference who looked at it.

Yeah, I remember that, on the pub food task. She did stand up for Sara. I held her in quite high regard, however she dropped in my estimation the following week when she was really unfair to Lucinda and blatantly lied in in the boardroom.

Yes but I didn't bring it as evidence of Helene's good management because as you say it is an assumption.


Yes it is an assumption but Lucinda's inability to deal with computers wasn't. You have two people: Lucida saying that she didn't want to be in the backroom because she is incapable of doing the job and kevin saying that he prefers to be on the sales team because he claims to be good at sales. Bearing in mind that she already have good sales people whom she has worked with before: Who should she put in the backroom? For me the answer is clear.


She already has one member more than the other team and she already have very good sales people whom she worked with before. Kevin claimed to be good at sales and she chose to believe him. Lucinda said she was technically useless and Helene chose not to take her seriously.


The technical person didn't only get them going, he also said that his daughter can do the job indicating it was easy. Again, Helene failed to ask someone from the sales team (who were not doing much at the time because they stopped selling after the technical problem) to see how the technical assisstant did to solve the problem. Helene knew that Lucinda was unable to do it in the morning after attending a much longer technical session in the day before.

I really can't see How it wasn't Helene's fault.

Well, as someone has already pointed out, at least if you'd put Lucinda on sales there'd have been others selling so any failure on her part wouldn't have been so deeply damaging. The role Lucinda was in was absolutely key, and only she was doing it.


Well, fair enough if the task was very technical and nobody else in the team could have done it. I'm told that it's really pretty simple, but I'm not in a position to judge, never having tried it myself. But it does still leave the initial error of putting Lucinda in that role.


I agree that it's possible that Helene might have been fired had they lost. That doesn't mean that it wasn't Helene's plan. I just feel that her putting Lucinda in that role was such an evidently wrong decision that I really think that deliberate sabotage of her own team in order to dump Lucinda in it is the only explanation. And of course she did try to pretend that Lucinda had never told her she wasn't capable of doing the job asked of her. If you disagree, then you disagree. I stick to my opinion.


I accept that hindsight is 20/20 vision and that the decision to go for the cheaper dresses could easily have seemed the better option. But the fact as that it didn't work out, that lost them the task and she has to carry the can for that, just as I would have expected Raef to have to do if his gamble on the expensive dresses hadn't come off.

I remember that the splitting of the team was Michael's idea; in fact, had he been fired that week, while I thought Helene deserved it more, I'd have thought it not too bad a decision for just that reason. But it was Helene who decided to go with Michael's idea. I know it sounded plausible, but it's the PM's job to look beyond this and consider the flaws.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying I'd have done any better in her place and I do think her mistakes were understandable. But were Sara's any less so? Someone had to go, and in my opinion Helene was the one who was most culpable for the team's failure.


I'm a bit confused about what you say about the pitch on the advert task. Surely Claire did that? As for things like working hard in the kitchen, I certainly didn't intend to suggest she didn't do any work. What I'm talking about are her decisions. As Sir Alan said to Simon "If I asked you to dig me a ditch, you'd dig me a ditch" He isn't looking for somebody to dig a ditch, or work in a kitchen either.

I appreciate what you say about why we haven't seen her so much; I've made the same argument for Sara. Nobody can know what they did that we didn't see. I'm going on what they did when we did see them, and guessing that's typical. Could be wrong, but it's all I have to go on.

And yet when you were looking at Claire's perfornance you repeatedly wanted to blame her (in part at the very least) for all the team's failures - even though she wasn't the project manager.

But when it comes to making a similar assumption that one of the girls was responsible in a positive way, even though she was project manager, you baulk at the idea.

Why is that?


Obviously the person who admits they are no good at selling (Lucinda).

Anyone can use basic technology (if it's working properly), but not everyone can sell.

So if you have two people who do not consider themselves up to a technology task it obviously makes sense to use the one who admits they have no talent at the other required task.

That's simple common sense.


As a non technical person herself I find that an entirely reasonable decision.

The technology was very basic and she clearly and quite reasonably believed what she was told by the experts: that it was very simple tro use.


So what we have to ask ourselves her is this:

Do we believe that three people (Helene, Raef and Lucinda) chosen form IIRC 16,000 of the brightest brains in the country, are all so useless that they could not make a working system specifically designed for non technical people function correctly?

Or do we assume that the equipment was faulty (as indicated by the error dialog which popped up when Lucinda inserted the SRAM card)?

I know which version seems most likely to me (especially as Windows is notorious for failing to correctly handly P&P devices which is what the camera's memory card is).



I think that is because you now (having spent a long time trying to spin a whole bunch of things to be Claire's fault) want to try and do the same thing to Helene.

Why on earth do you think she should have brought in people who never even attended the training session to try and sort out the problem?

Sugar would have slaughtered her.

AS: So, Helene, you Raef and Lucinda attended the training session but when things went wrong you brought in <xxx> who hadn't even been at that session to try and sort things out?

Helene: Yes, Sir Alan.

AS: Clutching at straws a bit, wasn't it?

Helene: Erm ...

Come on. Get real.