As far as I could see, she did b*gger all in the 12 weeks leading up to the final (other than b*tch and moan), so how on earth did she make the final four over people like Raef? or am I being too harsh?

You have to remember we only see a fraction of what candidates do on tasks, so I wouldn't like to say that she did 'b*gger all' given the minimal amount of footage we actually saw.....of course I would have rather have seen Raef in the final, but fairs fair!

Not too harsh. I think Sugar was impressed with her General Electric CV which is why he allowed her to stick around.

I'm not convinced, Nick and Margaret never commented positively on her performance, and SAS had very little to say about her (other than general comments about her career history). I don't think any of team praised her either, whether she was PM or not.

Not saying I'm convinced either, but I do think we at least have to bear in mind we don't really see that much of what goes on in a task when saying 'candidate X' doesn't do anything...

I guess so, I really didn't like her attitude though.

She didn't come across well did she?

Like she'd been sucking on bitter Lemons!

Let's face it, none of them had a stellar record. They all had their fair sure of faults, and it was really just the luck of the draw who the final 4 were.

She didn't really develop much of a rapport with Alex, though I doubt she would have bonded with either of the alternatives. Of the final four I think she was the one who suffered most from being stuck with a joint-project-manager. If she'd been competing on her own against one other candidate it might have been the opportunity she needed to show what she could do by herself, unpestered by gobshites.

If you ask me, she is the biggest gobshite of them all. I work in the corporate world, and it takes more than continually pointing out that you have 'balls' to survive. An honest days work wouldn't have done her any harm at all!

Actually Margaret did praise her during the ice-cream task, in the unseen footage.

I think she was very unlucky. The technical problems on the photo task should not have happened. If the hardward had worked as advertised, Lucinda would probably have been able to cope. Helene would have won the task by miles, and avoided the row with Lucinda that tainted every opinion of her there-after. She'd have been seen as a brilliant Project leader - so far as we know, everything else on that task went right. It was just bad luck that the hardware didn't work.

She had been popular for what she said about Claire and Sara's row in the food task, and her performance was generally strong but not sensational in other tasks. She was never accused of not pulling her weight, but was never blamed for task failure either. She avoided the kind of embarrassing mistakes which make good TV, so she didn't feature much. Up until the wedding task she had 5 out of 7 wins. Then she was given a weak team (with Michael) against a strong one (with Lee, Claire, Raef) and lost. Lost again because of Raef and Michael's bad choices in the tissue advert, then lost again on a selling task which was not her forte. Did quite well on the perfume task, but was dragged down by Alex not researching the box cost and by Sir Alan having long decided which team he wanted to win.

Raef on Radio 6 today was asked was she always miserable or just when they were doing the tasks and he replied that she was always like that.

To be honest we never saw that much of Helene on the tasks so it is hard to say weither she was a worker or not

But I trust Raef to be honest and value his opinion

So much for Raef being 'always the gentleman' and not saying anything nasty about the other candidates.

He said it in a very gentlemanly way though

Well he had more to do with her than any of us on here. Maybe he is in a position to speak truthfully. I know that you will defend Helene to the hilt, but Raef was asked a question and he answered it.

The question was: Does Helene change her facial expression when she is off camera? (They were all laughing)

Raef answered: I would like to say yes but unfortunately no she always had Mona lisa expression (laughing).

Therefore, it wasn't nasty and it was true. Helene herself admitted that the apprentice failed to bring out the fun side of her so we can't expect Raef to see it.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Helene.

I was pointing out that Raef had a reputation for not saying anything nasty about the other candidates. (The rolleyes was directed at the Raef worshipers who don't get nearly as much stick as anyone who dares to stand up for Helene [or evenClaire or Lucinda]).

It was intended as a TIC comment anyway as I have no idea how he phrased it and that would be crucial to understanding his intent.

I can't actually imagine Raef being gratuitously nasty about anyone.

As I recall less than 48 hours after he was fired we were being ordered to 'get over it' by certain people on this board, which was quite unnecessary. And actually we did 'get over it' a damn sight quicker than supporters of a lot of other candidates have, and that is a fact! The reason there was a bigger reaction to his being fired than anyone else is because he was a) the most popular candidate on the board and b) because almost everyone recognised that Michael should have gone. But I am willing to bet that 90% of us could care less he was fired at this point.

Raef has a reputation for respecting his colleagues and giving cedit where credit is due (praising Lucinda and Lee as PMs) and accepting his part of the responsibility when the task fails and I believe that he is the only candidate who didn't put a foot wrong in terms of his behaviour with his colleagues.

I am a Raef fan. I never thought that he should have won as I have reserved this place for a long time for Claire (I am now convinced that SAS made the right decision in the end). But Raef is a true winner because he displayed such integrity, honesty, and respect when other candidates failed under pressure and I don't think that anyone can take this from him.

The edit of the program can be misleading. However, no one forced the candidates to say something. All the words that have been said, were actually said and the program did reflect the candidate's characters correctly. How do I know this? Because Lucinda and Helene both agreed that they were like this in the program. Simon and Raef came out well and the candidates liked them. Jenny M came out as cold and she said that she doesn't make friends easily in her post-firing interviews. Kevin came out as someone who takes himself seriously and this was the view of most of the candidates. Many candidates from previous series said that the editors do a terrific job reflecting their characters in the house. Most of them also said that they learnt more about themselves and how they behave under pressure. Most of them were unhappy about how the editing reflected their business abilities but this is another story.

We can argue that the candidates aren't like this in real life i.e. the pressure got to them and that is why they behaved the way they did. The audience don't know the candidates in real life but they have an idea of how they behaved during the program. Therefore, they can only judge them on that. However, I hope most of the audience accept that the candidates behave very differently in real life. I actually liked Jenny C in her post-firing interviews. She is clearly enthusiastic and fun. However, I can't like her character in the program.

Oh, I wasn't refering to people who were shocked/annoyed that he got fired instead of Michael.

I felt that pretty much myself.

It's the people who were still carrying on about it weeks later and insisting he should have won.

He was a really nice contestant and seemed pretty competant but, like Lucinda, he was never going to fit in with AMS and his methods.

How many of them were there? Because I can't think of many, at least on this board, tbh. I just don't think you can label a whole group of supporters by what the odd person was doing. Most of us were fine about it once we'd had a few days of whinging. I'm pleased he didn't win in all honesty, cause I think we'll get to see a lot more of him this way.

I'm not labeling the whole group of his supporters otherwise I'd be labeling myself in amongst them.

Fair enough, but that wan't the impression I intially got. Like I said, I think most of us are pretty happy how it all turned out, even if ideally we would have liked another week or two of Raef in the show...