A snigger spilt from everyone’s lips as Lord Sugar summed up Lottie and Ryan Mark as two highly educated and eloquent people – no that wasn’t the boom, boom line – he observed that normally if they went against each other they would be pistols at dawn and no less than a dual to the death!

Lottie went first explaining their theme of 1920 circus outlining how the team was split.  Scarlett was quick to want it noted that Lottie’s went into the clients with a great sell but failed to actually find out what the client wanted and gave the impression his glass would never be empty.

Lottie confirmed she had contacted Carina and Dean and Carina sensing what was coming jumped in stating the steer given had been that the alcohol was important.  Lottie not wanting to appear in any way to be in the wrong clarified the instructions she gave had been very clear emphasising the word clear stretching it beyond recognition!

Carina had brought 40 bottles and 4 bottles of prosecco.  The sheer mention of the entertainment which Carina once again admitted to making a decision not to Lotties liking was to ensure their theme had meaning and an experience was created, saw Dean say that he put on the charm and a price of £140 was agreed.  Charm? Dean?  These are 2 words with no association to each other and if it happened I must have nodded off as I do not recall such an event!

Lord Sugar brought up the heated phone call with Carina and Lottie, the latter who on high alert as soon as her name was mentioned was straight in with her two pennies to why she had done it – ‘I felt that every decision I made had been disregarded – well perhaps Lottie if you had given Carina a chance to speak you would have understood why she did what she did!

Lord Sugar clarified he was not the only one pointing the finger and Lottie had fired Carina and instead placed Scarlett in the role of Sub Team Leader.  Lottie agreed this had been the case.  Carina stated that no thought was given by Lottie to her actions and it could have really affected the morale of the team.

Given Lottie had promised never a dry glass she had run out of prosecco very quickly!  Given she had only ordered 4 bottles which can be drunk singlehandedly by one person rather than a whole train – why was this a surprise?

However, it was acknowledged that the food had been on time and had been very good.

Onto Ryan Mark who wanted to start by saying that he had been very excited it being a luxury task thinking it was his moment to shine!   No need for sunglasses quite yet!  

Lord Sugar interrupted this rainbow and candy floss statement to bring the situation back down to earth with a thud questioning when Ryan Mark had told the boss him and his team could expect a quintessentially British meal and string quarter was he surprised they were not keen on the idea given they were a young group of people all up for a bit of a knees up!

Marianne as predicted needed to inject her negative opinion to set the scene and begin to point the finger of blame – he just couldn’t let go of it being luxury – his vision was just luxury, luxury, luxury – someone call a doctor! 

Ryan Mark retaliated reminding Marianne she had been the one designated to ask the right questions and had failed to do so as no questions were asked about food intolerances which ultimately lost them the task!

Thomas admitted he thoroughly enjoyed all the food tasting and ate everything – not sure you were supposed to lick the plates clean Thomas!  

He also admitted to falling in love with the violinists and paid £230 to calm his beating heart! 

Ryan Mark confirmed who did what and why he had swapped the teams around placing Marianne in the kitchen and Thomas out front which Lord Sugar acknowledged having heard from Claude that at the reception people had experienced a fantastic time and everything had been brilliant until the problem regarding the food intolerances and not being able to cater for them had reared its ulgy head!

Ryan Mark shared that he had asked Lewis to note down any preferences or intolerances when serving drinks but this was after the horse had bolted and Lord Sugar was disappointed that this information hadn’t been identified at the start of the meeting with the client.

However Pamela did have the insight to order some risotto from the chef but even this didn’t cover the gluten free lady so instead she was given a different meal consisting of fruit salad with a bottle of wine in compensation.

The results were in:

NPower total spend £980.25

Refunds    £200

Overall Profit £1812.75

Karen confirmed Lottie’s team who spent £871.75

There had been a refund as the client thought he was promised that the glasses wouldn’t run dry so took off 10% making it £300 back

Overall Profit of £1828.25

A difference of £15.50 between the winning and losing teams.

As a treat the winning side was to go to Kensington and learn the art of sabering;opening a bottle of champagne with a sword – always handy when you can’t find the corkscrew!

Lottie was jubliant although couldnt help having a final dig by expressing if Carina listened to her decisions they would have won by a bigger margin - Life is an absolute bitch Lottie - just like you!