I missed most of this week's episode but the i-player re-cap of the Shopping TV task has left me in a haze of questions:

Questions such as were the candidates deliberately trying to stitch each other up with the items chosen (which the other part of their team had to sell)? Example number one, the rather bizarre polystyrene kitten and puppy craft sets chosen by either Lorraine or Howard for Kate to present. These involved sticking sequins over the polystyrene with pins, so whilst looking like something made in an old style special school they wouldn't have been safe enough - perhaps Kate could have spun them as pet voodoo kits. Example two was Kate's revenge; gold, silver and "bronze" leaf decorated leather jackets, showing that there is a thin line between tacky Essex bling and School panto Sergeant Pepper chic. Was Kate just assuming that shoppers at these channels have so little taste (clue Kate - there are not always real viewers buying the godforesaken tut on Bid TV's clothing and jewellery section) or was it all designed to get Lorraine into the least flattering garment ever (cue Kate saying unconvincingly "Don't you look lovely?"). Example number three the non-descript hair scrunchie clip combos chosen by Debra that looked like they'd fallen out of an Ethel Austin bargain bucket. Were they in fact revenge for the bizarre snoods apparently sourced from a mobility catalogue (where they could have served as handy neck brace cosies).

And then there's the Lorraine issue. Whilst I'm not sure whether I like her or she's a scary mental, I wondered if the Shopping Channel production team had been surreptitiously briefed either by the crew or her team members, as at one moment during Kate's piteous pitch for the needsie kitten, Lorraine merely seemed to be following the example of production lady by calmly asking Kate to mention the phone number and website, only for said production lady to snap "Don't shout at her!" (which seemed to be the whole point of the exercise). Plus when she genuinely made an attempt to compliment Howard on his decent (if dull) first pitch, he rather coldly shrugged off her rather cack handed but apparently genuine compliment, whereas Kate attempted to incinerate our specky Cassandra with her eyes (Lorraine: "Don't give me dagger eyes.", Kate (in headbobbing brittle bitch mode): "I will give you dagger eyes if you keep saying that..comments like that are disruptive to a team"). Does everybody actually just hate Lorraine for valid reasons (after all she may be the sort of woman who either wants to stick pins in a toy kitten or put a real cat in a toy tank), or are they really worried about her chances? Lorraine's still not being listened to (her suggestion that the uber cute toy dinosaur may sell was sneerily dismissed by Howard), but now because she's trying not to seem too confrontational and therefore doesn't fight her corner, she's being painted as "I told you so" woman by all and sundry including SirAlan. She's got "just can't win" written over her so many times that bizarrely she may just.

Perhaps being a real scary mental is ideal for direct TV sales, as Debra had a rather good week (even selling loads of the awful snoods to an anonymous audience clearly too terrified to resist), despite a typical early bitch fight with Yasmina, who dared to attempt to usurp her rightful role as queen bee by requesting (pretty please) to be team leader.  Meanwhile James and Yasmina forged an amusing yet useless double act (like a codependent Terry and June who were barely repressing the urge to hit each other with frying pans - my favourite bit: James "Have you done something with your hair", Yasmina: "Why thank you for noticing for a change", James "It's just that you don't normally look this cool"), although SirAlan watching on the boardroom big telly seemed singularly unimpressed.

Howard chose to present with Lorraine as she'd had a weak start ("selling" a sat nav with the claim "It will stop you having lots of crashes"), despite it being obvious that he would have been a far stronger solo seller than Kate (who froze like a bunny in the headlights of the car of the phantom bunny bummer before some faux wigging out with a rubbish toy air guitar), and he and Lorraine made a frighteningly unconvincing couple. Sadly they got so caught up in scoffing and waffling about the chips made by the posho deep hardly any fat fryer that they didn't bother describing how to phone in and buy it though mouthfuls of hot cremated spud. Ultimately Debs wins it for Yasmina's team and hurrah James gets to go on a groovy reward being flown around very fast and upside down in stunt planes whilst screaming hammily for his mum.

Lorraine decides to come over all noble in the cafe of doom and promises to go gracefully and not bitch about her teammates, who predictably blame her for everything especially chip-gate.

Kate gets a SirAlan slapdown for thinking she's the bees knees ("Nothing great has been won by enthusiasm alone"). He describes her presentation style prior to air guitar spaz out as "robotic" (My housemate funnily enough has been describing Kate as a "sex Robot basic pleasure model", although I'm not sure that this was SirAlan's point).

However it's Howard that goes for not being a risk-taker, due in no small measure for Lorraine highlighting his lack of dynamism and Nick catching this ball, running with it and scoring several touchdowns ("You're not a warrior", "you're not a big man"). So Kate and Lorraine turn to the house and James finds himself with a personal harem. "I feel like Hugh Hefner" he declares with wide eyes and Mr Tickle hands (he looks more like Tommy Cooper).

So the final question regards our James, who's soared from zero to hero (or "plop joke to top bloke" or "he's a nob to give him the job" etc etc) since the early weeks and now just makes me smile whenever his big BFG face appears. Is he being kept in just to be torn to pieces by SirAlan's craven posse of grizzled interviewers and CV disectors next week (example from CV number 1: "I put a leash on people who spunk money up the wall")? Hope not.

Liking: James
Wanting to like: Lorraine
Disliking: Yasmina
Loathing: Kate, Debra