The free bar used to be only on a Sunday to welcome everyone back so i don't believe the producers used that to see what they could find out. I do believe they have thier moles around the hotel though (1 seemed very obvious though of course he never admitted working for endemol).

As far as i was aware Claire never gave a target in the hotel though i couldn't say for sure.
I know one player that did though and i shall watch thier game with interest before i say any more on this theory.

I suppose the only saving grace was that she didn't take the swap in what was by far the worst game in my opinion in 2011 (so far!)

But thank you, and Jules for clearing up the Claire/Banker situation. But something just didn't seem right. She did seem however to have little confidence in herself. Who knows?

Phil.

My personal view of the offers (as I don't know anything about Claire with what little I've seen recently) was that the production team were tired of the cautious deals recently so were trying to counter it, and the only way to do it without thinking up yet another silly twist was to make the offers really poor, and just gambling on the fact there wouldn't be a big number in her box. Glad I didn't put myself through an hour of torture to see it though, as I despise blue wins that are forced, but there was some hope of the very big win until very nearly the end.

I never thought there were any moles in the hotel or the pub next door, to be honest, although no-one can really be 100% sure. It was quite amusing because everyone was always suspicious of any businessman or anyone who looked like a banker. Any possible mole would probably be wearing casual clothes and look nothing like a banker.

I think it's more likely that things that are mentioned in the vicinity of crew members get reported back to the banker, which is how he finds out things. I know for a fact that a story about Dirk's false teeth falling out made its way to the banker via a crew member!

Jules, was the mole you refer to tall with spiky brownish hair and wore glasses? If so that may be the director. He stayed in the hotel all the time while I was there but did speak to the contestants. definitely him because he conducted box school on Friday. Would be interesting to know if he stays there on a regular basis or whether that was just a one off!

I agree with Dave though. All things said on the bus or in the green room were fair game and could end up back at the banker's lair. Though there were a few occasions when the banker appeared to pick up on conversations that contestants felt had been conducted in private.

I do think the gamesmanship of the production team/banker can be influenced by the amount of info they ask at the interview stage. Questions about monetary earnings and your specific target are all part of the process. You'd have to be naive to think the banker persona doesn't get that information if he wants it. Clare didn't play the game with the banker when asked the figure he/they already knew. She blurted out her target (possibly because she knew it wasn't really a secret anyway). It was elementary in the end as she never got near that offer, but even Noel was a bit harsh with her for that calling her an idiot.

What is this box school all about then? Noel often mentions it on the show but I assumed it was a joke. I was on the wings for 29 shows so was at the studios for quite a while, yet I didn't know of any box schools going on. Was it for all the contestants or just a select few? Maybe my group were so expert at opening the boxes that they didn't need any training.

Dave you may be right as a few of our number out of nerves (including myself on my second day and 4th show) went to open the boxes before Noel prompted us. He didnt like that. In fact he totally lost it with one person after specifically saying to hold back until he gave the go ahead. He liked to build the tension that way.

Anyway, we turned up on the Friday and all the boxes were out and the director went through the motions. Well he sort of lectured us all and I thats when I recognised him.

We were also told about wacking the mics when we opened the boxes. We were supposed to be the worst group for that. Though I never did that.

Hi Pauly thats not the gent i was talking about.
The gent i ended up talking to may or may not have been a mole (the show has often said the banker has his spys in the hotel), but he said he was a producer of another show and went into a fair amount of detail about a previous show he had worked on, some of it was pure rubbish.
I agree the crew are not stupid, they get to know people very well and they look for the little things we often do not even know we have given away, thats their job

I agree with this analysis. [I often find myself in agreement with you ]