Just rewatched Paul's game from 15/9. Am starting a new topic as the game commentary for his game is locked. Have to agree that Noel making him feel bad for dealing at £15,000 jars somewhat.

I know it's Noel's job to bring drama to the game, but still. I'm sure Noel has more than enough in the bank to mean that he is more than sorted for life. How likely is he to genuinely identify with some one who has been unemployed for an extended period of time? Surely in this type of situation he should recognise that some one with nothing is going to see £15,000 as a very helpful and valuable sum indeed? And it's not like he threw away £100,000 or anything. Yes, he could have got twice as much maybe, but of course the offer of £30,000 may well have been over-inflated, plus do people really know in advance which boxes they would have selected forthgoing unless they have a system? But anyway, that's not the point. I have been unemployed myself for about 6 months, and I would really value just being given £15,000.

I just think sometimes Noel should recognise the reality of people's situations a bit more!

Then again he is quite probably instructed by the production team as to what he should say, and it may well in no way be reflective of what he really thinks! I'm not silly enough to think the production team won't go all out for drama. I guess it would be much less tense if Noel were simply to say 'Well, I think you have done the right thing in your situation, mate, and it doesn't really matter how the proveout goes' lol

Noel has his moments, but in general he's nowhere near as bad as he was back in late 2006/early 2007. A good example is Steven's game in March 2007. He dealt at £27,500 at 11-box, and Noel was visibly very annoyed due to Steven saying he'd always go on with at least three of the power 5 there (he had the top four), and with every box, even ones like the £75,000 or £100,000, Noel was like, 'NO NO NO. IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! YOU'VE JUST SQUANDERED A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY!' Another contestant, Donna in late 2006, dealt at 21k with a top two + not much else final eight, ended up leaving the top two to the end, and Donna spent the rest of the show crying while Noel kept rubbing it in.

Noel does look at the other side of the coin as well, sometimes even encouraging a deal! I'd imagine that Endemol most certainly have at least some effect on his behaviour. In their view, no one's going to watch the show if everyone deals for 10 or 15k after the 3rd or 4th round. He certainly still has some Wakeyistic tendencies, but he's a lot better nowadays.

Though rather than discouraging 11-box deals by rubbing in any mistakes that are made at that point, nowadays they do it by offering poor offers until 8-box (which they did at the very start of the show's lifetime as well).