Singapore Worlds 2004

[Al]

"It's all very lovely that you care so much, especially given that you're not, I believe, even a student at St Andrews any more."

It's my understanding that Mr Joss is a life member of the Students' Association and, as such, is also therefore a member of the Union Debating Society. It is members of the Students' Association who are members of the Debating Society. They don't necessarily have to be students.

[hr]Rompiendo la monotonia del tiempo

[John Stewart]

...which probably explains why I said he was no longer a student at the university, not that he was no longer a member of the UDS which is, as you correctly, pointed out, a rather different proposition?

But aside from me playing devil's advocate trying to find out what makes the Joss mind tick here, it has to be said that he does take a rather acute interest in something for which, I suspect, the majority of students in St Andrews are not quite so bothered about - exactly who we send to worlds and why we send them - despite his removal from the internal workings of the society.

Interest which is all well and good until it starts to conflict with the decisions of the Board of ten. After all, no-one was complaining about the decision to send two teams to stellenbosch last year. Just like no-one complained when it was decided that two teams would be sent to Singapore this year. Or rather, until after the selection panel met, and suddenly it becomes a bit of a political hot potato in debating society terms.

Although, one suspects that it's all small chips as far as the union is concerned. One suspects that all will return to a quiet disinterest once a second team is selected, and as intended, and as happened last year, two teams and one judge go off to singapore to help establish the reputation of our union as a progressive and competitive entity, and to further the development of our speakers in a unique and challenging environment, hopefully with the drip-down benefits of more domestic success and enhanced quality of student speaker, and gaining of experience by our speakers which adds to the quality of training we can impart to our active IV squaddies.

Which I suspect is more along the lines of the union's perception of why we send people to worlds.

[Barry Joss]

Thank you, Al! And, some years ago, I was also done the honour of being made a Life Member of the House - a unique status at the present time, but an interesting one nevertheless.

I'm interested, Mr Stewart, and I will continue to be interested because you may have missed that for almost 10 years the Union Debating Society was a very important part of my life in St Andrews. During that time I served as an officer and worked bloody hard for the Society and I will NOT have my interest in the Society dismissed by you or any one else.

I think the Union (and, no, here I don't mean Association) does care, I remind you for the FINAL time that I have VASTLY more knowledge of that body than you will likely ever have. I think it would care yet more if it thought two teams were going now where one was deemed fit by the judges. I think they'd rather see the money spent when there are more teams worth sending.

Whatever the registration costs - and please refrain from patronising me by telling me again that they don't rise - I think you will find that the allocated budget is considerably more flexible in terms of carrying over or being redirected to needy areas than you think or have been led to believe. If you can't, collectively, persuade Campbell of the wisdom of that then you are a pretty poor Board indeed.

---

And as I see you posted your second part at about the same time I posted this, I'll answer - by simply saying that the students of St Andrews know little about the running of any part of the Association, they probably care little as well. That does not make that running unimportant. You're spending public funds and you have an absolute and binding legal obligation not to waste that money in any way.

At this point of course it is clear that you'll do as you decided to do anyway. But I think the principles involved are worthy of discussion, which is why I continue to argue this with you.

[John Stewart]

Barry,

Not dismissing your interest in the society out of hand, especially as regards LPH showpieces - a part of the society with which you are certainly much better acquainted than I, and probably retain more interest in to this day than I. But at some point you will have to accept that you do not necessarily know explicitly what is and what is not in the interests of:

1. An element of the society in which you were not, I believe, ever very closely involved.
2. An element of the society which has undergone a radical overhaul in the last couple of years, and which is changing in shape, outlook and ethos.
3. An element of the society that depends on the opportunities afforded to it to survive, opportunities than I refuse to deny it without what I see as sound justification for such denial.

At the end of the day, I have worked with the speakers of the Inter-Varsity squad for the last year or so very closely. I have attended 17 Inter-Varsity tournaments including the World Chamionships in the last 12 months - which I can say with confidence is many more than you have attended in your decade at St Andrews. I have judged the finals of 4 Inter-Varsity Tournaments, including two external IVs, and the semi-finals of a couple more, in addition to the break rounds of the Worlds Masters.

(and contrary to what everyone on the LPH side of the society seems to believe, there are some truly crap teams at Worlds, and only a relative few good ones - there are not 400 Neill Harvey-Smiths in the World, and there are not even 40 speakers as good as Neill at Worlds in any given year, if even as many as that)

I don't believe that any other member of the society at present can boast a judging CV like that. That, and given that it is my job and elected duty to work closely with the IV squad, I think that it is more for me to say whether or not there are another 2 speakers in the society that it is worth spending Union cash sending to Singapore to compete on the Union's behalf, that will be worth INVESTING Union cash in developing as speakers.

Believe me, I don't take the Worlds selection lightly. It's the single most important decision I ever get to make, if even just because of the sums of cash involved. And I won't waste it by sending people that I do not believe to be worth sending on behalf of the Union, becuase at the end of the day it's on their behalf that I make decisions, and pissing them off is not conducive to a happy and productive John.

And I believe that there are more speakers worth sending. Just becuase a viable partnership did not emerge in the selection process before the break does not mean that there are not suitable candidates outwith the very restricted pool of applicants. And I believe that they SHOULD have to opportunity to apply in a second round. Of course, if no other suitable and capable candidate does enter the pool, then there will be no point in sending a second team, and then maybe, having exhausted all the options, I will turn around to the Board and say that there is no viable second team.

But until then, I can say with confidence that we do have speakers of the requisite quality. And if sending two JYAs to Worlds during your St Andrews residency was deemed a worthwhile investment, then I hardly have much in terms of past precedent to beat.

And of course, with 2 of our best speakers now already selected for Worlds, they are now free hopefully to sit on the selection panel in semester 2, as Miranda pointed out, and I am sure will be more successful and more suitable for the task of selecting speakers than the last panel which was crippled by the unaviodable fact that most of our best speakers had applied for Worlds, and therefore could not sit on the panel.

All in all, Barry, I agree in principal that to waste Union cash on sending a crap second team to Worlds would be heinous, and is not something I intend to do. However, I also do not intend to write off the chances of a second credible team emerging, especially given the anticipated influx of potential new talent in the next academic year.

So by all means argue away, but I don't think this debate can really progress until we see who emerges from the woodwork, and possibly more interestingly, who withdraws from the process in the second round, and the options that that may create for the selection panel.

[M]

Barry,

Not dismissing your interest in the society out of hand, especially as regards LPH showpieces - a part of the society with which you are certainly much better acquainted than I, and probably retain more interest in to this day than I. But at some point you will have to accept that you do not necessarily know explicitly what is and what is not in the interests of:

1. An element of the society in which you were not, I believe, ever very closely involved.
2. An element of the society which has undergone a radical overhaul in the last couple of years, and which is changing in shape, outlook and ethos.
3. An element of the society that depends on the opportunities afforded to it to survive, opportunities than I refuse to deny it without what I see as sound justification for such denial.

At the end of the day, I have worked with the speakers of the Inter-Varsity squad for the last year or so very closely. I have attended 17 Inter-Varsity tournaments including the World Chamionships in the last 12 months - which I can say with confidence is many more than you have attended in your decade at St Andrews. I have judged the finals of 4 Inter-Varsity Tournaments, including two external IVs, and the semi-finals of a couple more, in addition to the break rounds of the Worlds Masters.

(and contrary to what everyone on the LPH side of the society seems to believe, there are some truly crap teams at Worlds, and only a relative few good ones - there are not 400 Neill Harvey-Smiths in the World, and there are not even 40 speakers as good as Neill at Worlds in any given year, if even as many as that)

I don't believe that any other member of the society at present can boast a judging CV like that. That, and given that it is my job and elected duty to work closely with the IV squad, I think that it is more for me to say whether or not there are another 2 speakers in the society that it is worth spending Union cash sending to Singapore to compete on the Union's behalf, that will be worth INVESTING Union cash in developing as speakers.

Believe me, I don't take the Worlds selection lightly. It's the single most important decision I ever get to make, if even just because of the sums of cash involved. And I won't waste it by sending people that I do not believe to be worth sending on behalf of the Union, becuase at the end of the day it's on their behalf that I make decisions, and pissing them off is not conducive to a happy and productive John.

And I believe that there are more speakers worth sending. Just becuase a viable partnership did not emerge in the selection process before the break does not mean that there are not suitable candidates outwith the very restricted pool of applicants. And I believe that they SHOULD have to opportunity to apply in a second round. Of course, if no other suitable and capable candidate does enter the pool, then there will be no point in sending a second team, and then maybe, having exhausted all the options, I will turn around to the Board and say that there is no viable second team.

But until then, I can say with confidence that we do have speakers of the requisite quality. And if sending two JYAs to Worlds during your St Andrews residency was deemed a worthwhile investment, then I hardly have much in terms of past precedent to beat.

And of course, with 2 of our best speakers now already selected for Worlds, they are now free hopefully to sit on the selection panel in semester 2, as Miranda pointed out, and I am sure will be more successful and more suitable for the task of selecting speakers than the last panel which was crippled by the unaviodable fact that most of our best speakers had applied for Worlds, and therefore could not sit on the panel.

All in all, Barry, I agree in principal that to waste Union cash on sending a crap second team to Worlds would be heinous, and is not something I intend to do. However, I also do not intend to write off the chances of a second credible team emerging, especially given the anticipated influx of potential new talent in the next academic year.

So by all means argue away, but I don't think this debate can really progress until we see who emerges from the woodwork, and possibly more interestingly, who withdraws from the process in the second round, and the options that that may create for the selection panel.

[Eliot Wilson]

I am, needless to say, reluctant to get drawn in to what has some of the signs of becoming a circular argument, but I'd like to make two points, based on experience.

Point the first. There was no fuss about sending two teams and a judge to Stellenbosch because two teams readily presented themselves from a pool of talented and, in a limited way, experienced applicants, mostly first years. I was invited to assist in the selection process for Stellenbosch, so I can tell you that in all confidence.

Point the second. We did indeed send two JYAs to Worlds in Glasgow. Again, not to labour the point, but I was Deputy Convener at the time, so I was involved in that decision too. There WAS an element of controversy; some Board members felt that we were spending a great deal of the Society's money on students who would soon be gone back to Toronto. But in the end the decision was to field the best team (note: 'team', not 'teams') possible, regardless of their status in the University. As it happens, I think Miss Loewith and Miss Galigan perhaps did not fulfil some of the wilder hopes we invested in them, but they performed creditably enough. But that is not what this debate is about. Send JYAs if they're good; but the Selection Committee was explicitly instructed to make a decision at a time when it could by definition have no knowledge of JYAs for 2003/04.

[Barry Joss]

I think we're now arguing somewhat at cross-purposes and I weary of it. Let me just say that to view the Society as consisting of two distinct parts (LPH and outside) is not a productive point of view, it ought to be one cohesive whole.

To accuse me of having no interest in, or a lack of knowledge of, Inuter-'Varsity debating is, frankly, insulting. I have considerable reserves of both and in my time have fought long and hard to secure precious funding to make certain that we develop our potential as much as possible.

Let me also say that I have seen good years and I have seen bad years in terms of our competitive success. And it has been my experience that the good years corelate with the good years in LPH - when members of the Society who want to compete also feel that they are members of an actively debating House and not simply an "audience".

Please stop thinking of LPH as "showpiece" and try to think of it as one of the great mainstays and opportunities of our Society. If we can inject some life back into the chamber its altogether possible that people who might not ordinarily get involved will do precisely that.

Finally, if a second team of suitable worth should now emerge, I have, relatively, no problem whatever. My objection is, and always was, to the selection of a team for selection's sake. Especially bearing in my many attempts to explain how the funding works.

[John Stewart]

Aside from your interest or otherwise in "Inuter" Varsity debating, Barry, I would actually say we are now in broad agreement on all accounts:

1. LPH and IVs are interdependent and complementary, as indeed is the third wheel of schools. I seem to recall arguing this extensively in the past on the sinner - IVs can't survive without showpieces that spark up enthusiasm and interest in debating. And LPH needs interested, enthusiastic, well informed and trained speakers to put on show, so we get well argued, interesting and entertaining debates. It always helps if your speakers have spoken in public before, know how to put a point across, and how to make a coherent argument. It also makes it more interesting when they engage on the points each other make during the course of the debate to give an argumentative flow, rather than each reciting the script they wrote a few nights ago, reiterating the same general points - badly.

Not saying that all IV speakers make great LPH speakers, but many do. And vice versa - some great LPH speakers make crap IV debaters, but we bear in mind that IVs and LPH lie at opposite ends of the same spectrum - fundamentally similar but distinct.

2. A second team should be sent if we establish that such a second team as is worthy to be sent exists within the society. As I said, I'm not going to waste the Union's cash sending random punters on a jaunt to Singapore.

Suppose the only difference seems to be that I believe that such a second team does exist.

[Eliot Wilson]

This may be a matter of emphasis, but it is my experience that relatively few IV speakers, from St. Andrews anyway, make good and entertaining LPH speakers. The best do, of course, but the demands of inter-'varsity debating are so different - and, if I may risk starting a different debate, increasingly in danger of disappearing up their own fundament - that the transition can be a difficult one. We can all think of very successful IV debaters who speak well in LPH - Neill Harvey-Smith is the name most people would throw in at this point, but equally you could point to Alastair Dunn, Jody Beveridge, Ian Duncan or Nick Bibby - but there are many people who are perfectly capable of winning IVs but are deadly dull in a less regimented setting.

As I say, I'm not trying to conjur another argument out of nothing; but I would suggest that on balance only the very best IV debaters speak very well in LPH.

[Barry Joss]

I do apologise for my typographical error, Mr Stewart - how terribly, terribly lax of me and how damaging to my argument.

And, my dear Mr Stewart, I speak with some confidence when I say that there is more distance between our positions than you imagine. Vastly more.

[John Stewart]

Eliot,

Why not add Fraser Campbell and Rami Okasha to the list?

Yes, on the one hand there is a fundamental shift in IV debating towards a mentality that "content is king", but at the end of the day, no matter how dramatically you do it, someone who's spouting shite is, at the end of the day, spouting shite.

It more or less goes to match the equally lamentable recent trend of LPH away from informative speeches, and towards the sheer, mindless entertaining. All very well and good, it makes for a few jokes and giggles. But why sit through a debate for light entertainment? Surely the point is to present an important issue to the audience and to impart knowledge to them. Which, at the end of the day, is always helped by a lashing of good stylistic oratorical skill to hold their attention.

While it may be nice to bill "big-name" speakers for LPH, many in my time so far have left a bitter taste in the mouth as they drone on about generalities with little depth to the information they are delivering. The best debates, I have always felt, are those that combine entertainment with education, leaving me with a smile on my face, and the knowledge that I have learned or acquired an appreciation of some issue I previously knew little about, or was interested in.

All in all, Eliot, I don't believe IVs and LPH are so fundamentally different as to render the two distinct entities. Like the best LPH debates, the best and most memorable IV debates are those that inform and entertain. There are plenty of great IV debaters out there who would translate very, VERY well into the LPH environement - for those who actually bother to go to IVs (No Eliot, I don't expect you to recognise any of the names.); ALex Deane, Jeremy Briar, Seb Isaac, Joe Devanny, David Peters, Conor Buckley, Derek Lande, Fatim Kurji, Can Okar, Duncan Sagar, Tom Hamilton, Jon Simons to name those still debating, off the top of my head. The likes of Andy Hume, Dennis Kavanagh, Ian and Colin Walsh, Daragh Grant, and Elliot Gold to name a few who have graduated that I have heard in the last year.

However, few of them will travel this far north to speak at an institution they seldom enconter and are historically unfamiliar with. Just another reason why an active, well-represented IV squad is an asset to all elements of the society.

All would likely jump at the chance to speak to the Oxford Union in one of their showpieces. That is the reputation we should aspire to.

Just because St Andrews, like the vast amjority of institutions who don't suckle on the world schools teat, churns out many mediocre speakers, and a few blindingly good ones (most of whom, funnily enough, are on your list and all I believe spoke at IVs - Beveridge and Dunn winning Glasgow Caley IV in 95, Bibby and Whitmore winning Dundee in 98 or thereabouts), doesn't automatically mean that all IV speakers are dull.

After all, was it not Ian Robertson (die hard IV hack) who virtually saved what was an incredibly turgid freshers debate this year from being a complete disaster?

[Barry Joss]

Mr Stewart, I appreciate that you are the IV Secretary, and I appreciate also that you are an experienced IV speaker. However, you would do well to drop the conceit that you know all and have seen all. Mr Wilson and I may not be "die hard IV hacks" but we do speak with the advantage of considerable knowledge and experience - gained over a considerable period of time.

We have seen many dozens if not hundreds of speakers in competition and LPH settings and have some idea whereof we speak. Can we agree at least to credit that your knowledge of people this year and last does not constitute the broad overview you would like to think it does? If you like, I too can rattle off lists of names of first class speakers and indeed cite debates which were made better for their having spoken.

And, for the record, I personally have been in LPH many many times over the years for debates where people engaged with the arguments and managed to be amusing at the same time and even - God forbid to arouse the passions of the House also. Making for an altogether more entertaining and purposeful event. When reduced to mere intellectual exercise debating becomes for the majority (who you are there to serve) tedious often to the point of coma inducing.

[John Stewart]

Barry,

Why not employ those cutting edge argumentative skills your obviously extensive IV experience has brought you and actually try engaging my arguments?

Or are you just going to continue to miss the point?

I'll help you by summarising:

1. IVs are not a purely intellectual exercise - style counts too, and in a big way.
2. There are a great many IV speakers on the circuit who can make your blood boil and hold your attention just as effectively if not more, in a showpiece environment than the usual LPH suspects.
3. Big name speakers can be just as likely to induce coma as IV speakers. In many cases, much more likely.
4. Not discounting your IV experience, extensive as I'm sure it is, but most of the speakers you would have known have since moved on. Things change, even in the hallowed tradition-clutching realms of LPH.

[Anon.]

[s]John Stewart wrote on 23:17, 11th Jul 2003:

3. Big name speakers can be just as likely to induce coma as IV speakers.


But without big name speakers, you're less likely to have an audience in which coma can be induced.

[Barry Joss]

John, you will exuse me if I now refer to you as a patronising moron. I will encourage you to look at my post and read it before replying as you accuse me of doing to yours.

I'm no longer interested in having this conversation with you, because you are clearly so entirely certain of your own debating superiority that you are incapable of so much as acknowledging my points.

I didn't mention big name speakers, I did not say that LPH was about display and nothing more, I did not say that none of the people you know/named were any good and I did not say that everyone I knew was brilliant.

Pay attention - what I said was that I have attended, organised and judged a great many inter-'varsity debates, I know how it is done, I know how it is judged and I know all of this over far, far longer than you - giving me the breadth of knowledge to be able to make INFORMED comparison.

Still too difficult for you?

[John Stewart]

Barry, I'm not trying to make this a personal thing.

I'm just somewhat upset that such a great debater as yourself (please tell us more of your wonderful and inspiring IV experience, because longevity is not a necessary precursor to excellence) seems so unwilling to debate the issue at hand.

As far as I'm concerned, you can play "mine's longer than yours" as much as you like, but that doesn't make you any better or worse, more or less atsute than me when it comes to IV debating.

[Eliot Wilson]

[s]John Stewart wrote on 20:40, 10th Jul 2003:
"Eliot,

Why not add Fraser Campbell and Rami Okasha to the list?" [i]

I could have done so. Though few, I suspect, will forget Rami and Duncan Cockburn at the 2001 Marquess of Bute final, when they defined "This House believes that British justice is white justice", a few weeks after the Stephen Lawrence uproar, as being about the reform of the Lord Chancellor's Department. It was not a good debate. In fact, it blew.

[i] "Yes, on the one hand there is a fundamental shift in IV debating towards a mentality that "content is king", but at the end of the day, no matter how dramatically you do it, someone who's spouting shite is, at the end of the day, spouting shite.

It more or less goes to match the equally lamentable recent trend of LPH away from informative speeches, and towards the sheer, mindless entertaining. All very well and good, it makes for a few jokes and giggles. But why sit through a debate for light entertainment? Surely the point is to present an important issue to the audience and to impart knowledge to them. Which, at the end of the day, is always helped by a lashing of good stylistic oratorical skill to hold their attention." [i]

Well, indeed. But I've seen accomplished IV debaters guilty of that just as much as "big-name" speakers.

[i] "While it may be nice to bill "big-name" speakers for LPH, many in my time so far have left a bitter taste in the mouth as they drone on about generalities with little depth to the information they are delivering. The best debates, I have always felt, are those that combine entertainment with education, leaving me with a smile on my face, and the knowledge that I have learned or acquired an appreciation of some issue I previously knew little about, or was interested in." [i]

That, I'm afraid, is not a function of "big-name" speakers. It's because we've had some very bad speakers as well as some good ones. Richard Dawkins, for example, although his presence filled the hall, gave a bad and patronising speech, and was, in my view, comprehensively out-argued by Arpad Pusztai (sp.?).

[i] "All in all, Eliot, I don't believe IVs and LPH are so fundamentally different as to render the two distinct entities. Like the best LPH debates, the best and most memorable IV debates are those that inform and entertain. There are plenty of great IV debaters out there who would translate very, VERY well into the LPH environement - for those who actually bother to go to IVs (No Eliot, I don't expect you to recognise any of the names.); ALex Deane, Jeremy Briar, Seb Isaac, Joe Devanny, David Peters, Conor Buckley, Derek Lande, Fatim Kurji, Can Okar, Duncan Sagar, Tom Hamilton, Jon Simons to name those still debating, off the top of my head. The likes of Andy Hume, Dennis Kavanagh, Ian and Colin Walsh, Daragh Grant, and Elliot Gold to name a few who have graduated that I have heard in the last year." [i]

I don't believe they're distinct entities either. Nor did I say that I did. What I said was that the style of debating in LPH and at IVs was diverging, and that only the very best speakers could successfully do both. Is that so controversial? And, please, don't patronise me. Better men have tried.

[i] "However, few of them will travel this far north to speak at an institution they seldom enconter and are historically unfamiliar with. Just another reason why an active, well-represented IV squad is an asset to all elements of the society." [i]

I am sorry to say that it is much, much simpler than that. Few speakers will come all this way because it's time consuming and, if we can't subsidise them, expensive.

[i] "All would likely jump at the chance to speak to the Oxford Union in one of their showpieces. That is the reputation we should aspire to." [i]

Now you're being ridiculous. We cannot match the Oxford Union and when o when will we stop trying to? The Oxford Union - of which I happen to be a member - is not just a debating society, it is a business with a turnover of hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is also internationally recognised. St. Andrews needs to acquire a more appropriate conceit of itself.

[i] "Just because St Andrews, like the vast amjority of institutions who don't suckle on the world schools teat, churns out many mediocre speakers, and a few blindingly good ones (most of whom, funnily enough, are on your list and all I believe spoke at IVs - Beveridge and Dunn winning Glasgow Caley IV in 95, Bibby and Whitmore winning Dundee in 98 or thereabouts), doesn't automatically mean that all IV speakers are dull." [i]

That the people whom I mentioned had debated at IVs was rather my point. I listed them as people who had successfully debated at IVs AND in LPH.

[i] "After all, was it not Ian Robertson (die hard IV hack) who virtually saved what was an incredibly turgid freshers debate this year from being a complete disaster?"


Erm, no. I spoke in that debate too, and, while it wasn't thrilling, and while our then-prospective Rector was a little, shall we say, out of left-field, Ian - who will not mind me saying this, I'm sure - did not in any way "save" the debate.

[Barry Joss]

John, I don't recall ever claiming to be a great debater. At best, I am a mediocre debater and I freely admit that. It does not, however, mean that I am a poor public speaker or that any argument I might put forth is also mediocre. You seem to miss the point that being an IV debater and being able to argue coherently are not the same thing. Often depressingly so.

I understand your point, I have answered your point, you continue to miss mine. Now, I'm going to say this one last time, and I want you to pay attention this time - as you ARE by your own acclamation a great debater.

I know more about IV debating than you seem prepared to give me credit for. I have been involved with St Andrews debating for a long time and in that time I have seen and befriended many speakers from all over the country. I am also, for what it's worth, an accredited judge and have been since you were in high school.

The above gives me what I have long maintained I have - experience and the longer view which allows me to put things into perspective and make informed comparison.

I do not doubt that you are astute enough to say X is better than Y on the circuit. Of course you are. But you lack the knowledge to say whether they are as good as or better than anyone else against a more objective standard. Do not be so quick to dismiss length of service - I wouldn't if someone were around who had been there for longer than I.

You seem to have me pegged as someone who has never strayed from LPH's hallowed halls and who is resistent to all forms of change. Which reveals that you are as ignorant of my involement in the Society as you are with everything prior to your arrival at university.

And, for someone who doesn't want to make it personal, you're doing a pretty lousy job of keeping it neutral with the patronising and the heavy sarcasm. Clearly you're as inept online as you are in social settings. Is this, perhaps, why you seem to hate LPH and the more traditional aspects of the Society so very much?

If so, maybe you should leave that part alone for those who do enjoy it and retreat entirely to the rarified world of IVs. For those who enjoy hearing the same rote arguments delivered time and again at machine-gun pace by the same self-congratulatory crowd I am prepared to believe its a good weekend away.

[John Stewart]

Now this is getting to be a little more fun. One thing that you need to learn about me, Barry (and there is much. Oh, so much), is that sarcasm is my normal method of communication. Try reading between those lines a little bit harder and maybe you'll come to understand. It's the way I speak. It's the way I think. It's the way I choose to interact with other people. It's not meant to be nasty.

Now, for someone who credits himself as being such a knowledgable party on IV debates, you do seem to have missed the fundamental point that to win an IV debate, coherent argument is essential. In fact, that generally tends to be the point, and what distinguishes a good IV speaker from the rest.

Sadly, that is often something that is sacrificed in a showpiece surrounding for general mirth. And sometimes, not even that. Being a good orator and being a good IV speaker are not mutually exclusive, Barry, and that is the point that you have consistently missed.

Now, I would never claim to be a great debater - not by any means. The fact that maybe in a Scottish context, or a St Andrews context, I am a good speaker by comparison to the rest (I credit myself with that) does not by extension mean that I believe myself to be great. I haven't even won anything yet. Indeed, it's only when you debate in the "room of death", as myself and Miranda experienced in Round 4 at Durham Open this year, that you can truly be pushed to your limits, see your fallacies, and start to improve, and I still have a lot of that to do yet.

However, I would claim to be a highly experienced debater, and also adjudicator, and that is an experience that I believe you are all too willing to dismiss off-hand. As Eliot said, in many ways IV debating has changed. Unlike LPH, it evolves. It has to. It's a competitive environement, and has to be constantly looking for new avenues to keep ahead of the strengthening international teams. Thus, while I would not say that your admirable length of service was irrelevant (quite the opposite. I'm sure you could write a comprehensive history of scottish debating over the last 10 years. I'm not sure anyone would care enough to read it, though), I would say that you may not be as "in touch" with IV debating as our current crop of speakers and adjudicators - not just myself. Judging the occasional mace round every year, and maybe maidens, does not make for "informed". Adjudication philosophy and speaking styles don't stay the same. For someone who's been around as long as you, I'll credit you with most likely realising that.

As far as LPH goes, the likely reason I perhaps have a mild distaste for the pomp and ceremony is more to do with my upbringing than anything else. I'm a good, working class, calvanistic scotsman. I despise opulence and what I percieve as pointless rigamarole. I have left wing leanings that do not necessarily sit well with the culture of the House. I am a relatively quiet and insular person when sober - I am not an extrovert. I like things to be spartan, efficient and economical.

HOWEVER - that is not something I choose to inflict on others. Aside from the occasional floor speech, all of which this year have been well recieved (IV speakers can do well in a formal debate), and the absence of a gown on my back (shock, horror), I do not intrude or restrict the house in any way. I appreciate the role that LPH plays in the debating society, the same way that I appreciate the role played by IVs and Schools. And dare I say it, and you may not believe it, I do actually enjoy a good showpiece debate, such as this year's Iraq debate, and potentially next year's S&M debate.

So maybe I don't have the personality you think I need to be a proper St Andrews debater. Maybe I choose to socialise outside of the debates "inner circle". Maybe I do enjoy IVs - had you actually gone to any during your time here, you might have as well. Maybe I'm not a traditionalist. Maybe in some ways I challenge the established way of thinking in the UDS. Maybe I'm not just going to go away if you ignore me long enough. Maybe I'm responsible for making decisions in the debating society. Maybe I make those decisions with a philosophy in mind that you don't like.

Just think. Maybe, somethimes, those decisions are right. Right for the IV squad. Right for the society.

Live and let live, Barry. I may not see LPH as the be-all and end-all of debating. That's probably where you and I part thinking. I may think there's more to debates than that. But that doesn't mean I go tearing into the society and try to interfere with those parts of it I maybe don't like or appreciate on a personal level. I have a job to do on the board and that is not necessarily to apply nose to grindstone in pulling in big name speakers to show off in LPH. It's to provide a service to the students in teaching them how to debate at whatever level they wish. You may profess to have the best interests of the society at heart, all I'm arguing is that you may not. Whether or not you realise it.

And, just out of interest, is anyone else in this world actually following this, or is my carefully construed sarcasm going to waste?

[Okocim]

Your sarcasm has not been missed John. I've been following this online saga with mild amusement since it began oh so long ago. To be honest, I've completely forgotten what the original thread was about and have just been enjoying the backbiting.

Please go on arguing gentlemen, this has brought back so many memories from my (now sadly ended) time in St Andrews. I miss you all already!