Contest report for 8 September 2014

Written by Svetlana

Introduction

Bloomsbury Speakers hosted its Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest on Monday 8^th September with the president Jo starting off with a quote about laughter from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist, and by introducing the Contest Chair Janet, a Bloomsbury Speakers member who knows all about contests having won the club, the area, the district, and winning the honourable third place at the UK and Ireland contest back in May.

The first half was the Humorous Speech section consisting of 3 contestants and the second half was the Table Topics section consisting of 5 contestants.

Humorous Speech Contest

Setting the pace with her speech entitled “Switch Off and Let Go”, Helen reminded us of how important it was to switch off and let go of technology when we are at one with nature. It was a fascinating vivid story of a long weekend walk in the countryside involving losing the path when GPS and mobile phone batteries let them down, getting hungry BUT having a blissful time no matter what. They were rewarded at the end with a free-range chicken dinner in a pub.

The second speaker, Swarajit, previous President of the club, in his speech entitled “The Seven Deadly Sins” offered us a fountain of his unique, sarcastic, dry humour interlaced with anecdotes. He carefully enumerated the seven sins and assured us that every minute of our lives we are an inch away from sinning or even just drowned in it without quite realising it. He went on with naming the sins and providing examples for wrath, sloth, gluttony, and greed mentioning manners, eating habits and even the lifestyles of Hollywood stars. Swarajit’s speech was interrupted with laughter at least 32 times while he maintained his famous friendly and calm half-smile.

The third Speaker was Peter F with his speech entitled “My School Holiday”. Peter took us on a journey to his childhood, exotic with adventures, but so recognizable by games, joys, and battling fears, by laughs of friends at each other and memories of youth, which we could easily connect with. We laughed and we relived his stories with Peter: stealing fruit from farmers’ gardens to have a picnic with boys, running away from the farmer and his toothless dog and then running after the dog and hiding in the bush; being bitten by a snake and pulling the snake off his arm and throwing it far away while everyone else was scared and left him alone. Only the time limit could interrupt us from listening to Peter!

Table Topics Speech Contest

In the second half of the meeting, Janet introduced the table topics contest, where each contestant was required to give a 1-2 minute response to the same question: “If it were biologically possible, should men be chosen to get pregnant?”

Peter F’s opinion as someone who’d witnessed pregnancies and childbirths was not to recommend men to get pregnant and have babies as it was extremely difficult and painful and should only be left to women.

Egor started off with a rhetorical question, why it should not be possible? If attitudes to marriage have changed so much that there are same sex marriages then why shouldn’t one of the partners get pregnant and give birth?

Peter L had contradictory thoughts. On the one hand, men were so adventurous and courageous throughout human history that they should try out pregnancy and childbirth. For instance, he might be too old to go to Mars, but maybe he should be given a chance to become a mother and experience new parenting role of a father-mother.

Jo’s take on the question was that she as a woman had a choice to be or not to be pregnant; and how wonderful and bizarre that experience was. For the sake of fairness, she said, men too should have that choice.

Joe chose to praise women to the skies for the role of bringing humans into this world. But he was equally immensely happy for all men that they do not have to do this and it should stay like that.

Results

When the judges’ ballots had been counted and checked, drum rolls were provided by the audience and with suspense built up by the chief judge Ayse the results were announced.

In the Table Topics Speech Contest:

• Third place went to Joe
• Second place went to Peter L
• First place went to Jo

In the Humorous Speech contest, only the first place was announced, which went to Swarajit.

The Next Round – Area 34 Contest

Congratulations to all our contestants and particularly to Swarajit and Jo who will now go on to represent the club at the Area 34 contest on Thursday, 25^th September at 55 Broadway (directly above St. James’s Park tube station), SW1H 0BD.

Please go along and show your support! Registration is required at the following web page: area34contests.eventbrite.co.uk.

Next Meeting

Our next regular meeting will be held on Monday, 22^nd September, upstairs at The Clerk & Well pub, 156 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R 5DU. Doors open at 6:30pm.