Thank You

Blogging worlds has been great fun. I want to say thank you to UBC's OrgComm for taking it in the spirit in which it has been intended, especially those who accidentally dropped a copy of the draw on the floor - you know who you are, and you're a gentleman. I want to thank anyone who bothered to read it and to comment in.

I especially want to thank the various people I had a chance to talk to over the debating days in an effort to get a comprehensive set of results for the higher echelons of the tab - everyone, from every country and University I spoke to was really nice, and having the excuse to come over and say hi was great!

Finally, I want to thank my girlfriend Doireann for her patience with me - she came over to Vancouver thinking she'd be an adjudciation widow and she ended up a blog-widow instead - Thank you!

Worlds Results

World Champions: Sydney G – Julia & Anna

Top Ten Speakers at Worlds:
1) Jess Prince
2) Sam Block
3) Josh Bone
4) Patrick Meaher
5) Will Jones & Adam Bott
7) Adam Chilton
8) David Denton
9) Alex Campbell
10) Jack Wright & Christopher Clerk

ESL Champion: IIU Malyasia A
ESL Top Speakers (The spelling is all over the shop!):
1) Said Hassan
2) Alkheim ????
3) Parat Sayta
4) Tamsin Elias
5) V Naranjan

EFLChampions : Singha A
EFL Top speaker: Masako Suzuki

Masters Champions: Quebec – Ali Dewji & Mathew Sinclair

Public Speaking: Michael Eielson I(s this spelt correctly)?

Best Comedy: Willard Foxton

Grand Final Draw & Motion

The draw fro the Grand final was as follows:

1P Cambridge C (Bob & Ronald)
2P Oxford D (Will & James)

1O Queensland A (Erin & Evan)
2O Sydney G (Julia & Anna)

The motion was:

"TTHBT economic growth is the solution to environmental problems"

If I had to call it, I think I would go for 2Prop. I mentiond to a few people at the end of day two that I thought they'd break first and never blogged it in case I was wrong. I regretted not throwing it out there when they did actually break first and my prediction was borne out - may as well risk it for a biscuit this time!

Clarification and Apology

It appears my post about Thai Night has caused some degree of upset to Kevin Massie. I understand that that post could be taken to mean that Kevin gave legal advice at a point in his legal career when he was not entitled to do so and when doing so could be considered a breach of a number of guidelines and standards. It was not my intention to suggest that this was the case.

I want to apologise to Kevin for whatever upset the post has caused him - Kevin and I have always had a good relationship, that has included a good degree of verbal sparring and barbs, but I have never sought to cause him upset and I hope that he believes and accepts that.

The post was intended to have some humour value - the humour is gone so the post is too.

Semi-Final Motion

"TTHW ban websites that glorify eating disorders"

I think this is a great motion.

World Semi Finals

Revised Semi-Final Draw (revise d by me - i got it wrong first time!)

Semi 1
St. Andrew's A
Oxford D
Oxford C
Sydney G

Semi 2
Sydney D
Cambridge C
Queensland A
Alaska A

Congratulations to all those advancing, and commiserations to UCD L&H A who went down fighting.

ESL Final

The team advancing to the World ESL Final are:

IIU Malaysia A
SSE A
National Law School of India A
Hebrew B

Semi-final announcement postponed

The announcement of the cut to Semi-Finals and ESL Final has been delayed. It was scheduled to take place before the Masters Final, the the decision was tekn to postpone the announcement because one team was not present.

It seems ridiculous that all those teams who turned up on time should be made to suffer because one team didn't bother turning up. If you give a time to announce something and a team isn't present then surely it should just "suck to be you" for them, especially when the semi-finals themselves aren't scheduled to take place until tomorrow morning.

Almost everyone is extremely frustrated with the decision - noone who deserved to benefit from it does, and a whole load of people are pretty angry.

Quarter Final Motion

The Motion for the Quarter Finals is:

"TTHB that people sentenced to life imprisonment should be allowed to choose the death penalty instead"

Quarter Final Draw 4

QF 4
Stanford A 2o
George Washington A 2p
Sydney D 1p
Cambridge C 1o

Quarter Final Draw 3

QF 3
Queensland A 1p
KCL A 2o
Cambridge A 2p
Alaska A 1o

Quarter Final Draw 2

Quarter Final 2 is:

QF 2
Sydney A 1p
Sydney G 2p
Sydney E 2o
Oxford C 1o

Quarter Finals Draw 1

Quarter Final 1 is:

QF 1
Oxford D 1p
St. Andrews A 1o
L&H A 2p
Queensland B 2o

Octo Finals Over

The octo-finals are now over. I think they're going to make the teams sweat until after lunch so it'll be a while before I get the results. That said , I want to take back my criticism of the motion as boring. The debate was actually really enjoyable and a few others have agreed that their initial reactions were confounded. Well done to the Adjudication team and whichever of them pushed the motion.

Octo Final Motion

The Octo-Final motion is:

"TTHBT developing nations should nationalise their energy resources"

Boooooring!

Cork to Host Worlds 2009

The UCC Philosophical and Law Societies will host the 29th World Universities Debating Championships. A close vote saw the Cork bid win out over a strong challenge from Botswana. Derek Lande will be the CA for Cork Worlds and Art Ward will be the convenor.

Logan was to CA the Botswana bid, but he was announced well after the start of UBC worlds, and the lack of clarity about the adjudication team made it difficult for them to convince many A-status nations to vote for them.

Hopefully Botswana will consider bidding again next year, as many aspects of their plans looked spot on.

For now though, congratulations to Derek, Art, and Cork.

Irish Judges Breaking

Those breaking as adjudicators from Ireland:

Margeurite Carter
Diarmuid Early
Sharon Dillon-Lyons
Dave Kenny
Derek Lande
Simon Larragy
Ciarán Lawlor

Worlds' Council News: AU Worlds Confirmed

Assumption University, Thailand, have been confirmed as the hosts for 2007/2008 without opposition. They gave a hugely impressive presentation, leaving everyone pretty enthusiastic and already looking forward to spending next year's New Year in a holiday resort.

Congratulations.

The Harvey-Smith Family

During Debate Day 1 one delegate was heard to comment on "how close" Neil and Jess were, and "how well they get along". They followed that up by asking "how much older is Neil?" I wasn't sure but the next comment was more troubling: "They're like you and Julia"

Now Julia is my younger sister - she has debated for her school a few times, and won one of the Irish School's Mace competitions. Obviously, I get a lot of stick from everyone on the Irish circuit - "how do you feel about your sister being taller than you?"; "how do you feel about your sister being a better debater than you?"; etc - but I've never been accused of marrying her!

I've heard about people who have been together a long time, starting to look alike (see above - maybe this is what the Harvey-Smith's will look like in a few years) but I just don't see the resemblance between Neil and Jess.

Of course it also begs the question: what sort of relationship does that delegate have with their sisters?

ESL Break

1) Hebrew B
2) Bonn A
3) IIU A
4) MSIU A
5) Bonaparte A
6) SSE A
7) Tilburg A
8) Sains Malay A

The Main Break

1) Oxford D 23
2) Cambridge B 22
3) Oxford E 22
4) Sydney A 21
5) Sydney E 21
6)McGill A 21
7)Sydney D 20
8) Sydney B 20
9) L&H A 20
10) Cambridge C 20
11) Cambridge A 20 (after a Coin toss)
12) Oxford C 20
13) UCC Phil A 20
14) Yale B 19
15) Stanford A 19
16) Oxford B 19
17)Oxford A 19
18) Durham A 19
19) Queensland A 19
20)Sydney G 19
21)SMU B 19
22)Alaska A 19
23) Birmingham A 19
24) Durham B 19
25)Queensland B 18
26) Helsinkis A 18
27) Melbourne A 18
28)Manchester A 18
29)Middle Temple 18
30)KCL A 18
31)George Washington A 18
32)St. Andrews A 18