The girl who made the UN silent.

[admin]

[lark descending]

That is really impressive -




Did she really cycle all that way?

[admin]

well

no.

i suspect she had to use up some of her share of carbon allowance to make that speech (worth every cubic? inch*, imh)

* i don't know what i'm talking about - but then - i haven't flown for over ten years.

[lark descending]

It was an excellent speech for someone of her age, Bets, and I feel a bit of a meanie pouring cold water over it. I just have an aversion to children telling adults how to behave when they willingly form part of the problem.

If she insists on walking in the rain and refuses offers of holidays abroad; if she campaigns in her school to get the heating turned down in a Canadian winter (or the air conditioning in summer) then I apologise.

[marchesarosa]

I thought I knew it all at that age, too. I wrote a letter to President Khrushchev about the Cuba crisis, the local paper picked it up. I would not use those same arguments today. Time lends a perspective and knowledge that children cannot possess.

[Jade]

Its very well written. Do we know if she wrote it too?

[lark descending]

Jade, I suspect that she would not have been able to deliver it so well had it been someone else's speech.

School debating seems very sophisticated these days ; did you see the national young speakers event on TV earlier this year? It was fascinating to see what children could achieve, given the right tuition. The contentants were required to research and speak on subjects they previously knew nothing about, and there was a very good 12 or 13 year old among the finalists.

Having watched that series, I believe this girl has had professional coaching, but I also have no reason to doubt that she meant every word.

[Jade]

True and she did extremely well. Did you see that programme on finding a good presenter from amongst our younger teenagers? they were dreadful.

[lark descending]

No, I don't remember a young presenter series, but here is the website (if you are interested) of The Speaker, with some clips: Duncan won, and I always thought he was 13 - but I was wrong, he was 14.

speaker finalists

And here's what Michael Deacon thought of them all: it could be our own Joe writing:

There are few more heartless things a parent can do than to show other people a home video of you as a child. Yes, that really is you, aged three, urinating placidly into the geraniums. And yes, that really is you, aged 12, bawling energetically out of key in the school production of Cats. Aw. Weren’t you cute?

Still, at least your embarrassment is localised. At worst, your youthful goofs will be seen only by a smattering of aunts and cousins and prospective life partners. Imagine being a contestant on The Speaker, BBC Two’s search for Britain’s finest pubescent orator, the final of which was last night.

Kay Kay, one of the losing finalists, is only 15. Think how the poor chap’s cheeks will burn, years from now, when chortling relatives and acquaintances and perhaps even complete strangers remind him that, on national television, as a cherubically chubby adolescent, he blared, “This is what Kay Kay’s achieved – bang!” And, “I’m the one you need to look out for, mate! The beast from London!”

Aside from the impermeably self-confident Kay Kay, the finalists in this shrill festival of precocity were 16-year-old Irene (less swotty version of Hermione from Harry Potter) and 14-year-old Duncan (adorable Andrex puppy on a sugar high). The topic they were given for their speeches was “Children’s rights abroad”. For research, they were taken to Malawi, where they met people their age who had primitive sanitation and in some cases HIV.

Good preparation for the contestants, certainly. But not quite so good for the programme. Having still not learnt its lesson from the dismal Fame Academy (its 2002 version of Pop Idol in which it rashly gave the wannabes instruments and let them write their own songs), the BBC evidently remains convinced that television talent contests can be serious and educational.

Or maybe it decided that inserting this worthy but dull and over-long segment would make the episode critic-proof: if you give the episode the thumbs down, not only are you sneering at children, you’re sneering at children who are trying to spread the word about tragedy-stricken Africans.

Eventually it was back to London for the speeches. Kay Kay, perhaps having been as uninterested in the Malawi segment as I was, managed to get through his breezily self-aggrandising speech with almost no mention of it. The judges were aghast: not enough “personal”, “humbling” stuff about the poor. Irene delivered that in heaps, and won almost universal praise (“They were moved! They were moved!” she squealed rapturously afterwards, like a tiny Kate Winslet on Bafta night. “I’m so happy!”).

But Duncan won. I’d like to think it was because he was the only contestant who demonstrated a sense of humour: “When I heard I was going to Africa, I was ecstatic. The holiday of a lifetime! Then I heard we were focusing on children’s rights. I was gutted.”

Actually though I suspect he won because the judges kept cooing admiringly among themselves over the one duff image in his speech: “Where do we slice the line of luxury?” What this luxurious line might look like, and how exactly one goes about slicing a line, none of them explained.

Still, Duncan was undoubtedly the best on the night; Earl Spencer was so keen for him to win that, when he and his fellow judges convened in private, he told them that Irene was “a victim of her own earnestness”, despite having previously told her, to her face, that she was “excellent”. But Irene shouldn’t take it too badly: if she is a victim of her own earnestness, she may well have a lucrative future commissioning television talent contests for the BBC.

[Jade]

the very one larky!

[aubrey]

PG Wodehouse had the same typewriter for maybe 50 years, but every part of it had been replaced.

Every part of us is replaced after 7 years (I think it is) so you are not the same person as you were when you were young and shouldn't feel embarrassed about stuff you did back then. Or so I tell myself.

[lark descending]

Feb 16, 2010 8:49:20 GMT Jade said:

the very one larky!

I didn't think they were that bad, and (as always) it was interesting to see how they progressed.

In many ways knocked the girl in the OP into a cocked hat.

They weren't allowed notes, and she was obviously reading from something;

They only had a short time to research and compose their speech;

Most importantly I cannot remember any of them saying anything as blunt as : "I've come 5,000 miles to tell you adults you must change your ways", which somewhat got up my nose! Perhaps some of their messages amounted to the same thing, but I guess that much of the art of debate lies in subtlety.

spot the difference: Duncan's final speech

Irene's final speech (the over earnest one!)

[Jade]

(agree about the 5k miles to tell you off thing)

[lark descending]

Feb 16, 2010 9:33:06 GMT aubrey said:

PG Wodehouse had the same typewriter for maybe 50 years, but every part of it had been replaced.

Every part of us is replaced after 7 years (I think it is) so you are not the same person as you were when you were young and shouldn't feel embarrassed about stuff you did back then. Or so I tell myself.

Someone should invent a some way of erasing embarrassing memories, Aubrey! I still remember some of my cringe-worthy past.

[Jade]

gin works