The Morning After

The rest of the Worlds' teams would like to apologise for the previous blog post.  This is what happens when you let Soumithri run amok with a computer after 9 cocktails; it does wonders for his writing skills.

But don't worry, John and Louise have also paid with a symphony of snoring from Soumithri throughout the night.

Now we go in search of breakfast to soothe Sleeping Beauty's hangover...

Worlds Day One

(almost) Everyone's drunk.

So, John Lee says he's the only person who is 'sensible", but we don't believe him. We all think we're all quite sensible. He is talking some random Latin Law. 

We've all arrived in one piece. Room arrangements are: John Lee, Louise, and Soumithri in one room, Azeem, Josiah, and Jon Kay in another. Abel has mysteriously gone missing. He has "unfinished business", apparently.

Plan A : Head to the pool in the morning, once we've recovered from tonight.

Soumithri is making everyone else listen to Pink Floyd, Dire Straits and Nirvana.

Manila is already living up to our expectations of drunken debauchery. The LSE debaters have gone down a storm.

That's all for tonight, guys. Tune in tomorrow for more adventures of the Knights Templar.

Day 3 of Euros

The LSE contingent are a tightly wound bunch today, with Lucas and Siodhbhra/Carlo and Micha furiously back tabbing, Emmett and Judith peacing out and hitting the gym hard and Jon Kay and Soumithri taking their anxieties out on the cricket. Currently, we're hoping we're not caught on the 13-14 point bracket (though we might thoroughly well be) but optimistically we're hoping to be on 15. Fingers crossed!

Continuing LSE debate's fascination with large bodies of water, Emmett took the plunge into the Atlantic and jumped into the bay of Galway from a diving board while the wind blew at gale force at 10p.m last night. Thankfully, Judith did not have to iron man day 3. Photos will be posted at some stage. 

Team LSE also got to know each other a little more intimately on the cab ride home after dinner. Choice quotes from the evening include "some times I take a dump and forget about it" (Emmett), "squatting is the most ergonomic way of doing it" (Carlo), "I often put my feet up against the door" (Lucas). Definitely a classy bunch.

Once more into the breach!

Hello dear reader!

As Siodhbhra freaks out about caffeine in green tea, and Lucas fumes about Parliament impeaching Obama, here is the latest.

Halfway through the tournament, having debated donor babies, Hitler, and an episode of the West Wing, here are the standings.

LSE A (Lucas and Siodhbhra) - 9 points
LSE B (Judith and Emmett) - 9 points
LSE C (Jon and Soumithri) - 10 points
ULU B (Carlo and Micha) - 9 points

To confirm, after round 5, LSE C is the most successful LSE team in the tournament! Continuing a long held tradition of Awesome LSE C teams (namely Judith and Emmett).

Points of interest:

Jon Kay survives for longest on mechanical bull: 29 seconds

Lucas destroys everyone else at Lasertag with 376 points (Wanker)

Emmett's shorts correspond to the length of success of LSE B. Currently, we might have to lower the hemline but we're looking to finish the day on straights. We might be in hot pants territory tomorrow.

And now for our special feature: Which Parkin family member did we meet today?

Judith, Soumithri and Siodhbhra went on a road trip round county Claire, Cork and Limmerick with Uncle Parkin, stopped in at the home of "an old friend" and then for 3 pints at the local pub. The drive from Shannon to Galway should take no longer than an hour, we saw the country and arrived promptly, 3 hours later.

More Parkin exploits to come! As our battery power is dying we shall come back with more news later.

Lots of Love,
LSE Debate in Galway

Hello from Galway!

In a bid to escape the north London riots, we've managed to safely brave the M25 and arrive in 'sunny' Ireland. We've communed with the locals (namely Siodhbhra's family), eaten the local delights (all the potatoes in the world) and managed to debate fairly successfully.

After 4 Rounds, the LSE contingent is on track for the break!

LSE A (Siodhbhra and Lucas) - 7
LSE B (Judith and Emmett) - 9
LSE C (Jon Kay and Soumithri) - 7
And our 'ULU' team Micha and Carlo - 8

We'll have a full update for you after lunch as we're now waiting for the draw for Round 5.

lots of love,
The LSE Euros Contingent

Recap!

Hey everyone!

We've gotten the results of the break and we've got John Ashbourne and Anser Aftab of LSE A making it through to the Octo-Finals! Hooray! Finishing on 18 points and some ridiculously high speaker points, they're ranked 24th on the tab.

LSE B and C found themselves facing off against each other in round 9 unfortunately, each on 16 points before the round began. Unfortunately neither went through with either team finishing on 18 or 17 points (we don't know the outcome of the round other than that the first went to TCD Law). We'll probably know when the tab comes out though. It's been a good tournament for everyone and here are our results for the in-rounds.

LSE C (Judith and Emmett) had a fantastic tournament and probably the most fun of all the LSE teams.
Round 1 - took a 1st (3 points) in a fairly easy room
Round 2 - took a 2nd (2 points) quite deservedly
Round 3 - took a 3rd (1 point) with possibly the rudest judge ever. not pleased about this result at all!
Round 4 - took a 3rd (1 point) with a judge that got rolled by his panel as he wanted to place us in the top half and they didn't. he apologized to us after the round though so we don't think all judges are evil.
Round 5 - took a 3rd (1 point) with the craziest judge in the competition who probably didn't speak English, both ULU, NUS and the last team in the round said that we won it quite clearly. many complaints and binning ensued.
Round 6 - took a 2nd (2 points) and things started looking up!
Round 7 - took a 1st (3 points) with us reverting back to debating about what we know best - the gay community and women!
Round 8 - took a 1st (3 points - we think at least, we could've gotten a 2nd but where we ended up in round 9 tells us we probably got a 1st) with us blatantly lying about the SADC (don't worry if you don't know what that is either).
Round 9 - ?

LSE B (Sean and Zhiheng) had a great tournament as well, probably the most consistent team of us all really.
Round 1 - took a 1st (3 points) against Yale C... finally, revenge for all the losses Zhiheng took against them on APDA and Sean took against them at Oxford! The swing team was actually decent, surprising because we expected swing teams to just be random people picked to debate at the last minute!
Round 2 - took a 2nd (2 points), dropping 1 point to NUS A, which Zhiheng thought was quite unjustified and completely disagreed with the feedback of, but oh well...
Round 3 - took a 3rd (1 point) in a debate on married vs. cohabiting couples, which both of us thought was one of the most low-impact, trivial and boring debates ever, but at least the feedback was amazing and we think the call was right.
Round 4 - took a 1st (3 points) in an economics motion! How could we not? Two economists (finance is a sub-brach of economics, of course) from the LSE? But economists got bashed by the other teams, as the unenlightened masses always do, and the School took a hit in the process (e.g. "Just because you graduate from the LSE doesn't mean you are right!" - clearly a false statement)...
Round 5 - took a 3rd (1 point) in a surprisingly strong room, Alaska A was impressive and the two closing Australian teams had really entertaining accents... don't remember much else about the Australians' speeches though...
Round 6 - took a 2nd (2 points) against some teams we had seen before on a motion about the right to strike, nothing particularly fascinating about the round except both of us having to abandon truth and defend Marxism for a while, oh well...
Round 7 - took either a 1st (3 points) or a 2nd (2 points), felt optimistic for the day
Round 8 - took a 3rd (1 point), very surprisingly because we thought that we had done far better than the other teams, but it turns out that we and the judge had different understandings of the case presented by Opening, so we were hurt for perceived inconsistencies - meh.
Round 9 - fratricide! Had to debate against LSE C in a bubble room, but all of us except the traitorous Judith Jacob blocked POIs from everyone else - the faces of the Irish team were priceless. Not sure how we did, but clearly not well enough to break despite having performed consistently decently during the tournament :( Sad face. Oh well :( More sad faces :( :( :(

John is too drunk/hung over to tell you about his debate glory and Anser is as usual AWOL.  Will keep you updated about how the octos go!

x
Judith and Zhiheng

What's Up Civilisation?!

Hey everyone!

Sorry we've been terrible at updating this. The internet doesn't work in our dorm rooms unfortunately (well, little else seems to work at this tournament). We're well into day 3 of this tournament and the LSE teams have been plodding along with some moments of brilliance (Sean and Zhi haven't killed each other) and instances where things have gone tits up (Anser being well and truly ill).

As far as rounds have been going the LSE teams have entered day 3 of the tournament on the following points after 6 rounds.

LSE A - 12
LSE B - 12
LSE C - 10

All in all we've been having a good tournament and hopefully we'll make the break tonight!

So what's really being going on? In brief because we're about to start round 8, here's what we've each been up to:

Anser
Anser had a bad case of the flu, Judith took him to the sketchiest hospital in the Southern hemisphere, Anser disappeared but was found with family friends in city (only Pakistanis will have family in all corners of the world), he was previously held up in a small dark room in the Kenyan airport as the organising committee thought it'd be awesome not to give him a real visa but a photocopy instead.