Blackburn wins the Double

Jenny Blackburn, in the Lower Sixth, this week triumphed in both the Ascot Rotary Club Schools Public Speaking competition and the English Speaking Union Schools Mace Debate.

Jenny was the main speaker for one of the host school's three senior teams participating in the Rotary Club of Ascot's Youth Speaks competition. Her topic was Cyberspace Can Break. Supported by team Chairperson, Tanya Gecim and Proposer of the Vote of Thanks, Lydia Tufnell, Jenny claimed that over-reliance on the fragile internet means that we run the risk of losing traditional skills when, on occasions like the Blackberry meltdown a few weeks ago, cyberspace failed and those skills were required. "People actually had to meet!" she said. "We tell ourselves that we’re getting more independent. In fact, we’re doing the opposite, and becoming ever more reliant on ever more things that can fail." Jenny noted that Slough was said to be the source of Blackberry's problems. Moving from Blackberries to Apples, she wondered whether Steve Jobs was quite the visionary that his eulogisers claimed. Her conclusion drew on Slough's most famous claim to fame since Betjamin's poem - 'The Office': "Vulnerable or not, who wants an offline life? It isn’t fit for humans, now. I gather much like Slough." The speech also gained Jenny the "Best Speaker" Cup.

The other two senior teams from St George's also acquitted themselves brilliantly. Ellen McLaughlin, Saskia Temple and main speaker Celina Brar not entirely seriously implored us to choose a new National Anthem more relevant to modern Britain, based on a song by a boy band that appeared on the 'X Factor'.  Elizabeth Yu, Jenny Tack and main speaker Bukola Toyobo angrily condemned comedians who step over the line of public decency when they poke fun at the disabled.

The intermediate competition, held on the same evening, was won by St Mary's School, with their worries about "The Fear of Failure".  Florence Bish-Jones, Lucy Platts and main speaker Allegra Moghtader-Mojdehi took the team accolades, while Leo Jarvis of Charters School was judged Best Speaker for his brilliant "Nerds: The Master Race". St George's were represented by Lottie Hughes, Kate Gibb and a heroic Grace Tufnell, who stepped in at a few hours' notice, owing to the illness of the team's main speaker.  They spoke, superbly under the circumstances, about the "Sin Bin", the wastepaper bin in a London park recently used by MP Oliver Letwin as his filing cabinet.

On Thursday the St George's Debating Team, Jenny Blackburn and fellow Lower Sixth Former Helen Sale, made it through to the Southern England zones semi-final of the English Speaking Union Schools Mace debating competition alongside host school, Licensed Victuallers, to make it huge week for Blackburn.