http://www.esu.org/tours/reports/report_marrs

Report on the English Speaking Union’s American Tour 2004 Robert Marrs The Rocket, Mayfair, London – September 7th 2004.

After a day of bumming around London, I met Nye (my touring partner) and Trevor for a spot of dinner. The form was to tell us how to behave on the tour and to tell us what we could expect. Considering that the British debating circuit is so small, insular and, to an extent, incestuous, it was somewhat strange that I was going on a tour with someone I’d met only briefly once before at Stellenbosch Worlds.

New York City – September 12th 2004 After a sadistically early flight from Manchester to London, I met up with Nye at Heathrow and we got a pleasant flight to New York. We were met at JFK by what seemed to be a full battalion of Customs Officers. We had to fill in a form (but managed to miss the retina scan/finger printing1) which such tricky questions as ‘Are you, or have you ever been, a terrorist’, ‘Are you, or have you ever been involved, in genocide?’, ‘Were you involved in the Nazi war crimes in Poland between 19331945?’ and ‘Have you ever pleaded immunity from ICC tribunals’. All of which were ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers. Entertaining, but we filled them in properly and were met on the other side by Matt Sobnosky of Hofstra University.

Matt was hosting us for an evening before we shot off the following day to Wabash, so he took us out for a meal and put us up in a hotel opposite Madison Square Gardens. The following day we decided it would be rude to go to New York without going up the Empire State Building, so we headed up it and the views were spectacular.

Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Leaving Matt at La Guardia, we headed to Wabash College. This was to be our first stop proper - i.e. where we actually met students and debated. Wabash is a beautiful, old campus in the middle of Indiana. It is part of the liberal arts phenomenon, which Britain has thus far avoided, but more intriguingly it was an all male university. Both Nye and myself were intrigued about why a young guy would go to a dry, all male campus – but everyone reassured us that it was really cool and they all seemed to enjoy it, which was the main thing.

The college was clearly well funded as we were put up in a stunning on-campus hotel.

On the second day of our stay, we found out the motion we would be debating was about whether or not to negotiate with terrorists. A bit of research later and we headed to the chamber, which had a reasonably sized audience. We spoke well and won the debate convincingly, with memorable arguments such as ‘al-qa’ida might have a point really’. Afterwards, we headed to a fraternity – a novel experience for us, and for once the movies had got it all correct. One guy had a fully operational bar in his room (though somewhat tellingly no desk) and the only literature available in the bathroom was Playboy. We didn’t really understand why someone would go through the hell of pledging, but it was interesting to see an American institution. The following day we hung out with some of the debaters including the president of the Malcolm X Institute on campus, who gave us some interesting insights into American life. He also took us 1

to Wal-Mart so we could look at guns – which was a lot more exciting than it sounds.

Wabash was a quaint and traditional college, and we thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and the debate.

Rio Hondo Community College, Whittier, CA. We were met at LAX by a guy named Gil Puga – a man with a hugely infectious laugh and a real enthusiasm for debating. We were staying in Long Beach 2, and in the motel where they filmed the Johnny Depp movie ‘Blow’.

We did four debates at Rio Hondo, which was tough but enjoyable. The first one was on the slightly bizarre motion ‘This house believes critical thinking is better than creative thinking’. It very quickly became incredibly circular, I was off my game speaking wise but Nye spoke well and we took a win in front of some truly baffled schoolchildren. In the evening we debated on whether or not the police should be allowed to collect DNA for people who are released without charge (a debate we were to repeat the following night). My LAPD jokes went down well, which was nice.

The following day was, quite frankly, bedlam. Gil took us to a high school to debate against a couple of his debaters. Gil reassured us that there would be a few classes of people. In fact, the entire school came out to watch us in a basketball arena, which seated over 1,000 people. The debate was about globalisation, but the kids didn’t like listening to our carefully constructed arguments and preferred when we shouted ‘who likes Taco Bell?’ as an example of globalisation. The children were actually screaming at us. The poor guys we were debating were onto a loser when they attacked Taco Bell, and I’ll never forget the child who stood up midway through one of their speeches and screamed ‘you suck’.

In the evening, we repeated the DNA debate in front of a different audience and went out for a night on the town in Long Beach with the team.

Irvine Valley Community College, Orange County, CA. Gary Rybald picked us up from Gil’s place and we headed down to the O.C (the eponymous TV show is surprisingly accurate). Gary basically gave us the weekend off and told us we would be debating about intervention in the Sudan. He left us to our own devices for the weekend – so we explored a little and watched the election coverage.

On the Monday, we headed to the chamber to debate against Shawn and Rochelle.

We’d done a lot of prep for the debate – partly because Irvine Valley had a good reputation, partly because I wanted to prove that I could debate seriously as well as play for laughs, partly because we wanted to defeat the Republican Shawn but mostly as Nye wanted to show off to Rochelle. The debate was of a very high standard, and we were surprised when we took a large majority vote – we thought it would have been closer. We headed out with the team for a nice Chinese and a few beers.

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. After hearing so much about it we finally made it into LA proper. We were only going to be in LA for a day, so we couldn’t see much unfortunately. The debate was on the motion ‘This house believes media created stereotypes are good for democracy’ - a difficult motion, and we couldn’t believe it when the USC team asked 2

if they could go prop. After the debate, we headed to Hollywood and had a nice evening on the tiles with the USC debate team. It was a very nice stop with very nice people so were sad to be leaving after having seen so little Northwest College, Redmond, Washington.

A short plane ride from LA to Seattle and we were greeted by two girls called Desiree and Tania, the first people to pick us up who thought that a sign would be helpful. We were staying in a fantastic hotel, and were treated to a nice Thai meal by the coach, Gary Gillespie. Northwest is an Assembly of God school, a novel concept to Brits as we don’t have overtly religious schools.

We were staying in Redmond (just outside Seattle) for a few days, and on our day off Gary and a debater called Mux took us round the sights of the city. It is a truly stunning city. We also attended an Assembly of God service – completely different from dour Church of Scotland services (my only religious experience to date) but it was interesting to see how it all worked.

After the service, we debated about whether or not a Bush re-election would be good for the world. We won in front of a largely republican audience!

Later in the day we debated again on whether the War in Iraq was just. This threw up some interesting quotes – I argued that it was hypocritical to lecture the Middle East on human rights whilst allowing the abomination of Guantanomo Bay to occur. At this point, Mux offered me the point ‘Sir, we aren’t breaking their human rights at G. Bay, we feed them’. I tried to point out that there was a subtle difference between human rights and basic sustenance and carried on. We won the debate, and after a nice reception headed to our luxurious hotel.

Our final day at Northwest included a trip to a stunning waterfall and a trip round the Boeing museum. We had to debate in the evening against UBC on whether or not Canadians should keep the monarchy. It was a good debate, and was very funny with the judges siding for us, and the audience siding for the Canucks.

University of Miami, Florida.

We were up painfully early to get a flight to Miami, which had been hit by a hurricane the night before. We thought that the last thing Miami needed was two whingeing limeys, but after an incredibly long day of waiting around airports etc, we were made incredibly welcome by Dave Steinberg (the U. Miami Coach).

U. Miami was in a fever of excitement – the previous week the Dalai Lama had spoken and the weeks events included Ralph Nader, the first Presidential debate, the British Debate All-Stars3 and, perhaps most specially, the wrestlers of WWE. On the first full day in Miami, we debated against Skylar and Jodie on whether or not advertising distorts democracy. This was the first time an American team had really attacked us during our speeches, which was a nice change and made us feel at home.

After a day of touring around Miami, we headed to the union to do a ‘pub debate’, which was to be televised. The motion was ‘This house would end the presidential debates’, somewhat opp-weighted given the climate in Miami but we acquitted ourselves well and somehow managed to win. Interestingly, Chris Nowinski (WWE superstar) was moderator for the debate and it was a little novel to see Nye threatened with a chair during his speech, although fun nonetheless.

3

We were alternately called this, or ‘the Harlem Globetrotters of Debate’

University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Mississippi was our first stop in the South, something we were both looking forward to and were a little nervous about as every American we’d met had said ‘you aren’t going to Mississippi are you?’ Happily, Mississippi was one of our favourite stops on the tour. After a nice dinner with a couple of USM professors on the first night, we had a busy day of going to classes where we were quizzed about British life. ‘Will Tony Blair win?’, ‘what do you think of Bush?’ and, bizarrely, ‘what’s the divorce rate in Britain?’ were all asked and we enjoyed the discussions with the class. In the evening, in front of around 200 people, we debated against the Iraq war invasion. The prop defined on al-qa’ida links and WMD and we shot it down pretty quickly. This was the day that Donald Rumsfeld had said there ‘was no concrete links between alqa’ida and Iraq’. It was a fun debate though, and we headed out for a nice meal and a few drinks afterwards.

Unfortunately, we had to head off the following morning – it was an incredibly brief stop, which was a shame as we’d really enjoyed the atmosphere of the college and the company of the debaters.

Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

We were met at Nashville airport by Greg Simmerly (known almost universally as ‘coach’) and headed to the town of Murfreesboro. Unbelievably, the hotel was hosting a Scottish convention and there were lots of Americans walking around in kilts. One man stood out by announcing himself ‘Jason Pzreworski of the Clan Donald’.

It’s strange that in undeniably the most patriotic country in the world people cannot admit they are American – they are Irish-American, Scottish American etc.

Over the next few days, we explored Murfreesboro, Nashville etc and had a few lazy days, which were very much appreciated. The night before we left we debated whether or not America should be policeman of the world. The MTSU team defined this on Iraq saying this was an example of bad unilateralism, we pointed out it was multilateral and took it from there. We won convincingly – perhaps the only time in my debates career that I beat a team whose first 8 letters were ‘Middle Te’. We really enjoyed Tennessee – experiencing country music, Hooters and a few fun nights out.

Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri.

We arrived in St. Louis having heard that Scott and Gina Jensen (our hosts) were the nicest people on the debates circuit, they didn’t disappoint. We debated at Webster the morning after we arrived on giving more money to public schools; it was an interesting debate and somewhat bizarrely a draw. After the debate, the fun began. A few of the team accompanied us to the City Museum. This wasn’t, however, your normal museum with dust, an old curator and exhibits of butterflies nailed to some wood. This was, in my humble opinion, one of the best ideas of all time.

The City Museum was in fact a massive indoor play park with adult sized slides, ball ponds etc. It was brilliant. There was even a bar there! We then headed down to the arch, which makes St. Louis famous4.

The following day we were invited to judge at Drury University at an American Parliamentary tournament. The style was somewhat different to BP – lots of opposition teams ran ‘topicality’, basically arguing that the proposition definition was 4

It is often visible in Nelly videos.

either non-debatable or wasn’t in line with the motion. Thus a lot of the debate was arguing about the debate, rather than the issues at stake. If I’m being honest, this tactic made the debates utterly dismal. However, in the USA you get paid to judge and this made it all a lot better.

Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas.

After an incredibly early start, we headed to Texas. Our host was a lovely guy named Wayne Kraemar, who had a very British sense of humour and, arguably, the finest moustache I have ever seen.

In the afternoon we met up with one of the TSU debaters, Matt Tiffee. Matt had done the reciprocal tour the year before and had attended Ancients so it was nice to see someone we had met before.

We were taken out to San Antonio on a nights drinking with Wayne and Matt and had a lot of fun visiting the Alamo, ‘historic bars’ and spending time on the beautiful (and bar laden) river walk).

The following day, we had to debate in front of a school on global warming. The debate was a bit muddled, but somewhat fun – although, not quite like our experience in LA (a sort of debate version of Beatlemania).

After, the schools debate we headed to the Saltlick – a fantastic Texas BBQ place and then out for a few beers in Austin.

On our final full day at San Marcos, our day arrived. Wayne had arranged for us to shoot guns. We shot a pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun – it was a lot of fun. Nye was an excellent shot. One of the experiences of the tour! In the evening we debated against the Tiffee brothers on whether or not US Foreign policy had affected the US standing in the world. The debate was very good, and we lost – for the only time on the tour. We both enjoyed TSU immensely; it was definitely one our favourite stops.

West Texas A & M, Amarillo, Texas We arrived in Amarillo just in time to watch the third presidential debate, which we were to review for the local newspaper. The local paper questioned us about the election, debates and candidates and we thought that there would be a small article the next day.

Both of us were quite tired so we were driven to our hotel. I was driven by a guy called Royce. A lovely guy, who was a real cowboy – he chewed tobacco, wore a cowboy hat, could lasso things etc!

The following morning we were confronted with the newspaper – the front page had a picture of Bush and a headline underneath ‘British debaters nix Bush’. The article included a jokey comment that I’d made ‘we’d rather have someone like him (Bush) running a bar not running our country.

For lunch we were taken to the Big Texan – an institution that is famous for its 72oz (6lb) steak. Neither Nye (being a Vegan) nor myself (being scared for my health) attempted it.

The debate was in the evening, and was the first one were we had to split up. The motion was ‘This house would ban books in public schools’, Nye defined well and everyone spoke pretty well. We headed off to play some board games with the debaters, and had a relatively early night.

University of Louisiana Lafayette, Louisiana.

After a brief stop in the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, we headed to Lafayette. Everyone we had spoke to had said that Louisiana was different from the rest of the USA – the people spoke French, they had a different legal system and there were massive Cajun and Creole influences.

On our first full day in Lafayette we debated on whether or not to legalise cannabis – a topic that we both knew inside out, in the morning, and had the rest of the day off.

The debate was of a good standard – the debaters we were up against were trying out a case of decriminalising cannabis, and it was enjoyable to test their case.

In the evening, we were invited to a Fish & Game fair where we ate a lot of traditional Louisiana food and listened to the stylings of a zydeco band. After stuffing ourselves, the debaters (Nick and Chris) took us out drinking in Lafayette – which may not have the reputation of New Orleans, but it definitely should have!

Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

We arrived in Baylor somewhat hungover but were met by two friendly girls at Waco airport. We arrived pretty late at night and in the car ride home they filled us in about Waco. Firstly, it was famous for the Branch Davidians and David Koresh. Secondly, it was famous for being very close to the Western White House and thirdly, it is famous for Baylor, an academically excellent Baptist university.

We had a lie in the next morning, something which we kicked ourselves for as it meant that we couldn’t do a tour of the remains of the Branch Davidian complex.

Instead, we went to George W. Bush’s favourite restaurant for lunch with the coach Matt Gerber and a grad. Assistant called Dave.

The debate for the evening was whether the benefits of stem cell research outweighed the cost, so we spent the afternoon researching the issue and trying to avoid making tactless Christopher Reeve jokes.

The debate itself was a bit of a farce – we defined it on embryonic stem cell research and put the case forward semi-decently. The Baylor boys (Obi and Oy) stood up and told the audience why we were eugenicists and Nazi’s. It turned into a bit of a free for all.

Afterwards, we headed out for a meal and some drinks with the team. They entertained us with a story that there was a guy at Baylor who carried a 6ft cross with him at all times to ‘understand the suffering of Christ’. This guy had it on wheels – I personally thought that the wheels were making a mockery of Christ’s suffering, and suggested that the debate team knock up a crown of thorns for him. We all agreed that the last thing Waco needed was someone else claiming they were the second coming.

Although the debate was a bit lopsided we had a good time in Baylor.

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Fayetteville was our next stop. We knew little about it except that the all-pervasive store Wal-Mart was based in the city. We were met by a couple of jack the lad’s Ryan and Ron, they had a nice sense of the absurd and were humorous guys. Ryan seemed to be on a one-man mission to create new words, peppering his speech with words

such as Repug (for repugnant, republicans) and religics (for the general field of religion).

After a nap, we headed for a meal with the entire team and then headed to a couple of bars. Due to the ridiculously strict licensing laws in America, we had to leave as Ryan wasn’t 21. He, as always seemed to be the case, had a solution. He opened his dad’s bar for us!

The following morning, Ryan and Wayne picked us up and we headed for some lunch. As the election was nearing we wanted to head to the Democrat and Republican headquarters to see what was going on. Both were very welcoming, the Republicans so welcoming that the lady in the store offered to get me on the register!

In the evening we debated about whether or not Blair was Bush’s poodle, which was a debate full of gags and little on substance! Fun nonetheless. Afterwards, we headed out on the town with the team and ended up in a fraternity party where they had all dressed up as ‘hicks’.

University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa.

After, arguably, the scariest flight of my life from Minneapolis to Cedar Falls we were met by a young coach called Jake Thompson. He told us that the society was relatively new, and therefore he didn’t know what to expect – which put him in the same boat as us.

Having briefly had a nap, Jake picked us up and took us bowling. Now we’d both bowled in the UK, but having seen ‘The Big Lebowski’ et al we realised how culturally important bowling was to the American psyche. We realised why when we found out that they sold beer for 25 cents a cup inside! Because of this ludicrous price, we had a fantastic time although as time went on our bowling became a little erratic.

The following morning we were supposed to debate about lowering the drinking age to 21. Nye was feeling pretty ill, so I debated 1 on 1 with Jake. It was a very amusing debate, and I think the class enjoyed it.

In the evening myself, Nye and Jake went to watch ‘Team America: World Police’ which was puerile, but quite amusing. It was nice to have a relaxing evening.

The following morning Jake and his wife, Liz, drove us to Iowa City, which was to be our next stop.

University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.

Once Jake & Liz had dropped us off in Iowa City, we were met by an older, intellectual guy universally known as ‘Dr. Dave’. He was one of those guys that can make you feel incredibly stupid when he’s talking things over with you. We lunched at a vegan place, which was good for Nye who had suffered somewhat in some of the Southern states. Iowa City had a very nice feel to it, it was clearly a town based around the university, which usually means, during term time at least, that the town is buzzing.

After an afternoon of bumming around and having a nice dinner with Dr. Dave, we headed to a party at the Kranzion. A huge house near the Iowa River, which was owned by a guy called Mike and was, lived in by him, Todd and Ross. These guys were in charge of looking after us. The house was a mansion – it had a pool table, the best selection of malt whisky I’ve seen in quite some time etc. We headed to a local

bar called ‘The Summit’ where I ended up getting my hair dyed red and Todd, one of our genial hosts, sucking whipped cream off a barmaids foot – they live differently in Iowa!

Incidentally, authorities as diverse as Jack Kerouac and Bill Bryson have noted that Iowan girls are the most beautiful in the world!

The following day we explored Iowa City a little more, and debated about Bush & Blair’s relationship. It was funny, but neither myself or Nye were on the best of form.

The morning after, Paul Bellus took us to an Indian restaurant – I didn’t realise how much I had missed them, but it was much appreciated. In the evening, we debated about how best to contain Iran’s nuclear threat and both of us were much better than the previous evening. The jokes worked, the arguments worked and the overall debate was of a much higher quality.

Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

Paul drove us to Des Moines, the state capital the following morning and we discussed American debating, the upcoming election (Iowa is a swing state, so the poor souls who live there have to put up with every single advert being somewhat political).

Paul dropped us off with Dan Emory, a young debate coach who was trying to launch a debating society. He dropped us off at the hotel, and pretty much left us alone for the rest of the day save for dinner. I think he noticed we were both pretty tired!

In the evening, one of the debaters Katie took us to Des Moines – it is a city I’d heard of mostly through the writings of Bill Bryson. The most stunning feature was the state capital building – it is far and away the campest building I have ever seen.

The morning before the debate we had lunch with a group of Dan’s students, and were offered to go and protest about illegal immigrants outside the campest building in the world. As legal immigrants, we had every right to but declined the kind offer and decided research for the evening’s debate which was about developmental economics.

We were split up for the debate, and we were both pretty awful on an interesting but difficult subject. I felt sorry for Dan who was putting a lot of resources into forming the society, it just happened to be that our off day was that day! Afterwards, we headed to a bar with a few of the students and drowned our sorrows.

Bethany Lutheran College, Mankato, Minnesota.

A short plane ride and we were in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and met by a genial chap named John Loging. We had a drive south to Mankato to our next stop BLC, which was a very small (560 students) Lutheran college. We got in pretty late so we had dinner with the team, who were all very friendly and we headed to bed early.

Up early, we were met by Jon (ex-Navy and now a debate coach) and headed to the campus. We attended a brief chapel service, which was different from our last religious experience in America. No guitars etc! During the day we did three classes – where the class members ask us questions and we talk about debate.

Bizarrely, in one of the classes the lecturer had pictures of a GUU parliamentary from 2000. It was very strange to see on a projector some of my closest friends. The man

turned out to be a real fan of the GUU parliamentary system, and it was nice to see a Glasgow tradition so far from home.

In the evening, we were again split up for the evenings debate on the motion ‘This house would ban state lotteries’. Although it looked somewhat dry in content, the debate was arguably the best of the tour. Our respective partners Lisa and Stacey were very talented, and myself and Nye hit top form after a disappointing run. Nye won, but it was a great mood booster.

Bizarrely, when I returned to the hotel one of the TV channels was showing a debate from the Oxford Union.

The following morning we were up early to go and visit Mall of America, the largest mall in the states. It was amazingly big, and had some rather strange shops as well as 3 or 4 Abercrombie & Fitch’s. On the way home, Jon, Katy (his girlfriend) and the two of us ate at an Ethiopian restaurant which was lovely – unfortunately, Andy Hume beat me to all Ethiopian restaurant jokes in his tour diary so I’ll leave you to make up your own.

Mankato was a lovely stop. Jon and Katy were kind beyond words and everyone made us feel incredibly welcome.

Randolph-Macon College, Virginia.

Halloween! I had been looking forward to spending Halloween in the USA and was somewhat disappointed. Not because of Randolph-Macon but because we spent 11 hours in Atlanta airport, which would certainly have my vote in the ‘Worlds Most Boring Airport stake’.

We finally arrived in Richmond at 11 at night, and a quick bite at Waffle House and we headed to campus where we were staying in a lovely little cottage.

After a much needed long lie, a girl called Tina took us to lunch in Richmond where we visited the sites of the city. Richmond was the site of the Confederacy presidency, so we toured around the Southern White House. The whole place was buzzing as the Presidential election was the following day.

In the evening we headed to a sponsors dinner, a very kind benefactor had donated money to the debates society to host us and we were guests at a lovely dinner. We were to debate Eric and Justin on whether or not voting should be compulsory. The debate was supposed to be in a beautiful old chamber, but double the number of people turned up and we had to debate outside which was a unique experience.

The other lads hit top form but a few jokes about Paris Hilton and John Kerry warmed the crowd to us, and we spoke pretty well to win. Largely because of the different format of US debates (i.e. a 5 min rebuttal speech for each team) we had become worried about the structure of our speeches and argument formulation, but conversely because we debated all the time on the tour we could feel ourselves getting better. I took time their to thank David Robinson (the sponsor), and I do again here – it’s fantastic that someone take time out to give time and money to university debating societies if only there were more of him!

We headed off to watch a video with the team, all of whom seemed to be very jittery about the election and we had a relatively early night. One of the highlights of the night was myself and Nye being initiated into a fraternity!

Tina picked us up again and took us out to lunch. Surprisingly, after 3 months of build up the Election Day was pretty quiet. I had expected the campus to be a hive of activity but it was eerily quiet around the campus. We hung around campus trying to

sniff out if we could tell who was going to win, before Ted Shekel’s drove us up the road to UMW. University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

At UMW, we were guided to an election party held by one of the professors and watched the coverage of the election as states began to slowly but surely report their outcomes. It became clear that there wasn’t going to be a result that night, so we headed to bed not knowing the score.

We awoke to see John Kerry concede the election. It seemed bizarre that this had been pretty much all anyone (apart from, obviously, our accents) had talked to us about on our trip and now that was over. We were to debate to democrats in the afternoon on the motion ‘This house believes the US people chose poorly in the election’.

We couldn’t bring ourselves make the clearly upset UMW debaters stand up for Bush, so in front of a largely pissed off democrat audience we stood up for the W. And, amazingly, we won – it was nice to see the audience voted on the merits of the arguments when to begin with they had booed some of our comments!

A nice Thai dinner did little to cheer the group up, so we headed back to our hotel early.

Prince Georges Community College, Maryland.

Tim O’Donnell, our host at UMW, took us to the train station and we made the short hope from South to North by crossing briefly through Washington DC on our way to Maryland. We arrived in the lovely city of Baltimore and it was lashing down with rain. All I knew of Baltimore before I arrived was that Edgar Allan Poe had lived there and they had a US football team called the Ravens.

Add to this hardly definitive list a fantastic selection of seafood. Marlene Cohen, our host, took us to a fantastic restaurant on the wharf after we had debated at an all female catholic college Notre Dame. It was a me vs. Nye one on one debate about the Iraq War. We both spoke well, and Nye took the win (again!).

After our meal, we headed to Marlene’s house where we were to stay for the next few days. It was great to stay in someone’s house, a nice break from sleeping in hotels.

Her husband, Michael, and her son, Alex, were equally welcoming much more welcoming than I would be if two random debaters turned up on my doorstep!

The following day, we headed to Prince Georges Community College where we had to debate about democratisation. I was against forced democratisation and managed to stuff up a relatively simple case, Nye winning for the third time on the bounce to take the score 3-2 to him. A little friendly rivalry really helped the quality of the debates, as it added some of the competitive edge that we both enjoyed.

Afterwards, we enjoyed and endured a 3 hour Q & A session from the audience where topics ranged from the merging of Marxism & Islam, what should be done about Western Sahara, how to defeat terror and what role Britain should play towards its former colonies especially those that are in turmoil. Our minds were somewhat battered and after a snack lunch we headed into Washington DC. I had never visited the city before and was impressed by a lot of the buildings especially the brand new Museum of the Native American. We did all the tourist things – visit the Vietnam memorial, ask Lincoln a question, look at the White House, go to Georgetown etc and headed back to Marlene’s house.

The following day we were back in Washington, as Marlene had managed to get us tickets for the Washington Wizards vs Miami Heat. Watching pro-basketball was more fun than I thought, and American sports events really are events – the highlight was seeing Shaquille O’Neal, one of the best basketball players around and an absolute man mountain!

Depauw University, Greencastle, Indiana After breakfasting on the Cohen family’s staple food bagels (‘I’m atheist, but I’m a Jewish mom nonetheless. I’m not satisfied you’ve eaten enough’), Marlene drove us to Dulles Airport (where the Airplane movies were filmed) and we got a short flight to Indiana.

The softly spoken, and secretly wild, Geoff Klinger picked us up and took us out for a Chinese. Depauw are the rivals of Wabash, the first college we visited. They were (and they’ll hate me saying this) very similar, apart from the fact that Depauw let women in.

The following day we debated in the morning in front of a class on ‘This house believes it isn’t easy being green’. The prop listed six bad green things and left us very little to say. We had lunch with a few of the debaters and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the quote from Jenny ‘I’m a feminist in that I think women should be allowed to vote but not insofar as that they should be allowed to kill their children’.

We prepped for the evening debate, a ‘cost-benefit analysis of the war in Iraq’. The proposition defined well arguing that there were 5 major harms. It was a good debate, but we managed to knock down all 5 of their harms to show the war was beneficial.

The audience vote was overwhelmingly for us, which I think was more than a little harsh on the proposition team who were among the best we’d faced in the USA. After a Mexican dinner we headed to an apartment, listened to music and shot the breeze.

Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

We headed to the airport with Geoff, and we headed to Chicago. A couple of guys, Noah and Justin (a hick and proud) drove us to Northwestern. Everyone had told us that we were going to love Chicago, and that we were going to have a tough debate on our hands against Northwestern. Northwestern have won 6 of the last 10 national championships, and look pretty certain to make it 7 this year. Their coach, Scott ‘The Duck’ Deatherage was widely regarded as the best coach in the country.

After a nap we headed into town and we headed to a fantastic restaurant called Yoshi’s. Afterwards we headed to a bar called the ‘Wise Fools Pub’, which it turned out ‘The Duck’ part owned!

Two lovely girls, Joy and Joanna, took us around campus the next day. Northwestern is one of the best colleges in the USA, and it blew British universities out of sight (as did many of the universities we visited) in terms of size, funding, sports, facilities etc.

The girls regaled us with sorority hazing stories and we walked down to the shore of Lake Michigan. The debate was in the evening and somewhat scared of the reputation of Northwestern we headed back to the hotel to prep.

The debate was reasonably attended and on the same motion as we debated at UMW on the people’s choice in the election. We were arguing that the US people had made a mistake, but somewhat unfortunately the Northwestern boys didn’t do what we did at UMW and basically refused to argue for Bush. Instead they argued that the loss was

good for the US because it meant the democrats would become more leftwing – we felt cheated and so did the audience, we won overwhelmingly but it was a somewhat hollow victory as we had expected a real humdinger of a debate.

We had to be up early the following morning so we headed back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep.

Purdue Calumet University, Calumet City, Indiana.

Up at 5.30 to get a train to Purdue Calumet University. We were met by Ron Kovacs who told us a little about Calumet, a little about the debating side (i.e. it was very new) and a lot about jazz music and the wonders of a Reuben sandwich. Our debate partners for the day – Carl and Megan. We were split up again for an Iraq war debate.

The college had gone to a lot of trouble to set up the debate. There was a lot of pomp and ceremony before the debate, which really built up the sense of occasion. Around 400 turned up to watch.

We were bugled into the chamber and then the bugler played the British and American national anthems to get the crowd in the mood. We were made honorary students and alumni of the college and the mayor of Calumet announced that November 11th was to be known in Calumet as ‘British Debate Day’. We had been somewhat reluctant about Calumet, mainly because of the 5.30 start but we were treated better than two British debaters ever should be – as we were all over the USA. Our partners were understandably nervous having debated only a couple of times, in Carl’s case never before. I take my hat off to both of them. I think I would have vomited on stage if I’d had to debate in front of 400 (and TV cameras) in my first ever debate. Everyone spoke well and myself and Carl won, meaning the Rob vs Nye series ended 3-3, which I would have been delighted with before the tour!

An amazing Japanese meal rounded off a great day and we headed back to our hotel.

NCA, Chicago, Illinois.

This was pretty much a rest stop. The communication association of America was meeting in Chicago, and seeing as all the coaches in the country were there we went as well.

We had lunch the following day with an ex NDT champion from Baylor and ‘The Duck’. We visited a few of the seminars at the NCA, but left sharpishly when I got into an argument with somebody at a discussion forum! The reciprocal tour was being picked so we went along to see what was going on. It was nice as we finally got to meet Marilyn, the lady who organised our tour and was at the end of the phone whenever we needed her (‘Marilyn, we’ve missed a flight?’, ‘Marilyn, there’s a hurricane’ etc) It was nice as we met Matt Sobnosky (Hofstra), Scott Jensen (Webster) and Greg Simmerlee (MTSU) again which was a nice surprise.

After bumping into Eddie Izzard in our hotel, we hit the sack. The following morning I explored Chicago with Courtenay, a friend we had made in MTSU and then toured around the Art Institute of Chicago. Nye went back to the NCA. For dinner we headed out with the touring team chosen to go to Britain for Chicago style pizza (i.e. cheese underneath the tomato).

Kenyon College, Ohio.

After a morning shopping in Chicago we headed to Kenyon, Ohio. We got in pretty late and headed out to dinner with Jon Lesjack, an easy going host who admitted he was once 4th in the US Presidential trivia contest. The poor boy! We (but mostly Nye) peppered him with questions easy, hard and downright obscure. To his eternal credit he answered all the questions when he would have been well within his rights to leave us in the middle of Ohio.

We had a long sleep the following morning and over lunch were introduced to British intellectual Christopher Hitchens who was also speaking at the university that week.

In the evening we were to debate on the somewhat strange topic of giving incentives to vote. In front of a decent sized audience we proposed that everyone who votes should be entered into a lottery thus giving an incentive. The judges came to a tie and the audience voted for the opposition but Jon, the wonderful tyrant of an MC, decided we won because (supposedly) more of the audience voted for us but the opposition supporters were loud. We headed to a house party where they introduced us to the quite simply brilliant game of beer pong.

Colgate University, New York.

We headed to Colgate in New York State, and were met by Miranda Wiegler – someone we both knew very well from her days as a St. Andrews debater. It was good to meet up with someone we knew as we knew we could relax and she wouldn’t get too upset! Miranda is a debates coach these days, and the fact she had managed to send 3 teams across the Atlantic to the Oxford IV shows the difference between US and UK debates budgets!

Miranda had arranged a ‘fireside debate’ for that night but this merged into a game of ping pong and a chat which was lovely.

The following day we mooched around Colgate and debated in British parliamentary format against her 3 teams. She told us not to hold back at all and to let them know how they did afterwards! It was a fun, if a little strange, debate and when it was finished we suddenly realised that we weren’t going to debate on the tour again – a bit of a weird feeling as that has pretty much all we’d been doing over the last 10 weeks.

Our last day in the states started lazy and finished in a mad rush. We were stuck in traffic in New York for an hour and a half, and we were literally the last people allowed to check in for our flight.

The debating odyssey had come to and end – a truly unique experience, seeing a mind-boggling country at an equally mind-boggling time having met some incredible characters along the way.