Continued success for Public Speakers


A trio of year 11 boys have returned victorious from the ESU Bristol Area Final. The competition, held at Clifton College, played host to number of other schools including QEH and BGS, who Colston’s dispatched to reach the regional final. To be hosted in Taunton on March 8th, this will comprise winners from all around the South West, and will be the next test for Joe Mooney, Simon Camp and Jay Olpherts-Forrester.

The judges noted the charm and charisma of the chair, Simon, and he was awarded the individual prize for best chairperson. Joe’s no-nonsense approach and probing questions also tested the BGS speaker greatly.

”None of us have any kind of background in public speaking, so it’s a testament to our hard work and that of our mentor Mrs. Poppy,” said Jay. “We’re by no means flawless, and have a lot of work to do before the regional final.”

The main speaker, Jay, has provided us with a copy of his intelligent and humorous speech which can be seen below.

	The successful Year 11 Public Speakers (from left to right) Joe Mooney, Jay Olpherts-Forrester and Simmon Camp

BOGOF. That’s right, BOGOF! No, I’m not being frightfully rude - it’s an acronym: buy one, get one free. It’s one of the many offers, slogans and catchphrases implemented by retailers in order to catch unsuspecting consumers hook, line and sinker. And it works, too. There’s no such thing as “something for nothing”, if you think a deal is too good to be true... it probably is. Whilst these offers may genuinely save you money, this isn’t always the case. Often, it is a clever ploy by the retailer, in which they sell the individual items at a slightly higher price, making the combined items both profitable to the retailer and seeming like an outrageously good deal to the consumer. Psychologists say that this method puts the shopper in a “buying frame of mind”, and has them thinking that every subsequent offer or promotion they see will, by deduction, be a good one.

Woe betide anyone who forgets their glasses on a shopping trip nowadays. More accurately, woe betide anyone who doesn’t take a magnifying glass with them, for surrounding us in shops seems to be a bounteous supply of unfathomably small small print. Incidentally, small print is the bane of my existence. Not only is it printed in size 6 font in a colour that is SO nearly the same as the background it almost doesn’t exist, it tells you that the offer which is being advertised in the above 4 foot by 2 foot poster only applies when you pay between 2pm and 2.15pm on the eve of a full moon when you sign in the blood of a three month old ram...... or it only exists in “selected stores”, one of the two. My reductio ad absurdum, whilst fervently extreme, proves a point: an offer is never as good as it seems, and small print is small for a reason – they don’t want you to read it.

With the festive period only weeks behind us, let us pause for a moment of reflection. In the fairy-light-lit days gone by, we’ve been busy buying gifts for friend and foe, cards for relatives and colleagues and that one person in your address book you can’t quite remember where you know them from. Whatever you did over Christmas, no doubt you were out somewhere, buying copious amounts of presents for loved ones. Invariably, when Christmas comes knocking each and every year we hear the same time-old quips: “I tell you, Christmas is a farce – it’s all about those shops, out for what they can get” and the timeless classic, “Don’t buy me anything this year, honey... Your love is enough”. But it never is enough, is it? They trick you as well as the retailers, and when you only buy them that reduced bar of lime soap, they suddenly care. My point being is that Christmas, and indeed every other day of the year, is heavily commercialised; we, as consumers, are being conned by retailers into buying ludicrously overpriced gifts that slowly fill our lives with yet more tedium, until we return the following year to buy yet more superfluous products.

Hitherto, I’ve talked about primarily consumer goods like gifts and in shops. But a quick definition of “the consumer” will tell you that it refers to “a person who uses goods or services”. So under the branch of the consumer falls a whole other category of those being conned – the householders. Anyone who watches semi-prime time BBC television may have seen a programme called “Rogue Traders”, where Matt Allwright and his Portugese counterpart gallivant around Britain finding people who have been ripped-off by builders, plumbers, repair men, locksmiths, double glazing companies and mechanics to name but a few. Clearly, the show is inundated with complaints left, right and centre regarding unscrupulous trade-men. These people, especially those working on an emergency basis, will in some cases create or fabricate problems, just so they can solve them and charge even more money. This practice, other than being highly illicit, is illegal and is a very common problem.

A final problem faced by consumers is the ever-updating catwalk. Fashion designers and brands alike are keen to introduce new ranges of clothes before we’ve had a chance to buy the previous range. This marketing leads us to being absorbed in a cyclical downward spiral of buying, buying and, you guessed it, more buying. It means that, as consumers, we must be furtive in our shopping – if we’re not, we run the risk of being subjected to outrageously high credit card bills. But even if we do this, we run the risk of being labeled “maladaptive” or “unwilling to change”. Personally, I believe that being maladaptive is favourable to being flippant, indulgent and, frankly, rather irreverent to values of decency and integrity.

To conclude, there is a myriad of different ways in which the consumer can be conned. Whether it is incongruously small small print or builders with questionable moral value, it seems like the retailers are out to swindle us the best they can. Ergo, ladies and gentlemen, I think you will agree that the consumer, or rather we, are most definitely being conned.

Report and speech written by Jay Olpherts-Forrester.