Battle of the Books
Congratulations to Paul, Caroline and Michael. Great stuff guys and to Michael for putting in a great performance at the end. Getting better every year! And to Michael the Sheriff and Sean Reilly many thanks guys! Appreciated! Now to my favourite or perennial topic, the judges!
Judging Critique
As to the judges, I'll throw me hat at it if I meet one more judge who tells me he doesn't understand the piece and then proceeds to award marks on that basis. Now I'll have to preface the following by admitting I have some form on this and in my humble opinion some of the judging over the past five years has left a lot to be desired and my contribution last year was "On Matters of Jurisprudence". The year before that I made one or two comments as well, and of course the first year! Now that said, it is not easy being a judge, you get the stuff only a day or so before the event and have to come up to speed fairly fast in order to make what could be considered pertinent comments. Not sure I'd like to do it at all. But the crux of the matter is and I can only speak for myself here, it gets worrying. This year a summary was asked for and provided and it is below....
Summary of Submission
A satire on Gulliver's Travels and the travails of the good Doctor in the form of a communique between himself and his one time alter ego on some of the difficulties he might encounter on his visit to Trim. Or as they say out here, we've all been there. Under the aegis of a discovery! A cautionary note!
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And I should have ended on~A few observations on the town and its people~ but I forgot. Now I realize it's a bit of a send up itself and there's probably enough flaws and faults in the above and in the piece itself to deduct marks all over the place but at least the above should have provided a few pointers on how to get an insight into the piece, but nothing outlined was commented on at all and this is what it turns on. As I said at the beginning to award points on something you haven't grasped or fully comprehended and to pluck figures out of the air is to do everyone a disservice and reduces the event to a parish amusement. It needs to be said, the present method of judging this contest should have been changed after the first year and with one or two notable exceptions, and they mostly have not been local, and allowing for the difficulties involved, the judging has been poor and hardly competent. A much better solution would be to give them the pieces a week in advance but sure I still wouldn't be happy. Nuff said!
