It’s Debatable: That tart needs a top!
Billy Kerrisk uses her feminine wiles to top Geoff Renision’s debatable position. Photo: Em Hofstede.
In good fun, and in support of WordFest, a scintillating debate was held at Takaka Memorial Library to determine whether tarts need tops.
Judge John Weston cautioned the debaters that there should be no blood spilled and that the defibrillator was just around the corner, as he openly placed his wallet in a prominent and accessible location.
On the affirmative side, declaiming that tarts indeed need tops, if for no other reason than grandma said so, were Robin Manson, Billy Kerrisk, and visiting poet Nancy Fulford. This team was dynamite, as their argument, Tarts Need Tops (TNT) suggested. But Robin assured the audience that there would be no explosions. Little did he know what his teammates had up their sleeves (er…tops). Both proudly displayed inciting upper halves cleverly masked by more traditional evening wear, making clear the point that anything less than what they were wearing would be too much for a viewer to bear.
Laura Manson (daughter-in-law to Robin), Alan Swafford and team leader Geoff Rennison argued for the negative (or as Geoff declared, the negating team). This team was on fire from the outset, when Geoff made a public confession about his tart-predating nature, especially while tramping on mountaintops and in Hooker Valley, where he has, in fact, not found any tarts. Laura accused chief librarian Tish Potter of withholding information (the definitive book on tarts was apparently on loan to a 14-year-old boy for two weeks) and pointed out that The Joy of Cooking knew about tarts in the same way tarts know about the joy of another famous book. Alan brazenly invoked typos in the Treaty of Waitangi, (the word “part” was apparently meant to be “tart”), and unabashedly bribed judge John and chairman Charles Naylor with homemade topless tarts.
The ruling by John Weston, who said he was torn between his masculinity and his gut, was for the negating team, bribes notwithstanding.
The annual debates have become a regular and popular evening’s entertainment, said by many audience members to be a welcome return to the debates held more regularly years ago by service group organisations.
Em Hofstede
