*The Debatewise Blog
Cash those holiday cheques at the bank…
There is a distinctly party feeling in the office today, which is great. We're still here, but we know that we won't be again until Tuesday, as Britain is having one of her all-too-rare public holidays. In London the Notting Hill Carnival will be taking place. This made me think about how it often takes unusual circumstances to get British people to relax a bit, and drop their guard and the old stiff upper lip. We're not very good at randomly talking to and sharing experiences with strangers - but it seems that we want to given the excuse!I was on a packed train to York the other weekend. (All the news about trains being 150% over capacity is completely believable I promise). There were at least 20 of us in the bit between the carriages, and, whilst we all stood in polite silence at least to Peterborough, the comical nature of the situation overcame us all by this point and we eventually began chatting. By York I was engaged in a heated debate with three complete strangers from all walks of life about middle eastern politics. Moments like this make me realise my job will never be fruitless - people always want to debate things, we just need to be given the opportunity to do so. If a few barriers are broken down we will all be discussing away and maybe a few more of the world's problems might be solved. Debatewise aims to break down these barriers by providing an annonymous, open, non-judgemental place in which complete strangers can debate. A bit like the sacred place between carriages F and G on the 7.03 to Edinburgh...
Comments
Sounds like the “el” in Chicago during rush hour. Once in a while you meet some great people on there though.