No, you need not know Bengali or Kiswahili to take part in the tournament at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, a college of the University of London. Maybe it comes in handy, though, on July 16 when the annual SOAS Open will be held at Russell Square in the format of BPS – and of course in English.

Convenors Robert Austin and Sheraz Qureshi promise a good preparation for Galway Euros which will be held Galway, Ireland in early August this year. They offer four prelims with seven-minute speeches, break to semis and an ESL final for those who master English as a Second Language. Co-chief adjudicators are Nick Long and Dearbhail O’Crowley, their deputy is Andrew Ford.On top of it all, on the day before Fred Cowell and Harish Natarajan (both on the prospective CA team of the of the Leeds bid for Euros 2012) are going to do a debate workshop for those interested. The reg fees for the one-day tourney are 35 British Pound (about 40 Euros these days) per team. More information is available from Robert and Sheraz via soasdebsoc [at] gmail [dot] com and from the Facebook event of the SOAS Open.

apf / glx