One of the perks of being a celebrity is that I get invited to schools and campuses to judge and chair events. I usually accept these invitations because their souvenirs will allow me to add to my collection of pens and clocks.

A secondary reason is that it's always nice to see what the young ones are doing. The thought of actually spending protracted periods with them does not thrill me, but a few hours a month would normally suffice to feel the pulse of the nation's future.

The most recent invitation I got was to chair the finals for the National Varsities Debate at Universiti Malaya, which will be held next week. The phone call came from a polite young bloke named Leong who called me 'sir' and kept breathing heavily, giving the impression that he'd just had to climb a few floors to access the only campus telephone. After ascertaining that I could make it, he faxed over a form and a list of regulations.

The form was one page long and wanted to know my name and address. This seemed de rigeur until I noticed that I was also required to fill in my place and date of birth. I don't see how the particulars in which I was born could be of relevance to my ability to chair a debate, but I filled those up anyway.

Why were these questions asked? I suspect because a half-page form would not look proper, and so the committee members needed to add in a few more categories to show that they were doing their job.

Fill in the blanks

Slightly more troubling was the inclusion of a chairperson script. This is how it begins:

"I now call upon the house to take their places.
Ladies and gentlemen,
A very good evening to members of the house who are here today.
Welcome to the National Varsities Debate III.
My name is ___________________________.
For today's session, I shall be acting as the speaker for this house.
Today's motion is ___________________________."

I was perturbed because the spaces for my name and the motion were left blank. Does this mean I will have to hold the microphone out to the audience for them to them scream out the rest of the sentence, like the way rock stars can get their fans to complete the verses of their hits?

I imagine Jon Bon Jovi wailing "Oh, we're halfway there, oh" and then getting Radio City Music Hall to shout back, "Oh, oh. Living on a prayer!" and then back to Jon who will say "Take my hand, and we'll make it I swear" and then back to the crowd's enthusiastic "Oh, oh. Living on a prayer!"

I will have to see what transpires on the day. But from my experience, the students in the audience will be really docile and not even venture any opinions during Question Time, thus leaving it to me to dig into my repertoire of jokes and impressions, which can get tedious after a while, trust me. Getting them to shout out my name doesn't seem likely at this point, although I would of course appreciate it if they tried.

Was the script included because previous chairpersons had been too dim-witted to figure out what to say? Maybe they said something like "Welcome to the...um...ah...actually what is this ah?" and then burst into tears at their own incomprehension. This is a shocking indictment of our national ability to articulate ourselves, and we should lay suitable blame on our education system. Bad, bad education system!

Something naughty

Speaking of prepared statements, I recently read in the Singapore magazine Big O that an 18-year-old poet named Teng Qianxi did something naughty at the opening of something called the Creative Arts Programme at the NUS. This is how she described the occasion:

"I was asked to read a poem called Where Fish Could Walk, a feel-good poem which many of my peers enjoyed. The day before, I made the decision to read Casualties of an Efficient World, which dealt with literacy and multi-lingualism, which I thought was more appropriate for the occasion. But I was told not to read it because it was apparently "too short". So the next day, I went up to the mike, in my school blazer and tie, and said, "I was going to read a subversive poem on the Speak Mandarin Campaign, but this will have to do."

When asked whether there were any repercussions to her decision to ad-lib, she said, "I was called up by one of the teachers who told me that it wasn't the proper 'time and place' to do what I did. And by being ingenuous, I had actually risked future funding for the programme. There was even a suggestion that certain heads might roll due to my audacity."

This could be simple paranoia or self-importance on her part (after all, how many 18-year-olds use words like "peers"?) but the incident and its repercussions do provide a glimpse into a society in which you can't even crack a joke. Why should heads roll just because she exercised her right to become a wise ass?

An occasion like that is precisely the right 'time and place' for what she did. Humour comes from the juxtaposition of incongruities. In My Fair Lady, it was only funny that Audrey Hepburn screamed "Move yer blooming arse!" because she did it at Ascot.

These are just some of the issues that went through my mind as I read the script. I hope no heads will roll just because I use my own words. After all, the debaters will be nervous enough in their blazers and ties without having a chairperson reading like a robot right next to them. Spontaneityand life are essential elements in an occasion like this. Everything else is, well, debatable.