I am constantly confronted with irritations and harassments and this cynicism, but I have to decide what I'm going to do with them... "You caught the fraud, but only after your paper bought an extract. So who wins the argument?" This is true, but it was a very small extract. All the same, maybe Gerry can play a few low ones, too.The Second Ploy: The Condescender, Intended To Provoke. I move on to the bit about the need for the successful arguer first to get in touch with the self by going out into the woods, wiggling toes in the earth, howling like a wolf.

But to Gerry, it's just part of Respecting the Other, making a concession, telling the truth Then he moves. And then: "Yes, the title is a bit of a fraud, as you say."Bingo! In my Stephen Potterish, Gamesmanship style of argument, this is a big point. Do you stand by your title?" Key Word: "Fraud".ER: Gerry is still giving nothing away. His reply is slow, sonorous, a cross between Gregory Peck and that man with the slight catch in his voice who is always used in American historical documentaries: "Well, if you have someone against whom you cannot argue, and you know that, have you not won?" Rhetorical, of course, but I jump in to stop him settling "No!" Quite shrill, challenging. "Because they have not been convinced by your argument, have they?"Gerry is rock steady. He looks at me above the buckskin and he says, slowly and sonorously: "The successful arguer has to know there are some arguments he can't win." He moves into some stuff about the purpose of argument being to get out of life what we want for ourselves, about there being no point banging our heads against the wall, about how we must learn to understand the bigot.

This should have the effect of both lulling and worrying him at the same time: worrying because it underlines his obscurity over here; lulling because it gives the impression I have not done my research Efficacy Rating (ER): tough to quantify. Gerry is giving nothing away.The First Ploy: The Unsettlingly Immediate Sly Frontal Attack. This is a deeply unfriendly question asked in a friendly, hesitant way: "Let me just say at the outset that I have read the book, I have, but I'm just a little concerned about it because it comes across to me as a little bit of a fraud in a way in that your book is called How To Argue And Win Every Time and yet there are large exceptions; for example, you say that there are people so deeply prejudiced that you can't argue with them. He is wearing a buckskin jacket with those fringe things on it.The Introduction: Gaining the Edge.