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TRINITYNEWSTWO 6

Joey Facer talks to Oscar winnning lecturer Dr Anil Kokaram, p3

Anatomically Correct PSAPP talk to Brendan McGuirk about penning the theme song to Grey’s Anatomy and about cats, p10

ISSUE

Ciaran Gaynor writes in praise of the almighty single, p4

Gearoid O’ Rourke

Technically brilliant Joey Facer talks to Trinity’s own Oscar-winning lecturer Dr Anil Kokaram about his success, p3

Psapp

In this issue...

Having an Oscar winner on the staff here in Trinity is quite impressive. The fact that he is a modest affable man with no preconceptions about his own fame is even more impressive. Dr Anil Kokaram was a pleasure to interview and it is fantastic to be able to hold up one of our own for the praise he deserves. It was also rather humbling to be told this was the first interview he’d done – Trinity News Two at the cutting edge again. On a brief note, this is the third Oscar winner, by our count, that we have had in the magazine this year.

Psapp have a very strange name – everyone agreed on that. Their music has proved slightly more devisive around the office.

Personally, I like the offbeat toy-inspired madness of it all and reading their interview did shed some light on their production process. You can see they are serious about their craft and do have a plan.We can only wait for that plan to be revealed.

It is that time of the year again and Trinity Ball is looming ominously around the corner. Earlier in the year we spoke to Bellx1, who laid out an offer to the Ents Officer. They said categorically that they would play the Ball if asked; however, we can report that this, sadly, will not be the case. In the next issue of Trinity News Two we will be looking at who will be playing and giving a run-down of the top acts.

WHAT’SINSIDE

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Editor’s Notes

Purveyors of “Toytronica” and lovers of cats talk to Brendan McGuirk after their recent Dublin gig, p10

Drink of the Gods Gearoid Godson looks at the long-time student special Buckfast and decides it is manna from heaven, p16

Belle of the ball Katie Martin examines what to wear for Trinity’s upcoming ball season, p14

Trinity Jazz Festival 2007 Jazz has become a dirty word in modern society and is all too often associated with both chinstroking intellectuals and soulless lift muzak. It seems that these days, if you want to listen to jazz, you must be either a turtle-necked intellectual chain smoking yourself into oblivion, or a greased-up lothario looking for love in a hotel lounge. Whatever happened to the good old days? Yet no matter! This year’s Trinity Jazz Festival, set to be one of the most exciting ever, will smash these flaccid assumptions into bits, and get your toes tapping along whether you like it or not. We have some truly brilliant music on show over four days in February (19th-21st), ranging from the challengingly experimental to the downright funky, and should appeal to both hardcore jazz enthusiasts and those new to the music. Here’s are two highlights from the festival’s main events: Wednesday 21st: 100nka, J. J. Smyth’s Flying over from Poland for their Irish debut, 100nka, undeservedly little known on these shores, have developed a cult following in their homeland for their unique and exhilarating music. We are delighted to be showcasing them. A trio consisting of guitar, double bass and drums, 100nka add excitement and colour to their sound with electronics and Hendrixstyled guitar mayhem while maintaining a keen sense of musicianship and a disciplined jazz sensibility. Balanced somewhere between an experimental funk group and a bop trio, 100nka are set to become one of the highlights of the international jazz scene this year. A band for both jazz lovers and open minded thrill-seek-

ers alike, this Polish trio prove that European jazz is well and truly alive and kicking. Check out www.100nka.com and www.myspace.com/100nka for some free mp3s and photos.

Thursday 22nd: Fuzzy Logic Ensemble, 4 Dame Lane Fuzzy Logic are something of a rarity these days, perhaps even unique: a ten-piece group consisting of young Irish musicians which not only manages to be modern and forward-thinking but also intensely enjoyable. Not surprisingly, Fuzzy Logic were lauded by the Irish Times as “a music quite unlike anything that has preceded it…hugely enjoyable”. What sets them apart from other jazz groups is the flexibility of their instrumentation, which draws on a diverse range of tonal colours (including voice, hammond organ, cello, and saxes). The music shifts and mutates with intoxicating complexity yet maintains a beautiful sense of melody and rhythm throughout. Their unique brand of hard, driving jazz mixed with soft orchestral melodies will have you on the edge of your seat and humming all the way home. Check out www.fuzzylogicensemble.com for mp3s and info on the band.

Well, there you have it, Trinity Jazz festival in a nutshell. Make sure to check out some of the bands, since it looks like it’s going to be a brilliant few days of music and a sure-fire way of hearing some exciting, top-quality jazz. Shame though, I bet none of it compares to that good old lift muzak.

INTERVIEW

which he wished to end up. It was not until a lecture in audio restoration that he found clarity. CDs had just been invented, he reminds me (“it was the 1980s”) and he recalls the lecturer taking a vinyl record and smashing it on the ground, breaking it in half. He sellotaped it back together before playing it on a turntable.

Predictably, the record played with interjectory “chunk-chunkchunk”s. The lecturer proceeded to electronically take those “chunk” sounds out, and the play-back was perfect.

Following on from this enlightenment, Kokeram started working on audio restoration with this lecturer. In the course of their research, they came across old film reels and began working on them; Kokeram describes the move as a logical progression.

Kokeram loved Cambridge, and flourished there, working as a research fellow for a while. A few of his colleagues then set up a post-production company called “The Foundry” to put the research in practice. The Foundry chiefly built add-on for film editing software, for example one of their first feats was removing wires around suspended actors. Kokeram continued focusing on restoration, for example, removing scratches from frames by uysing the preceding and proceeding frames to reduplicate the pixels.

One example Kokeram went into some detail about was his work on the film The Matrix, and more specifically the effect known as “bullet-time”. “Bullet-time” is when time stops and the action moves in space, where the action stops and the cameras swirl around it. In the first Matrix, to achieve this effect, the team set up a track of several cameras in a semi-circle; but the plastic around the lenses left a gap. Due to the frames being around a hundred a second, this was an oversight that Kokeram had to correct, so he put in all the missing frames by examining the frames surrounding the missing ones. The technical term for this, believe it or not, is “inbetweening”. Now all post-production houses use this software.

When asked what has changed since he was awarded the Oscar, Kokeram answers that little has, except for the award on his desk. He says that he enjoys having closer contact with postproduction companies, and this will give him and his team a better opportunity for being considered for a televised Oscar in years to come. In addition, he cheerfully remarks he has never been asked to do an interview before!

When asked why he chose Trinity College, Kokeram tells me that he needed a place to start a research group from scratch, he liked Ireland and so Trinity was the default location. He hopes his students are pleased for him – remarking that “maybe they’ll think I can get more money for them now”.

Technically brilliant Words: Joey Facer

Dr Anil Kokeram is one of Trinity’s most recently distinguished scientists. I spoke to him this week on the subject of the Oscar he was recently awarded and his work to date. The application for the award was put in by The Foundry, the company for which he is a consultant. When they had a problem, he was the one who solved it – and for his expertise, a shiny new Oscar sits on his desk in his Printing House office.

In November he was contacted by the Academy and told he had been shortlisted, an event that happens to few. In a thirty minute intense interview, he went through with them all that he had

achieved. It was not until after Christmas that he was informed he had won an award and would have to go and collect it.

On the awards themselves, Kokeram comments that “I knew they existed, but typically they are given to those directly involved in visual effects”. Kokeram in fact developed the maths behind the software used, which is known as “the maths of motion estimation”.

Kokeram is self-effacing regarding his accolade, saying that it is nice to be acknowledged for the work he has been doing, and is very aware only a few people are nominated for the awards.

He describes the glitz and glam-

our of the ceremony as daunting for him – as a scientist, he mentions he is not accustomed to weraring a tux, and felt somewhat uncomfortable in the get-up. In addition, he does mention the ceremony being a gruelling five hours in length. When asked whether he delivered the “classic Oscar speech”, he responds that it was a bit of a blur. Returning to his lecture work in Trinity, Kokeram assures me that he feels comfortable here and is settling happily back into doing his work.

An undergraduate at Cambridge (England) in engineering, Kokeram did not always know that this was the area in

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Music industry “experts” are predicting that when The Beatles’ back-catalogue is made available on iTunes, the Fab Four will occupy the entire Top 40 (now that downloads count towards the chart). Fancy a flutter on that? I don’t. What I might be prepared to wager on is that a single will rise to number one from a position lower than number 33 - breaking a record set by Captain Sensible’s “Happy Talk” (in 1982, ask your parents – it was their fault).

Whether any of these statistics matter will, of course, depend on whether you think the charts, or singles, matter.

In their book, “The Manual: How To Have a Number One The Easy Way”, The Timelords (i.e.

KLF scamps Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) offer tips on preparing for your assault on the chart summit. First, sort through your singles collection and pick out all of those singles that made the top 5.

Anything from outside the top 5 should have a bloody good reason for inclusion and must not be an indie record. Arrange these singles in a pile and listen to them one by one. Brew a cup of tea and listen to the chart rundown on Sunday afternoon as it’s announced. Buy the latest edition of “Now That’s What I Call Music” and listen to it incessantly.

Following these tips will give you a clear idea of what’s required to make a great single and set you on the right track to achieve that number one hit. The book also emphasises the importance of Top

AUDIOFILES

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Words: Ciarán Gaynor

Of The Pops and of thinking about how you’re going to handle that tricky Smash Hits interview when you finally reach Number One. If you were born after 1988, a lot of this will sound like Greek to you.

“The Manual” was written in 1988. Imagine attempting to follow “The Manual” now. First of all, there’s no Top Of The Pops. Smash Hits is also history. These days you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the street who knows what’s number one, let alone number 34 in the charts.

The charts are not what they used to be. A number one single doesn’t have the same ring of excitement about it that it did in 1988. Even the single is not what it used to be. Nowadays singles exist as “tracks” on “playlists” on “hard-drives”. As bits of data to be downloaded, not to be touched, pored over or scratched. Artwork?

Yes your floppy disc-mimicking “Blue Monday” sleeve is lovely, Mr Saville; but will it work on the screen of my video iPod? The single was “developed” by Philips in the late 1940s, usurping the wax cylinder as “the kids” musical format of choice. The first singles charts didn’t appear until 1952, and the first UK number one (because really, the UK is where the charts really matter) was “Here In My Heart” by the incredibly crusty Al Martino. It was with the rise of rock and roll that the single took off properly, and sales steadily rose through the 1960s and 1970s. Single sales peaked in 1979 and there was a period of about 6 years where, to be guaranteed a number one, you

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These days you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the street who knows what’s number one

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had to “shift” close to a million “units”. Hence the era of charthyping came upon us. Record companies would chuck all sorts of extras into a single package to encourage people to buy a single; posters or badges. In the mid 1980s the picture disc was as prevalent and inescapable as the hexagonal syndrum. Multi-formatting (with lots of extra tracks spread across the release) would ensure that up to 8 copies of any single would be bought by the eager fan. Throughout the late 1980s, single sales went into a

sharp decline. Perhaps this is attributable to the rise of acid house, which wasn’t a very teenybopperish genre. Another theory is that singles simply weren’t profitable enough, and the record industry simply abandoned singles in favour of album promotion.

By the 1990s, things had become so bad that not only were Nintendo Gameboys outselling singles, but the singles that did make the charts had the compete alongside Nintendo novelty tie-in singles such as “Tetris” by Dr Spin – a state of affairs so grisly it would keep even Jive Bunny awake at night in a cold sweat. Indie curmudgeons The Wedding Present saw a window of opportunity, and released (and deleted) a new single on the first week of each month throughout 1992.

Only one made the top 10, but all of them made the top 20 (none of them managed more than 4 weeks on chart though). Britpop saw a resurgence of the single’s fortunes, to such an extent that in late 1995 Everything But The Girl’s “Missing” sold a million copies and still failed to make number one. Another decline set in after this blip and by 2006 singles had been marginalised to the aisles of Woolworths and Tescos.

Orson’s “No Tomorrow” reached number one despite selling just 1,500 copies in the week in question. Perhaps if UB40 had invited their extended families to buy their latest release, a chart return would have been on the cards?

Singles had ceased to be a facet of teenage life and were now something to be bought for spoiled children to keep them quiet at the checkout. In my day we had Spacedust, now little kids are bought the latest “offering” from Razorlight or something.

Now that downloads count towards the charts, we’ve seen the return of the lesser-spotted Climbing Single (rarely seen since the early 1990s). Chart-watching has become fun again, albeit in an end-of-days kind of way.

Singles are the best format for pop music. They make their point and leave. They don’t hang about in the way albums do, stretching an idea to 74 minutes of tedium. Punk was a great singles genre. So was disco, so was rap. In fact anything exciting which is possible in pop music can be encapsulated in 3 minutes 30 seconds. So you can clear off Mr Concept Album with your funny two-guitars-weldedtogether and your flared trousers.

Hopefully the charts will continue to recover their relevance in popular culture and “The Manual” will become essential reading material for dole-ites and dreamers again.

Weekend in the City

Robbers and Cowards

About What You Know

Bloc Party

Cold War Kids

Little Man Tate

Following the massively successful 2005 debut of Silent Alarm, Bloc Party are back to release their second studio album “A Weekend in the City”.

Leaving behind the sound that made them famous – sharp choppy guitars backed by dance influenced beats – Bloc Party opt for a more soulful and lyric-based experience on this album.

Original fans may get a shock when they first listen to the album all the way through, as I’m sorry to say there’s no dance floor fillers on this record.

Although Bloc Party take a different direction on this album, the first single “The Prayer” combines more familiar qualities with new powerful lyrics; “Tonight make me unstoppable, And I will charm, I will slice, I will dazzle them with my wit”.

The second half of the album slows things down and has a gentler sound with melodic gems like “Kreuzberg” and “Sunday”, finishing on the heartfelt “SXRT”. With this album, Bloc Party smashes any preconceptions or expectations fans or critics alike may have had and show us another side of the band. It may have a different sound to the one which we grew to love but this album is definitely a grower.

Well, it’s their debut, and they’re getting quite a bit of attention thanks to their having “earned” a place on many of those coveted “ones to watch in 2007” lists. So it’s fair to assume that Cold War Kids are pretty happy with this album. But they’re far from perfectionists, and if you’re big into tuneful melodies, you shouldn’t buy this album. (The first time I listened to this album, it was on a train to Galway, and I wrongly attributed a few mechanical squeaks and grindings to the fine engineering of Iarnrod Eireann.)

The songs are a bit grungier, “grittier” perhaps, than any of the current crop of indie rockers thanks to some Southern Soul and blues thrown in for good measure. These work well with Nathan Willett’s vocals on the earlier songs, although the album is difficult to engage with at times.

“Tell Me in the Morning” is a personal favourite, though it is followed by another curve-ball from the left-field in “Hair Down” which fills a whole minute finding its feet. An album of hits and misses, but worth a listen.

Little Man Tate are from Sheffield, they’ve just started shaving and have a penchant for social comment type lyrics. “They’re like the Arctic Monkeys!”, bark critics up and down the land. “No we’re not”, reply Little Man Tate and I, for one, am prepared to take their side, since Little Man Tate’s take on “northern life” is more Gordon Bennett than Alan Bennett.

The LP title, of course, refers to the advice often offered to budding songwriters to “write about what you know”. For Little Man Tate, that means casting a wry eye over the mired world of indie pop, but the real irony is that Little Man Tate are as tiresomely predictable as those bands they seek to distance themselves from. They criticise unoriginality in “Man I Hate Your Band”, and scoff at celebrity culture in “Who Invented These Lists?”. It’s very “knowing”, it’s very “postmodern”, but it’s very crap.

It’d be alright if Little Man Tate had a smidgin of originality about them, but the best they manage is run-of-themill staple indie guitar fare and anyway others do indie wit with much more charm (Misty’s Big Adventure, Art Brut). A bit of a swizz, all told.

AUDIOFILES

In Review:

Report: The Meteor Irish Music Awards

Photos & Words: Brendan McGuirk

The Meteor Awards ho sted by Podge and Ro dge was a colourful night to say the least as the crème de la crème of Irish A and B list celebrities gathered tog ether to pay homage to the finest in today’s music industry. Favouri tes Snow Patrol swept the board taking home 4 awards in total – Be st Irish Band, Best Irish Album for their 2006 “Eyes Open”, Most Do wnloaded Song for “C hasing Cars” and Best Live Performance for the ir sell-out show in Marle y Park. For the third year in a row, Best Iris h Radio DJ was won by Today FM DJ Ray D'Arcy despite 2FM rea lly getting behind their DJs this year in an effort to win.

Best Irish Pop Act was won by Westlife who we

by Ronán Keating durin re joined on stage g the night to perform the song “Shall We Dance”off their new lov e album. The song is a Garth Brooks classic that Ronán had planned to do a version of for his new album but decided against when he heard Westlife also had similar plans. Best female went to Luan Pa rle and Best Male went to Damien Dempsey for the second year in a row.

Highlights of the evenin g were performances by the Immediate who are hopefuls for the upcoming Choice Music Awards; they played a song “Ghosts in this House” off their debut album. Kaiser Chiefs also made an ap pearance to play the firs t single “Ruby” off their long awaited new album “Yours Truly, An gry Mob”. The star attraction of the night, of course was female supergroup the Pussy Cat Dolls who perform ed an energetic versio n of their hit “Buttons” In the press room after . the show, lead “Pussy Cat” Nicole Scherzinger confirmed that she has no plans to leave the group upon the release of her solo self-titled album due ou t in March.

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Catriona Gray

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Sounds Off

AUDIOFILES

December comes early Words: Catriona Gray

The Decemberists definitely make an effort to engage with their audience. Before they even appeared onstage, a voice boomed through the PA. “Look around the theatre” it announced, “look at the architecture, the people who have come before you”. Strange words to utter in Vicar Street, which is not typically renowned for its architectural splendour.

Still, it’s the thought that counts and the Decemberists proved to be a rather considerate band throughout the duration of their two hour performance. Half-way through the set they encouraged everyone to participate in a spot of group exercise, which, admittedly, was a welcome break after all that standing.

The audience complied, raising their arms in the air and bending their knees, albeit a little sheepishly at first. As if that wasn’t entertainment enough, the lead singer

Colin Meloy split the audience, creating a gap by announcing that the middle of floor was covered by snakes and lava, and that the snakes were “spitting lava-poison”. Although those standing in the lava-snake zone seemed relatively unfazed by this proclamation, everyone entered into the ensuing singing competition during “16 Military Wives”, bellowing “la di da di da didi didi da” at the opposing side with gusto.

Audience participation aside, the Decemberists put on a particularly good live show. They sound like a patchwork of every imaginable influence, although they are predominantly a mixture of rock, folk and pop. The sheer range of instruments they played during the gig explains their eclectic soundapart from the standard guitars, bass and drums they had a piano accordion, violin, and glocken-

spiel to name but a few of the varied instruments that appeared on stage. The only criticism that I could level at The Decemberists is that the song “We Both Go Down Together” sounds remarkably like REM, especially the vocals. A lot of the songs were taken from their new album “The Crane Wife”, although they did play a selection from their earlier albums “Picaresque”, “Castaways and Cutouts” and “Her Majesty, The Decemberists”.

The performance took on even more of a bizarre twist when, during an extended version of The Chimbley Sweep, each member of the band dropped to the floor, one by one, as Meloy announced “they’re asleep”. A minute later and the entire audience were attempting to sit on the crowded, beer-soaked floor of Vicar Street, also “asleep” at the command of Meloy. Five minutes after this and most people’s hamstrings were beginning to ache, judging by the anxious glances that were being cast between the huddled mass on the floor and the plaintive cry of “Can we stand up now?” that emanated from somewhere at the back of the hall.

Since I had heard a mere four songs by the band before going to the concert (thank you, MySpace), I was impressed by just how good a live show The Decemberists delivered. If you haven’t seen them, go see them, even if it is just for the novelty of doing a spot of callisthenics to some accordion music.

What has happened to indie music? It has virtually taken the place of pop. Ironically, if we look at what music is popular, it would appear that indie is pop. The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight are all as mainstream as it gets. This might not seem to be a particularly big deal, but the problem is that indie is, by definition, independent music. Since indie music perceives itself as being an alternative to commercial music, what’s it supposed to do when it finds that it has mutated into the very thing that it goes against?

Presumably that’s where the label indie-pop or indie-rock comes in.

But alas, a further problem suddenly springs into the spotlight: the question of how does one sort out the real indie music from its commercial counterpart. All that separates the two is that one is played on MTV Hits and the other isn’t.

What is currently happening with the Killers is very similar to what happened back in 2003 when The White Stripes released Elephant.

Their indie fans were suddenly faced with the dilemma of hearing “Seven Nation Army” played everywhere, with everyone from their ten-year old sister to their Biology teacher listing The White Stripes as their favourite band.

Desperate assertions that they liked The White Stripes long before everyone else did didn’t help them in the slightest. The White Stripes had entered the domain of popular music and that (to date) was the end of it. Now, the occasional crossing over of an indie band to mainstream has spiralled into a mass exodus, with record companies churning out indie artists aplenty. No wonder everyone’s feeling a little confused. Indie is suddenly pop music. Tragic though this may be to the hard-core fans (the bands themselves don’t merit any sympathy, considering the amount of money they’re making), it doesn’t really matter whether a genre has “sold out”. What matters is whether the quality of the music has declined or not. Although there is a lot of formulaic indie-pop drifting about right now, it is unlikely that this will affect the genre’s longterm credibility. If four-piece bands happen to be in vogue at present, then that’s just the way it is. Let them enjoy their glamour while they have it and rest assured in another five years they’ll have sunk back into the obscurity from whence they came.

Electronic wizardry from Merlin

consumers have brought up recently if they buy a new MP3 player but cannot get at their old music anymore. The question arises as to whether this would benefit music sales or not – could it only help internet piracy increase?

In making the proposal Jobs pointed out that it seemed disproportionate that labels were selling 90% of their music without this protection on CDs yet feel the need to do so with the small amount of online sales. EMI have since announced they are starting to sell MP3s without this technology, specifically on Norah Jones’ and Lily Allen’s new albums, and if it proved to work, they would continue in the future to do so with all their releases.

With so much going on in the world of online music at the moment (see TNT, Issue 4: The Copycats), it seems that the whole music industry is a continual fluster at the moment to decide how to deal with the pros and cons the technology affords them, with no obvious or easy answers in immediate sight. Indeed, there may be no easy answers for now, but at least this has finally made the industry wake up to the possibilities available and they are finally engaging this in a positive way rather than the negative backlash that was first seen with the uprising of Napster only a few years ago.

Leaving the Exam Hall silenced

the Douglas Hyde Gallery who booked her rather than any of the mulitidude of big promoters in our fair city, a failing which has damning connotations for Dublin’s music scene.

Thank God Nastasia doesn’t bother herself with such tedium.

Performing alone, her gloriously skewed take on country, rock and folk was breath-takingly impressive. On record, her guitar playing is disguised by Steve Albini’s spookily ambient production, and for an artist with a lesser voice such a simplistic approach to the guitar could well be problematic. But the modestly played guitar-lines of her songs are truly complimentary not only to her voice, but also to her gift with melody, and it is only when it is heard in its barest form that the majestic simplicity of her songwriting can be fully appreciated.

In a similar way to Cat Power, Nastasia portrays a complex world of jealousy, anger and disenchantment in little more than two chords, and so overbearing is the effect that the close of each song was marked by a couple of seconds of reverent/confused silence. What is more, you get the feeling that she is unaware of how good she is, and she seemed genuinely touched when she was politely urged (it was in the Exam Hall) to do a second encore. In short, if you’ve never heard of Nina Nastasia, buy one her records. She needs the money and the confidence.

Words: Mike Davies

At the annual music conference MidemNet, held in Cannes a few weeks back, some exciting news was announced – the launch of Merlin. This newly created initiative has been set up to create an umbrella organisation to help protect and sell music from independent labels’ over the Internet, effectively creating a fifth major.

Currently independent label sales account for only 30% of the market, the other 70% taken by the four major labels (Vivendi’s Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI

Group and Warner Music).

However, this is disproportionate to the 80% of music actually being produced in the independent sector. The main fear is that the underdog independents are being left unprotected on the internet and not being given the rights that they deserve and have, so far, found difficult to achieve.

Currently independent labels must make contracts for every individual album they wish to sell online, in oppositions to the four majors all incorporating contracts

Words: Will Daunt

Nina Nastasia may well be the most under-rated female singer songwriter of the past 5 years. “On Leaving”, her fourth record, went largely unnoticed by the general public on its release last summer, despite every music journalist lucky enough to obtain a preview copy fighting to outdo each other in justifiably obseqious gushing.

Indeed, her lack of stature is exemplified by the fact that her visit to Dublin, the epicentre of accoustic singer songwriter culture, resulted in a mere footnote in the Event Guide and an extraordinarily civilized gig in – of all places – Trinity’s Exam Hall. Similarly, it was

AUDIOFILES

with online retailers. Along side the obvious difficulties that this creates for the independent labels, it is also far harder for them to protect their music’s copyright with the increasing burden that Internet sites such as YouTube and MySpace place on them – an area much easier for the four majors with their far greater resources to deal with.

Alison Wenham, president of World Independent Network, has said that Merlin will act as a privately funded, non-profit organisation based in London and has already received backing from trade bodies in Europe, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia.

Merlin’s Chief Executive, Charles Caldas, said at the conference in Cannes "The form of copyright apartheid currently being applied to the value of independent rights is unacceptable, Merlin will enable independents around the world to participate in new licensing and revenue models on competitive terms."

In other news affecting the digital market and issues of online piracy and copyright protection Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, called last week for retailers and record labels to pull current piracy protection data from the sale of their MP3s. At the moment this protection data prevents the transfer of files between playing devices and other systems, a complaint many

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Student drama review

A feast for the senses

don’s y L d i v a D

In the

Limelight

Words: Jessica Simmons

BACKSTAGE

Student theatre often suffers from a perhaps misplaced reputation for laziness. Forgotten lines, giggles behind the curtain, misguided ideas – facing the facts some productions are just, well, bad.

“Under Milk Wood” is a play that in the wrong hands or approached with an indolent touch could have been one of those terrible shows, the kind people won’t admit they were in, soon to become a long running joke within the theatre.

Luckily for me and my lunch hour, “Under Milk Wood” was in Katherine Graham’s very capable hands.

Like that sparkly vintage brooch I stole from my aunt, “Under Milk Wood” was delightfully quirky and never boring. It began with an introduction to the town of Milk Wood by way of a ‘narrator’ figure and mini model of the town. Led into the theatre by said narrator, the audience faced

a meagerly decorated stage, populated only by the characters of the play, some musical instruments and a few props.

Like week four’s evening show, it investigates the lives of the people populating the small town of Milk Wood, presented as a veritable “feast for the senses” as the cast repeatedly reminded me of how obscenely talented they all were. The lives of a clergyman, a clean freak, two dead ex-husbands, a curtain maker, maid, and the town lady (bicycle), amongst others, are examined in a manner that was at times comical and at others tragically revelatory.

Appearances may not be what they seem within the play’s light exterior, yet the distraction of the plays exploits almost made me forget about the plays darker components. In this theatrical variety show not only did most of the cast play multiple parts, they sing, play

instruments and operate puppets-is there anything they can’t do?

The shining stars of this production were the narrators, who took us through the world of Milk Wood (in monologues that contained far too many poetic lines and images for me to ever remember) with the relaxed ease that is usually more apparent in shows that have been rehearsing for much longer. Above all Under Milk Wood provided one of the base elements of theatre production – entertainment. Fast paced, colorful, eccentric and funny, any deeper message attached to the play was unfortunately lost on me (sorry, folks). Like a happy dream, I was contented just to dip into another world for an hour and emerge wondering why it isn’t socially acceptable to break into song and speak in poetic verse or have a live musical accompaniment to your day.

Worth all my two euros and more.

Student drama review

Tongue firmly in cheek Words: Nick Beard

Brian Martin’s original play, “Tongue Craves The Taste”, showed in the Players Theatre the week of January the 15th. The premise of the play was simple: three characters are trapped in a set the size of a prison cell waiting for a never-seen fellow prisoner to save them.

Martin’s directing and the set by Colm McNally do an excellent job of giving the audience the claustrophobic, uncomfortable feeling the characters are experiencing, with the interesting choice of a small cramped section for the audience that is almost adjoined to the stage. The set is visually disturbing, fitting for a show that disorients and disturbs both the characters and the audience.

The acting is above par, with Emma Gleeson hitting exactly the right notes as Admire, the play’s moral centre. Sorcha Pollak does an excellent job when required to play the Buffy-esque, sarcastic tough girl, but cannot quite convey her character Kelsi’s more emotional side. When Kelsi delivers a pivotal monologue about her nightmares, Pollak cannot quite convince the audience of her vulnerability. Paul Bonar was a good casting choice by Martin for Rurk, a permanently threatening physical presence.

Especially memorable was the scene when Rurk exploits Kelsi to demand that she kisses him. Due to the cramped settings, Bonar’s excellent portrayal of Rurk’s threatening presence, and Pollak’s defiance, it manages to convey exactly the awkward, painful feeling of watching a girl being manipulated into bartering her sexuality, and it took me several hours after the play to feel comfortable again.

The play was an excellent example of a wonderfully crafted student production; yet I felt as the play was making social satire and that the script was grasping for a deeper understanding which it didn’t quite achieve.

Hello loyal theatre buffs. There comes a time in every budding reviewer’s life where he or she realises that practice makes perfect, and that even the sharpest eye or the most vitriolic tongue requires maintenance. What better way, they ask themselves, to finely hone their analytical technique than regularly attending the finest student drama Trinity has to offer? I refer to the numerous shows on within Players on a weekly basis, (by which I mean two) which can stimulate debate and split opinion as much as any professional show, or (dare I say it) film.

Bearing this in mind, I decided to dispatch a crack team of reviewing specialists to shows of their respective choice within Players over the last few weeks. It was a little bit like the A-Team, except only a few of this particular squad have been sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit. This is, however, not a detriment to their perceptive prowess and, as I’m sure you’ll find from the simplest glance over these pages, the art of the review is far from dead within Trinity's esteemed walls.

I’d like to take this opportunity to reiterate an opinion that I’ve upheld for a long time: the reviewer is far from being the thespian’s worst nemesis, but instead forms an essential part of the theatrical process. After all, any play worth its salt should stand up in the face of a review, so really there’s nothing to worry about. Besides, one of the very reason theatre, or any performing art exists is to inspire discussion. (Not ballet though, no-one can have an opinion on that.) It is bearing this in mind that I intend to increase the number of reviews of student productions within Backstage, as whilst Theatre would not exist without the brave soul delivering the monologue onstage, it would lose an extra dimension were it not for the plucky critic scribbling away in the third row.

Completing the ‘student-first’ incentive in this vision is the New Writers Week, a festival in Week 8 where the finest student-writing on offer struts its collective stuff.

Anyone who would like to contribute a review or feature on the Festival, please don’t hesitate to contact me at lydond@tcd.ie

A town called Eden Words: Ruth DeBoer The DU Players put on many, many plays during the course of the year, and in order to squeeze in as many egos as possible, shows are performed as early as week three. This leaves plays performed early in the term with little time to master the projection of their director’s illuminated visions, and one must wonder: how good can a play that is performed after a few sparse weeks of rehearsal be? This term’s week four plays left me pleasantly surprised, and with a slightly renewed faith in what can be achieved in less than a month.

Edenstown, adapted from the Lars von Trier movie Dogville by Alan Murrin and directed by Clare Robertson, performed the longer evening show in week four. The play approaches a smorgasbord of topics: deceit, selfishness, and the darker side of human relationships bound in the story of a young girl called Grace who is

new to a small town. Beginning as a conventional tale, the predictability is removed by an unexpected plot twist at the end. To begin, the audience was led through a dark tunnel (girl alone in dark alleyway feel disrupted by surrounding audience members), popping out onto the centre of the stage, with the audience free to walk from the stage between the set and pre-set characters to their seats, on whichever side of the stage they liked. I chose to sit on the right and let the symbolism wash over me like some big artsy wave.

Like its basis, the ‘world’ of Edenstown was marked out by white lines with the characters already present going about their intended business. giving it an immediate voyeuristic air. Adding another angle of atmospheric unease to the show’s general anxiety was the rape scene between

Classless success Words: Nicholas Hamilton

As “The Entertainer” goes into rehearsals at the Old Vic in London, the fiftieth anniversary of John Osborne’s other classic, “Look Back In Anger”, was celebrated in Dublin with a revival at Andrew’s Lane by Serendipity Productions.

Set during the 1950’s, in an unspecified town in the British Midlands, ‘Look Back In Anger’ deals with the dissolution of the class system that had underpinned British society since time immemorial.

Jimmy Porter is an intelligent and educated young working-class man who runs a sweet stall and shares a bedsit with his ‘“business partner”

Grace and one of the locals, something many productions steer away from for fear of getting it wrong. Edenstown manages to make this scene shocking without being too long to be cringe-worthy.

However, it’s not all so bleak, as Murrin’s script manages to retain a few lines of humor and balance. Edenstown was a very ambitious project to be putting on in week four, and though I did find myself becoming distracted by the ever-present, ever-moving cast alongside the action in focus, I believe that they achieved what they set out to do. Above all, Edenstown cannot be faulted for lack of planning or care. Every piece of set and strain of haunting music was perfectly placed, and the cast portray the difficult emotions present in the script with clarity and honesty. A wonderful (yet melancholic) way to spend a rainy

Cliff, and wife, Alison. This unpromising situation frustrates Jimmy greatly, and the only outlet he can find for his obvious wit, intelligence and imagination is a series of cruel and violent rants.

Jimmy is disgusted by Cliff’s complacency and slothfulness, but reserves most of his rage for Alison, a “hostage” from the upper classes, who has never known the suffering that Jimmy wears as a badge of honour and does not show appropriate interest or respect for it.

Unfortunately Joseph-Paul Travers does not live up to the role of the original ‘angry young man’. His performance fails to reflect the subtlety and ambiguity of Osborne’s text, in which Jimmy switches from joking banter to venomous cruelty at the breath of a hare. And despite the fact that the upstairs studio in Andrew’s Lane is itself not much bigger than a bedsit, the audience is rarely made to feel the incredible tension inherent in the play. What is more, too many of Osborne’s brilliant observations and one-liners are lost to Traver’s unconvincing, English accent.

Dafydd O’Shea is well cast as the likeable but pathetic Cliff, who attempts to prevent Jimmy from going too far in his attacks on Alison, but stops short of confronting him openly and receives his fair share of abuse in return.

However, it is the two female cast members who deliver the strongest performances as sheltered public-school girls, who are simultaneously appalled and attracted by Jimmy’s rudeness and cruelty.

BACKSTAGE

Student drama review

Helena (Lynette Callaghan), an actress friend of Alison’s (Fiona Brennan) comes to town with a touring play, and joins the battle zone of Jimmy and Alison’s domestic life. With the sort of independence and confidence that Alison lacks, Helena appears to enjoy the fight against Jimmy, though her stiff upper lip is tested to the limit.

Set at the beginning of the period of social upheaval that would reach its climax during the Sixties, Alison sums up the confusion and difficulty felt by those on either end of the social ladder, when she observes to her father, ‘you’re hurt because everything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same’.

In the end, Jimmy and Alison are unable to overcome the complex social issues that plague their relationship, in the real world, and retreat into a fantasy world; when they are finally reconciled, it is not as Jimmy and Alison, but as their fantasy-world alter egos, Bear and Squirrel.

The fiftieth anniversary of Osborne’s work is a fitting occasion to bring it to new audiences.

Although the success of this production is hampered by a lead who fails to convince as a terrifying, domestic tyrant, strong performances by other members of the cast and the brilliance of Osbourne’s writing still make it well worth seeing. If nothing else this timely revival will hopefully help to reclaim ‘Look Back in Anger’ from its position, in the minds of many of the Brit Pop generation, as a footnote to the illustrious career of the Gallagher brothers.

9

10 Making music childsplay

and different mixes in there and it doesn’t sound like a record that’s been done in a day and mixed in a day. I think it gives you a lot more variety. I really like that.

G: And there’s a narrative with the lyrics.

C: It’s more a summary of a year than just of an intense period of a month or two.

A lot of your album art work features cats and you even cover ‘Everyone Wants to be a Cat’ from the Disney classic the Aristocats, does that all stem from being cat lovers?

G: Its stems partly from liking cats a lot and partly from a love of the absurd and surreal, and I think that we got a kick out of becoming insanely obsessive about one thing, but I mean that will probably change because things are in flux. We both really do love cats; it would be a lie to say we didn’t.

Words: Brendan McGuirk

COVERSTORY

Toy guitars, toddler play sets, a wind-up chicken named Brunhilda and a variety of novelty Casio keyboards are all part of collective that is used to create the musical entity that is “Psapp”, the love-child of musical experimentalists Carim Clasmann and Galia Durant. Using whatever they can get their hands on the pair make their own unique type of music and this has not gone unnoticed featuring on numerous American hit series such as “Grey’s Anatomy”,”The OC” and “Nip Tuck”. Trinity News Two got a chance to catch up with “Psapp” for a chat about what makes them tick before their recent gig in Whelans.

Psapp is a pretty cool name, where does it come from?

Carim: It originates from the sound of a fire in the backroom of a venue, just crackling and us speeding that sound down and modulating it through an elephants trunk.

Galia: And that sound is simply “Psapp”.

You’ve been credited with inventing Toytronica, for people who don’t know what that is, how would you describe it?

G: I’m not really sure what that is either, it wasn’t a genre we come up ourselves.

Is it like a NME term that was forced upon you?

G: There’s that band the Klaxons, everyone’s calling them New Rave but I don’t reckon they woke up one morning and said ‘hey guys, lets invent new rave’….well they might have.

Well they’re taking the credit for it…

G: Well, it’s quite melodic, but I’m not a massive fan of it. I do think there’s quite fun music in there and

Do you have many yourself?

G: We did have a lovely cat, but when we moved we found there was no way to let the cat in and out so we had to leave her at the old place so now we’ve only got cats that we’ve made ourselves out of wool and pipe cleaners. We’ve got lots of imaginary people actually that live with us. A guy called Bernard and a girl called Jenny who we like to imagine really exist but they don’t.

C: Don’t they?

G: Course they do, yes, sorry.

you know, they seem to be having a laugh. They look a little bit self conscious on stage though.

C: Well I don’t think we use only toys anyway, any object is allowed in “Psapp” as long as it makes nice musical contributions. It’s not toys exclusive, but we’ve got a lot of them.

What kind of instruments or pieces do you use to create your music; what’s your favourite?

C: I think we’ve got a really large selection of cardboard boxes at home, they’ve all got different tones so we use them quite a lot for rhythm, a lot of Casio keyboards, ah, a lot of sort of toys we buy for like fifty pence in the charity shop and you wouldn’t believe how many different ones there are out there G: And how sonically exciting a toddlers toy can be, it’s surprising really. I really like this egg slicer that we got off my mum that sounds really really good, it’s sort of twangy.

What does it sound like?

C: Like a miniature harp with steel strings.

So your mum knows what kind of presents to get you?

G: She’s pretty good, yeah, my whole family actually keep getting us good stuff.

You record a lot of your material in your London flat, it must be nice to work within your own space, it must be a really natural process.

G: Yes, although Carim pointed out that I don’t do as good vocals if I’m wearing my pyjamas as I do when I’ve actually got up and got dressed.

So we kind of have to get ourselves ready to do a session first.

Like getting up to go to work?

G: Sort of, yeah, I can’t remember

who it was that said he worked from home and he had to get up in the morning, get dressed, walk round the block, and walk back into his house and start his day of work. I can kind of understand that as well but we usually go out and buy coffee C: Yes, but it’s sort of less recording in a flat, we have a proper studio.

I’ve been running a recording studio for a long time and we’ve got more things to play with rather than just a laptop and a little soundcard.

I think a lot of bands prefer to do that now because they don’t end up in debt when they start off selling a record.

G: And plus, you can do it at your own pace, maybe a lot of guitar bands write the songs separately and record all of them separately but for us, it’s all one process, so we don’t start working in the studio with a definitive idea of what it is we want to do and that’s part of the fun of how we work together, as we like to experiment with things as we go along.

So its kind of like writing a novel, you add bit by bit.

G: Yeah, well, though, I suppose people who write novels have a finite idea of how its going to go but we kind of like the story to lead us where it will.

C: And also, I think if you record over a year or a year and a half for an album then you’ve got different atmospheres and different sounds

The artwork is very original and its something that stands out as your own thing. You said you like to obsess about it, is that an extra part to “Psapp”?

G: I just think it would be really weird if you wrote a record and you just said to the record label “you sort out the artwork”, you know it’s just surreal to put so much love into something and then to sort of let it go. It’s hard enough just putting it out and letting it go in a way and making it a public thing but I think if you’re going to do something you should make it yours as much as possible and a personal thing. That’s what we’ve tried to do, Carim does most of the layout of stuff and so we work together on everything, drawings and the visuals. It’s a shared project.

What I really like about it is that its so childlike and it looks like it could be in a children’s book and I know that a lot of your lyrics are quite imaginative, so I suppose it goes naturally with that.

G: Well, the lyrics kind of are quite adult, with adult themes. This is a thing people always ask us about, I always say the same thing is that life is a combination of like surreal joyful moments and quite evil scary negative moments and something’s are sort of childish and playful, and something’s are just incredibly dark.

We try and mix all those things

You guys composed the theme song “Cosy in the Rocket” for the American hit series “Greys Anatomy” and your songs have featured on the “OC” and “Nip Tuck”; that must be kind of surreal.

Do you get a lot of positive feedback from that?

G: We didn’t compose that song for the show, it was just a song that we’d written and they said “can we have it as a theme tune?” and as we weren’t planning on releasing it, we said they could have it. Yeah, it’s weird having stuff on the telly, we don’t have a TV. Sometimes round my boyfriend’s “Grey’s Anatomy” comes on and it really makes me giggle, I just find it really weird.

The other side of the Atlantic, it must give you some really great PR? G: We get some really weird people who are really into “Grey’s Anatomy”, we don’t even watch it.

But yeah, I’m sure it’s raised our profile. I can’t remember how many viewers but it’s a massive show in America apparently.

C: But It’s not something you really think about, though, especially not when you’re writing the music, you don’t have those things in mind, I mean, it’s not that different from music being played on the radio because you’re not aware, once in the public domain it sort finds its own way and gets played here or there.

Is it better than getting fame through an ad? As a lot of stuff is now like the José Gonzalez song Heartbeats and stuff like that.

G: Well, it’s the same kind of thing, we’ve been on ads as well, and I think we’re just not really that bothered about it. I mean its fine, if it happens, it happens, but we don’t run around saying “oh I wish I was on a T-Mobile ad”.

I actually only got introduced to the original by the Knife recently and I really like it, I think prefer it to the cover.

G: Yeah, it’s really nice, I’ve got fond memories of the cover version because whenever José used to play it, we used to get up on stage and just try and ruin the song. We toured with him and Juana Molina and we were all on the tour bus together and it just got incredibly silly, the whole thing, there was lots of teasing. I mean, one time, we were playing one of our shows and Juana Molina came up behind me and just hit me on the head and I was really dizzy because I head-butted the microphone. There was a lot of stuff like

that happening, it was really good fun actually.

On your live set, because a lot of music is created in such an imaginative way, it must be pretty hard to recreate it live. Is that a challenge you enjoy?

C: It was actually really hard work to

G: I’ve only got one record on there actually, which is the new “Deerhoof” album, “Friend of Opportunity”, it’s great, it’s only just come out.

C: I’m still listening to that “Moondog” record; it’s from the 1950s ,that record. Its quite funny in some ways because it sounds like “Psapp” fifty years ago and we only discovered it like two months ago.

So if you like Psapp, check out Moondog?

rearrange the songs, to try and find people to play it, people who sort of understand it, as well, our music because of the way its composed, it’s not like here’s a few chords , a verse and a chorus. Every instrument becomes a small part of the whole.

G: There’s lots of layers of melodies C: So it did take us a while and we had to try a lot of people and rearrange the songs quite a lot to make them playable. In a way we didn’t want to use any playback, so its all played live.

So it definitely was a challenge.

C: Yeah, but it feels much nicer, you know when you play a song you don’t have to wait for half a minute until the song kicks in, so you interact more when you play.

Do you have fun touring with the live material, something that you created at home in your flat and now it’s taken out?

G: It feels really separate to working on writing music, though, it’s like a completely separate project in my head. I don’t associate it with writing music because it’s a different kind of thing. It’s great playing live, especially you get lots of people and they’re all into the song and you start having a dialogue with them. I mean, to me, the point of playing live is for it to be interactive, otherwise, just sit on your laptop at home and don’t do anything. So what we do is often quite messy and junkshop sounding but, you know, we put a lot of love and effort into it and it’s great, it’s really really good fun.

Do you take time out to write and record, or do you write as you’re touring?

C: No, we don’t write on the tour really, we write at home in the studio. Sometimes, we just have to make sure there’s no gigs in certain parts of the year, so we find time to actually sit at home and record something and try something, because I think you have to be in that frame of mind, we don’t come back from a tour and straight away go into the studio and work, it’s quite homemade music and we have to calm down a bit to get into the right mood to do that.

What are you listening to at the moment? Who’s on your mp3 player or in your cd player?

G: He is the Don, he is amazing and he looks amazing, as well.

This bearded man who used to dress as a Viking and he lived homeless so he could save up money to record, which was just absurd. So he lived in New York homeless and with his Viking outfit on, and used to occasionally record records and then go back onto the streets again.

I know you guys played in Galway last night and you’re playing here tonight in Whelans, I would say you’d fit well in at “Electric Picnic”?

G: We played in the summer at Electric Picnic which was our first show in Ireland, it was sort of a mixture of a complete disaster and really good fun but I think most of our shows are like that.

C: I mean, once we’re here, it’s good but it always a disaster getting over to Ireland.

G:We had a nightmare yesterday.

C: It’s not all that far away G: I think we’ve just been incredibly unlucky, our tour manager’s sitting in the corner sniggering, I think in agreement.

Tour Manager: Yeah, the first show I ever did with you guys was Electric Picnic, the car broke down and the flight got cancelled and something else broke down.

G: Then Nich had left the band.

COVERSTORY

together, because we think that songs should have all of those parts.

Really, I find it really boring when someone writes a sad song and it kind of plods along. It kind of makes a song sadder if you inject it with some sort of humour or weird noise or something. I mean to me then its kind of more lifelike and genuine.

You just have to find your lucky shamrock?

G: We need shamrock, have you got any shamrock on you?

It’s not something I carry around with me!

G: It sounded like I was asking for drugs, has anyone got any shamrock? I just need an eighth of the Rock C: Of the old Sham.

G: (Laughs).

11

12 Running on empty Words: Jason Robinson

SILVERSCREEN

After the success of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size Me”, showing the effects a month of McDonald’s-only diet has on a person, one would think that a film version of Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation”, told as a fictional movie, as opposed to fact, like the book, would be somewhat redundant. Despite the impressive cast that director Richard Linklater has managed to assemble, this, in fact, proves to be the case. From the film’s opening, there are ominous signs that there is trouble with the balancing of content and themes. Linklater and Schlosser’s script is put under considerable strain throughout. An opening sequence of some dodgy retro music and a screen awash with tacky fast food décor may hope to set the tone for a damning indictment of the fast food industry, but unfortunately both Linklater (and one would infer Schlosser) seem to have spread the range of themes

at their disposal too thin and taken on too many subjects for one movie: immigration, worker exploitation, sexual exploitation, US-Mexican relations, border control, role of large corporations and so on.

The first real significant scene in the film is a border-crossing undertaken by numerous Mexicans, including among them Raul (played by Wilmer Valderrama), Sylvia (Catalina Moreno) and Coco (Ana Talancón). The crossing goes mainly according to plan, but from here on in we see that the US and its lure of promise soon proves to be quite the opposite for these young Mexicans. Yet should a film called “Fast Food Nation” really be focusing on illegal immigration? In some respects, the issues may be interlinked, but simply put, this issue detracts from Schlosser’s main argument: large fast-food chains care little for the consumer.

Getting warmer Words: Hugh McCafferty

As for characters and actors, the fact that Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) is played by the man who we all know as Fez from “That 70s Show”, may set the alarm bells ringing from the start, but, fortunately for him, all the actors in “Fast Food Nation” are let down by a script that overreaches itself. All the film’s major actors seem out of place and thrown into a script that gives them little or no room to maoneuvre: Greg Kinnear, Ethan Hawke, Luiz Guzman and Bruce Willis all seem underwritten and bare. Indeed, it is Ethan Hawke as Pete, Amber’s (played by Ashley Johnson) uncle who proves the most endearing of the film’s characters, only for him to be shuttled off soon after arriving.

Ultimately, the film is aiming at too many things and is never quite sure whether it’s a documentary or a film: on the one hand, an indictment of large, heartless multina-

The release two and a half years ago of Shaun of the Dead came as quite a disappointment. Having worked together previously, with Jessica Stevenson, on Spaced (one of the funniest and most innovative sitcoms of the last decade, for your information), Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright delivered a somewhat half-baked zom-com. The buzz, then, surrounding their second foray into film-making together was a little more subdued.

Thankfully, though, despite not returning to the form of earlier days, Hot Fuzz is a very enjoyable effort.

Pegg plays Sergeant Nicholas Angel, a police officer whose record with the London Metropolitan police is so impeccable that it begins to embarrass his superiors. As a result, he finds himself transferred to the sleepy country village of Sandford. Needless to say, all is not as peaceful as it

tionals, on the other hand, the film is trying to address the issue of illegal immigration and the exploitation of workers such as Raul, and the sexual exploitation of women such as Coco and Sylvia.

However, across the board, the film falls flat. Pete’s (Ethan Hawke) moralizing to Amber in particular seems out of place, and the sex scenes involving Coco and Sylvia respectively seem unnecessary and redundant. As a book, “Fast Food Nation” is powerful and shocking, and “Super Size Me” perfectly compliments this.

Linklater’s film, however, seems misguided and rudderless and no amount of graphic cattle slaughter images come the end will detract from this fact. A nice idea but badly executed.

Fast Food Nation is being shown as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. The film opens goes on general release in Ireland on 23rd seems in this ostensibly ideal community and, before long, locals begin to drop like flies in a series of gruesome ‘accidents’.

Part Midsomer Murders, part The League of Gentlemen, Hot Fuzz is at times hilarious (at times a little flat) but more generally, gently amusing. In fact, for all the homicidal carnage on display, the film is, at heart, a feel-good buddy movie, with Nick Frost playing PC Danny Butterman, Hooch to Pegg’s Turner.

There’s something similarly comforting about Sandford itself, populated as it is by a plethora of familiar faces including Jim Broadbent, a deliciously sinister Timothy Dalton and a host of others recognisable from such British comedies as Jam, Peep Show, Spaced and The Book Group.

In a recent interview, Pegg explained that he and Wright intend to make a trilogy of movies placing traditional American genres in British settings. On the evidence of Hot Fuzz, quality levels are certainly on the up, so bring on effort number three.

The

Final Cut DVD Review

Little Miss Sunshine: A surprisingly strong contender for this year’s coveted Best Picture Academy Award, “Little Miss Sunshine” appeared from nowhere to woo audiences at Sundance and go on to earn almost $60million dollars at the US Box office. The hype that has surrounded the film has been huge and it’s not hard to see why.

From first-time film directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (the pair, married, had previously worked on music videos) and written by first time film-writer Michael Arndt, “Little Miss Sunshine” is a gem of a movie. Simple and sweet, balancing comedy and light drama and taking the basic premise of a dysfunctional family, but not engaging in clichés which so many films of a similar ilk do, the film’s script, performances and its soundtrack, are all spot on.

Revolving around the Hoover family’s trip to the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in California, the film takes the conventional road-trip premise of adversity testing an already-strained family unit, and tweaks the format, ever so slightly, to give a fresh air to the genre.

In the directors’ commentary, both Faris and Dayton discuss the various cast choices they made and even on repeated viewing of the film, it’s hard to find fault with their choices: indeed, both Abigail Breslin (playing Olive) and Alan Arkin (playing Grandpa) are up for Oscars and the other members of the Hoover family, played by Steve Carrell (that’s right, Brick from “Anchorman”), Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Paul Dano can all feel somewhat unlucky not to see their names up in lights too.

All in all, “Little Miss Sunshine” is one of those movies that still stays funny with repeated viewing. The performances seem to get better and better (who would have thought Carrell possessed such acting chops?) and despite the flimsy special features (the 4 alternate endings are interesting for perspective, but criminally short) this is well worth buying, whether you’ve seen it already or not: this movie is one to watch with family and friends for years to come.

Where’s Bobby?

Words: Conor O’Kelly

Armed with little information about this film by director Emilio Estevez, I assumed that ‘Bobby’ would offer some kind of biography of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of JFK, who was assassinated moments after winning the Californian primary and becoming the front runner in the 1968 U.S. Democratic Party Presidential candidate race. Instead, director Emilio Estevez concentrates his story - he also wrote the screenplay - on the lives and interactions of the guests and employees of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Kennedy makes his victory speech before being murdered.

To try and communicate a sense of Kennedy’s politics and position in the 1960s, the film makes use of archive speeches and footage throughout. In the hours leading up to his murder, Kennedy is visible only on the hotel televisions, and his disembodied voice is heard in speeches recorded at the time. Meanwhile the hotel employees and guests go about their lives and jobs, unaware of the drama about to unfold. This then is a tricky proposition in film terms: the ‘star’ is practically invisible, it employs a mix of archive and modern footage and it attempts to sustain and resolve the multiple storylines provided by a huge supporting

cast. Unfortunately for such an ambitious film, it doesn’t quite achieve in all its ambitions, and ‘Bobby’ falls between two stools.

Part of the problem lies in the strength of the all-star ensemble cast. Anthony Hopkins is a retired hotel doorman, and is at his twinkly-eyed best, delivering the sort of likeable grand-uncle performance he is best loved for.

Demi Moore plays an ageing alcoholic songstress brilliantly, not quite washed up yet, but next stop is Vegas; Heather Graham, Laurence Fishburne, Martin Sheen, William H. Macy, Elijah Wood, Sharon Stone, Lindsay Lohan and Christian Slater all do a turn.

Helen Hunt is here (still doing her ‘Mad About You’ shtick), and I could go on, even Ashton Kutcher turns up in a role that could only have been a subclause in Demi Moore’s contract. And for the most part, they are all very good, if not excellent – Lindsay Lohan, for instance, is a great actor. The problem is that these vignettes, by so many excellent actors, really derail any opportunity for a cohesive storyline that does justice to the obvious political intentions of the film. The sub-plots do deal with issues of racism, Mexicans working in the hotel kitchen, for example, and there is a young black activist working on Kennedy’s elec-

SILVERSCREEN

n’s o s n i ob R n o Jas

tion team, but balance these stories with Ashton Kutcher on acid, with Helen Hunt shopping for shoes, and the message gets somewhat diluted.

The ‘Bobby’ of the title never really gets a look in. While the voiceovers and archive footage attempt to contextualise the US race and civil rights movements of the 1960s, Kennedy is never more than a two dimensional character.

The film opens with archive footage of riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and ends with a speech by Kennedy.

These nods to political aspiration feel clumsy and unsuccessful in the overall context of the film. The story of the lesser-known Kennedy brother is remarkable in its own right, but it is a complex story and Estevez seems to have lost his nerve in trying to communicate it.

Nowhere is it more apparent than when the shooting finally takes place, even in this scene, Kennedy remains faceless and the camera must concentrate on the injured bystanders; there is no point in focussing on Kennedy - we really have no idea who he is. Faced with so much talent, and so many strong performances, Estevez seems to have forgotten to tell his story and instead settled for a pastiche of star turns.

This is, at the same time, a very enjoyable film. It’s very economical to catch up with all these actors in one sitting, and each of the subplots is entertaining enough to get over the overall lack of cohesion.

The film cuts back and forth fast, and when I left the cinema, I was surprised that it had run for two hours. My only gripe is the failed political tone of the picture: if Estevez had called it ‘Ambassador Hotel’ and cut some of the ideological grandstanding, I probably would have loved it.

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Belle of the ball

HIGHSTYLE

Words: Katie Martin

Tis the season of awards ceremonies, and not to get anyone in a panic but ball-fever is about to hit Trinity too with at least one the following Balls: the Bess Ball, Engineering Ball, Science Ball or Trinity Ball, making an appearance in every student's social diary.

Last week, LA staged the Golden Globes ceremony, provoking every magazine from Vogue to Closer to analyze the best and worst looks.Whereas celebs have faithful stylists running around after them and a limitless price range to perfect their look, we students have a considerably less amount of money, and only our housemate’s or mother’s advice to go on.

However, considering the worst-dressed lists, you can see for yourselves money, professional advice or the two combined, can prove to be a serious hindrance.

Even Lisa Armstrong, fashion editor for The Times, hit out that the Golden Globes were mere proof that “most celebrity stylists couldn’t spot a world-class evening dress if it socked them in the face with one of its hand-sewn crystals.”

So, if the fashion editor of The Times considers personal stylists to be so inept, that provides hope for us mere mortals! No excuses, then; the perfect ball look is as achievable to us as it is to silver screen

“

On Ball night, our personal taste and level of fashion intelligence is what is going to separate the ‘diamonds’ from the ‘rough’

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goddesses. On Ball Night, our personal taste and level of fashion intelligence is actually what is going to separate the “diamonds” from the “rough” to put it in such a dazzling way.

Now, call me old fashioned, but when I hear black tie I think classy and modest. Wearing so much more material than required on the average night out means we should take advantage and wear something that is going to seriously flatter. There's a style of dress to suit every body shape – full length, calf length, knee length, strapless, corseted, spaghetti straps, capped sleeves, backless, cleavage enhancing, phew. It is all about highlighting your assets and disguising the flaws.

The first step to putting the look together is choosing The Dress.

Hair, make-up and accessories all need to revolve around it like planets to the sun. The fashion mistakes and triumphs at the Golden Globes are beneficial “study guides” showing which hair styles, make-up and accessories lovingly compliment certain looks. Luckily more “study material” will become available with the Oscars Award ceremony taking place in the coming weeks.

After doing the relevant revision certain traits have emerged: • Don’t go all out: an over-the-top dress is fabulous, however, only when teamed with appropriately glitzy jewellery and a demure hairstyle.

• Shoes and bags must correspond in some way. This doesn’t specifically mean matching, but the same colour and detail is necessary.

Gold shoes teamed with a silver bag just won’t cut it.

• If you decide to go for a more subtle evening dress, then you get to have a field day on your hair and make up. Sienna Miller’s plaited hair style at the Golden Globes was gorgeous and provides an alternative for Ball season 2007.

• Black may be regarded as typical and boring, however, it is not to be underrated.

• Regarding nails and lips, red is still a very popular choice, being both sassy and classy. Take heed though, at our age, it only suits a limited number of skin/hair colour combinations.

Basically finding the happy balance for the outfit is vital. Go forth, try on a lot of dresses, add accessories with care, spend hours pouring over fashion magazines to recreate the looks you find the most inspiring and, voila, we will all be belles of the Balls!

P.S. Just in case you’re wondering, to my ball of choice, I’ll be wearing a deep purple calf length number, with matching gold accessories and my hair in a loose bun.

That is, unless the look gets slated after some stylist and celebrity manage to make it look atrocious at the Oscars.

Words: Kerrie Forde

Monstrosities

right now. In fact, two summers ago she looked current and almost street when she was wearing trucker hats and glasses all the time. Still, how can you like someone who doesn’t like themselves?

I want to avoid directing this article towards the popular debate about how famous women influence the lives of young girls and indoctrination of the media, because I don’t want to believe that young girls are that simple. We should look at Victoria in a more intricate light and remember the very public period of pain and betrayal, she experienced through her husband’s adultery.

This period was very hard for tabloid and outsiders to define because of her strength as a component in what seems to be a lasting and powerful family unit. It does have power, because it almost stands alone as an example of a healthy family in society today.

Does Victoria realise that these are the things that could make her compelling. Does she realise that if she carried these life- experiences with her that they could make her natural?

When anyone looks at their image, we all see what we don’t like and yet, it is the image of our parents and their parents before them. If you understand that, you accept the way you are because it is your path, it is more obviously written on your hands.

HIGHSTYLE

Victoria Beckham is the worst dressed woman in the world. She is all that fashion is not. Un-natural and strained are two words I would use to describe the way she carries herself, so that a potentially lavish dress looks limp at the Golden Globes after parties. But there are more important things to say about Victoria Beckham, because in a twisted Carnivalesque way, her female figure of infested insecurity is always cast directly in the glaring light of the media.

When a photographer takes a picture of her, it seems he captures clear unhappiness. Have men, has a man done this to her?

The incessant use of her name in conjunction with the phrase “style icon” needs to be addressed.

Surely, it inspires a quick reproach, as if a “style icon” would ever partly be made of plastic. People love to hate her because people love to hate, but these words aren’t of the same campaign. It is human nature to criticise potential, we leave alone what is limp and redundant. Mrs Beckham has potential. She is actually renowned for being quite an edgy and clever girl; we have seen that from television footage. Hasn’t she actually taken the term “posh”, a term which carries cultural weight, and played with it, made money from it, in quite a fun way?

In Victoria’s defence, she has a great haircut

Callingallstudents

Student Eco-Fashion Show 2007 Photo: Jago Tennant

Those who were involved in the Eco Fashion Show last year will remember that it was an innovative and stunning event generating nation press attention and wide scale interest.

This year the fashion show will once again be staged in April but it will be bigger and better and Trinity students have the chance to

get involved. Eco fashion has never been a more current theme, featuring in London Fashion week in September.

Over the next three weeks, I will be scouting for models and designers. If you wish to get involved, please email me at the following address: fordekj@tcd.ie

15

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16

It enjoys strong sales in traditionally loyalist areas, despite the prominence of the Catholic monastery on the front of the bottle

FOODDRINK

Drink of the Gods Words: Gearoid Godson

Benjamin Franklin once said: “alcohol is God’s way of letting us know how much he loves us”. It seems fitting, therefore, that it should be left to the Benedictine monks of the Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England to provide us with this incredible drink. Drinking this stuff is truly an experience to be tried at least once!

Having said this much, the first time drinker must pay due consideration and respect to the amazing power of this 700ml of wine.

Its enormous caffeine content means that it will give you the energy to go do things that appear to be great ideas whilst under the influence, but that you are unable to do while drinking more sensible drinks. Running around and acting the buffoon after leaving a club at 3am may seem too much hard work with about 4 gallons of Tuborg swirling around your stomach, but thanks to this drink, you will have the energy and the desire to go

around collecting every road sign between Copper Face Jacks and Buck Whaleys. Couple this with an induced level of confidence that regular cocaine users can only dream about, and I think you’ll start to get the picture.

This “fortified tonic wine” was initially produced by the monks in the 1890s as a medicine under the slogan, “three small glasses a day, for good health and lively blood”, a slogan no doubt obeyed to this day by some of our very finest academics in Trinity. After this, the abbey enlisted the help of a wine merchant to bottle the wine and to distribute it to a wider market.

Buckfast has seen a huge increase in its popularity in recent times through its introduction, initially to the bohemian community, but later to the working classes and students. Its use is most prolific in Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Its use in Northern Ireland is seen as a loos-

ening of sectarian divides, as it enjoys strong sales in traditionally loyalist areas, despite the prominence of the Catholic monastery on the front of the bottle. It also has a bizarrely huge following in Lancashire in England where the sale of buckfast accounts for an amazing 10% of all alcohol sales in the area. Compare this to Ireland and Scotland, where the figure is closer to 0.5% and all of a sudden it becomes easy to excuse the unrivalled aggression displayed by Blackburn Rovers F.C. The sale of Buckfast in these parts has not been without controversy. The Scottish parliament has been particularly vocal on the matter where the wine is seen as an integral part of the “ned” (youth delinquent) culture. The Scottish health minister, Andy Kerr, described the drink as a contributor to antisocial behaviour. He also attacked the distributors by saying they were showing an irresponsible attitude by allowing the drink be widely sold. This condemnation is not isolated to Scotland.

The Irish News recently ran an article where they stated that "[Buckfast] features in displays of roaring and shouting, projectile peeing and vomiting, street brawling, general vandalism and ugly midnight scenes in accident and emergency departments". Down south, there have been many calls for the Minister of Finance, Brian Cowan, to place a tax upon the beverage, in an attempt to make it less attractive to underage drinkers. (At the moment it costs around €10, a relative bargain given its high alcoholic content and known effects).

Amongst students, it is most common to see Buckfast being drinken straight out of the bottle (brown paper bag covering is also

”

an option). However, there are various internet sites set up by “connoisseurs” which provide helpful tips with a view to increasing your drinking pleasure. In the name of journalistic balance, I decided to log on and try a few of these concoctions out. (Please bear in mind, I do these experiments so you don't have to.)

The most popular of these is called 'Punk Champagne'. This entails mixing two parts bulmers to one part Buckast. I myself tried this and I can say it tastes similar to a bottle of cidona mixed with an equal measure of cough syrup.

One mixture that even I am too much of a coward to try is appropriately entitled “Loopy Juice”.

This sees two brave participants mixing a bottle of Buckfast, 700ml of Vodka, two cans of cider and two cans of Red Bull. I would like to be able to tell you what this experience is like, but alas, I am unable to do so. Mainly due to the fact that everybody's last memory of the night seems to be lifting a glass of the stuff to their mouths. I was, however, left with one classic quote from a friend of mine. “this is as high as you will ever get without attracting the attention of the Gardai”. My personal favourite would have to be what is known as the “White Monk” or “Buckshake”. This sees chilled Buckfast added to an equal measure of milk. Perfect for that bedtime drink!

From what I have just written, it is easy to see why this wine has gained such a cult following amongst students and transients on these two islands. I‘m sure many of you are well aware of what I have just written, but for those of you who are unaware of this great gift from the fine monks in Devon, I urge you to give it a try the next time you head out.

Tetris is removed from Goldsmith Hall

Their only customer continues to be a homeless man who is yet to pay for anything

Words: Brian Cleere

Recently while having my soup and roll, courtesy of Mr. Boland, I noticed that the management of The Buttery have littered their already landfill-like site with notices informing patrons that they are “insulted” that people dine there every day and fail to contribute to the upkeep of the restaurant. The real insult is that they have the meatballs to even call themselves a restaurant.

The food in The Buttery is rubbish. The only attraction to this kip is the likelihood of getting a seat and a bit of warmth on those icy cold days when you can't figure out what gender you are.

Anything you can get in the Buttery, you can get in The Pav or Dining Hall. The only reason you might find yourself there is the spring rolls, which aren't too bad, if you can see past the fact they look like deep-fried baby arms.

The Pav, however, is the most underrated restaurant in Trinity.

You get a great feed for €5.50.

I'm well aware that if you are not within the first 35 to purchase food, you'll probably be forced to eat on the picnic tables outside, but people are surprisingly quick to vacate their seats. This is probably due to the efficient staff, who snap up your plate as soon as you sit back, leaving you clutching a complimentary pint of water feeling a little unwelcome.

For all those muck-savages out there, this is the ideal place for those meat and two veg delicacies. For everybody else, go for the baked potatoes filled with chilli con carne and cheese. It's the business.

When the Dining Hall is on form, the food is pretty darn good.

However, the only thing that seems to change with the rice dishes is the colour and name; sweet and sour, black bean sauce, and beef stroganoff – they all seem to taste the exact same. The servers here are the most amicable in Trinity, but for those who eat here fre-

Palatial living Words: Claire McKenna

Friday evening and the words on everyone’s lips are “Pav-Palace”. But, what’s all the fuss about? The Pav requires a long, cold and often rainy walk through college when, for once, you’ve just made your best efforts to glamorise yourself. When you get there, you ain’t going to fare much better either, from my experience.

The space is so comprised you’re often left lurking outside, wondering why you didn’t just have a cosy carry-out in a mate’s house.

The evening usually does pick up once you hit The Palace. Because it is one of the few

quently, the woman without the glasses is more likely to let you away with those ketchup sachets hidden under the rim of your plate.

The highlight of my dining experience is that conveyor belt that takes your tray when you're done. The food is scraped off your plate and poured into a chute that leads straight down to The Buttery where it is dusted off and served as the daily special.

Sales in Goldsmith Hall seem to have hit an all time low since they banished Tetris from the games room. Like the Buttery, they don't allow you to bring your own food. So far, this has only affected the cricket population who seem to be multiplying under the couches.

The Dead Pig Sandwich used to be their speciality, which comprises of microwaved rashers, sausages and cheese. I don't know whether it still is served here, nor do I care. It takes a lifetime to prepare and once consumed, the only thing you are fit for is a triple

bars in Dublin which are actually free on a weekend night, it is a haven for second, third and fourth year students. Sorry Freshers, this one is strictly over 20’s and the bouncers leave a little to be desired in manners and grace, so there’s not much point chancing your charm.

Due to the influx of Trinity students, the queue has been said to go as far as the Rathmines.

Not one for long queues? A quick jump to the start and you’re gliding through no sweat.

Inside is cheesy r n’b and, forgive me for my lack of cool, but sometimes a girl just needs to bump’n’grind! It’s definitely a good night for a boogie and to get some male attention with your moves. Shallow and fake, you say? So what, aren’t we allowed to be some of the time?

Until the good weather comes back, I think skip the Pav and head straight for The Palace on a Friday night. It’s a great spot to hit with a big group and drunkenly dance like you’re in one of those MTV videos. But watch out, boys, The Palace is renowned for its lack of tolerance to any males having fun so be good unless you want to exit through the side door!

FOODDRINK

Eating out in College

y-axis = People in Goldsmith x-axis = Time

by-pass. Hop over to O'Donovan's across the street and buy anything that has Mexican Mayonnaise instead.

So if you are stuck for lunch with a bunch of tight See-You-NextTuesdays and don't fancy going somewhere all on your lonesome, remember these rules: • Go to The Pav if you are planning a big feed before hibernating for winter in The Buttery.

• Go to the Dining Hall if you’re a cheapskate and couldn't possibly spend more than €4 on lunch.

• Go to The Buttery if you are a bin man or a bat. In fact most nocturnal creatures are safe here, including all four and a half members of the Metaphysical Society.

• Don't go to Goldsmith Hall.

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“It’s Valentine’s Day, I’ll give you kisses on the bum or you can turn over and we’ll have even more fun...

Lots of hugs and snogs.”

Valentines day scrouge

SEXLIVES

Words: Sorcha Lyons

Sorcha’s Secret Corner Words: Sorcha Lyons

This month’s hottest dustiest corner in college is the Resource Room. One of the perks of this room is that few people are aware of its existence up on the top floor of the G.M.B. After the snooker rooms, go through the magical double doors and there are yet another set of stairs leading up to the attic of the building. Many wily Law students trek up to the hidden comput-

The cult of the celebrity has crept into all facets of our modern worldthe most bizarre being the cult of the celebrity saint. Those popular Big Brother Saints that have found their way into everyday vocabulary and into modern culture.

These saints that dictate how we behave and what we spend our money on at certain times of the year – Saint Paddy being the patron saint of leprechaun hats and puddles of vomit. We’ve that to look forward to next month.

However, it is February now. Our February celebrity saint is, none other than, you guessed it, that ol’ Cassanova, Saint Valentine. Noone knows romance like Saint Valentine. Billions of people around the world send cards and exchange love tokens. Valentine’s Day, love it or hate it, is staring us in the face; glaring at us from bouquets of roses, garish red cards, soulless teddy bears and overpriced dinners, all in the name of love.

Above is an actual rhyme which I found in a Valentine’s Day card this year. I quote it as it encapsulates everything that is wrong with this holiday that we attribute to Valentine. The above hacked rhyme is forced, vulgar and embarrassing, a lot like Valentine’s Day itself. The thing is girls and boys, I love love. Pick me up and whisk me away in a hot air balloon, play me songs on a violin, compose them for me, dip me in honey and kiss me all over. I am a hopeful romantic – whisper sweet everythings in my ear and love me until the ends of the earth.

But, from a hardcore romance fan,

er room; that’s quite enough arousal for them, but for the more adventurous student there is the room opposite, the Resource Room.

This is a beautiful atmospheric chamber. Noone really knows what it is used for. Once every three months, someone holds a debating workshop up there, but apart from that, the resource room remains quiet, dark and empty. Littered with old books and editions of Trinity News from the 1970s, the Resource Room is like stepping back in time. There is a distinctly gothic feel to the room, with its high ceilings and its large gothic windows. I recommend going there at dusk, just as the sun sets and the light drains out of the room leaving it pitched in moonlight. the wind roars outside and you have the most beautiful view of the campus in front of you.

Get freaky with some role-play; a young maiden trapped in a dark tower and rescued by a dashing prince or ravished by an evil count, whatever you’re into. The resource room boasts a huge wooden table to accommodate all sorts of games. So, if you happen to have an hour free, grab your mate and head up to the top floor. All the stairs will get your heart beating but it’s worth it. It’s a great way to spend a free hour in college – if that’s not resourceful, what is?

I have to conclude that romance and Valentine’s Day are not a match made in heaven; in fact ,they are hellbound on the road to divorce.

One need look no further than the local cinema on February 14th for the reality of Valentine’s Day. Hundreds of couples horde into the cinema. The men, sweating, unsure, one awkward arm slung around their partner’s shoulder.

The women stand clutching wilting roses and balloons. The couples march around, buying special loveheart sweets (produced especially for the day) and herd into the latest love flick (also produced especially for the day). They stare into their partner’s eyes in an attempt to avoid the eyes of others.

The hundreds of other couples forming a repetitive, worn pattern woven around the cinema chairs – they all look the same, they all say the same things – mass-produced romance at its finest hour.

The tiniest of things can be romantic- when you’re lying in bed delirious and in pain and someone comes and picks you up – that’s romance. Romance is thoughtful, spontaneous and individual to each couple and each relationship. Valentine’s Day is its complete antithesis, it is mass produced, contrived and empty. The mechanics of Valentine’s Day manage to suck all of us innocents into their grasp. Cold thorny roses and calculated verses with plastic hearts go against the warm concept of love as we know it. For the true romantics amongst us, every day should be Valentine’s Day. Everyday should be that special day when we tell that special someone in our life that they mean something to us and that we love them.

That’ll be €5.99 for the love advice. Hugs and snogs.

THEBOX

Back at Lost Words: Richie McCormack

So the second instalment of Lost, season three has arrived. Out in the cold since December, fans of the programme have had to endure a two month wait for answers. How does Jack’s plan pan out? Do Kate and Sawyer make their escape unharmed?

Episode 3.1 answered these questions, but in typical Lost style for every question answered another two arise. So was it worth the wait?

The opening scene starts where we were left off preChristmas with Jack holding Benjamin Linus’ life hostage on the operating table after cutting one of his arteries. Jack has been a man on a mission ever since he accidentally saw Kate and Sawyer getting up close and personal on camera. His demands are simple.

To let Kate and Sawyer go free and to be allowed to return safely to the rest of the crash survivors

back at the beach. What Jack doesn’t know is that the rest of their group are in fact on a different island making an escape for his two friends impossible. There seems to be some reason for Jack’s selfless behaviour throughout all this that only he seems to know.

We think all is lost when Juliet attempts to call Jack’s bluff, claiming he would never let a patient die and orders Kate and Sawyer to be caught or even killed if necessary.

Suddenly Benjamin awakes from his anaesthetic.

Unlike Juliet, he isn’t quite as willing to sit around and see if Jack will watch him die and insists on talking to her on her own. We aren’t allowed to listen to the conversation first hand but its poignancy is clearly evident. Juliet returns and retracts her orders and insists that Kate and Sawyer be let go. She takes off herself to ensure this happens.

We are given a lot of background to Juliet’s character throughout the episode using Lost’s technique of flashbacks. Until now, she has remained a very vague character. Unlike the strong character she appears to be, we now learn she was once a feeble person, pushed around by her ex-husband. Many fans may have assumed that the “The Others” are the locals who have just so happened to live on this island all their life. However, we can now tell that Juliet used to live in Miami with her sister where she worked as a much revered doctor.

She has managed to impregnate a male field mouse, which has drawn much attention to her work. In the wake of such an achievement, she is pursued by a mysterious individual and his colleague, whom we already know as Ethan. Together, they desire to have her come work for a privately funded company where money will no longer hold her research up. However, she refuses stating that she couldn’t, as the only way her ex-husband would allow her to go would be if he were hit by a bus. Needless to say, and once again, in true Lost style he is in fact hit by a bus soon afterwards. Is this company DARMA? Are they behind this “accident”? Only time will tell. Juliet’s presence on the island may explain Claire’s earlier abduction. possibly playing a part in one of Juliet’s experiments.

Returning to the action, Kate and Sawyer are being pursued when they come across one of “The Others” who helps them. She is one of the younger islanders, who in fact turns out to be Benjamin’s daughter, and tells

them she will help them escape by showing them where a boat is hidden if they first help her free her boyfriend who similarly is being held captive. They agree. The group finds him in a room in one of the island’s many mysterious, locked up buildings. After making their way past a guard they find him tied to a chair where he is being forced to watch a large screen while strange music plays in the background, presumably being brainwashed in some way.

Who is this man? More Questions!

Sawyer throws him over his shoulder and they continue to the location of their boat.

Near the boat they are confronted by one of “The Others” that has a particular dislike towards Sawyer. Just as it looks as though he is about to be the next major character killed off, Juliet appears from nowhere and shoots her comrade, killing him and, once again, revealing another side to her character. The group, minus Benjamin’s daughter, are allowed go.

The episode ends with a conversation between Jack and Juliet.

Jack asks Juliet what Benjamin had said to her earlier to make her change her mind about letting Kate and Sawyer go. She reveals how she has been on the island for three years and that if she followed Benjamin’s orders he said he would let her go home, just before the screen goes black and the credits run, leaving us wanting more as per usual!

Lost, RTE 2, Mondays 10.05pm

19

HOT

Faceoff

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Words: Joey Facer

Roald Dahl

V

ENDNOTES

Remember, in the days before Heat, Hello and Sophie Dahl, when we used to curl up like innocent mice with our noses buried in Matilda, or James and the Giant Peach?

When my father, on leave from the army, brought me home a copy of Fantastic Mr Fox, I think I read it five times before he came home again bearing The Magic Finger. Dahl nurtured my love of literature that has culminated in studying English at university – otherwise known as the “I don’t want a career” degree.

Dahl began writing career as, shock horror, a journalist. Serving in the British Army and the RAF, Dahl wrote a few pieces of war propaganda and some news pieces for the Saturday Evening Post, before settling down to some more wholesome topics. Although in a recent class discussing fairy tales, one person stated: “the sexual overtones in The BFG are obvious!” I, and others, will plausibly argue this is mere over-reading on the part of pretentious literature students.

Sure, he worked for the Shell Petroleum Company, trading oil and living it up in Tanzania.

Sure, he hated Israel and spent the greater part of his later life batting down accusations of being antiSemitic. Sure, he never got the knighthood he coveted.

Dahl lives on in the hearts and minds of his readers. I am shocked and appalled by the children I meet who have not read Dahl. His grasp of language and his imagination remain astounding. Here is the call for a Dahl revival. Next year: “The Roald Dahl Course”. No sexual overtones, please.

J.K. Rowling

Is Rowling punching above her weight here? Her £576 million fortune may beg to differ. Her ethics pre-Potter are undeniably impressive: she worked for Amnesty International and sadly mourned her mother’s death. Until 1994, following a misguided marriage to a dodgy TV journalist, Rowling was on the dole and unemployed. It seems a degree from Exeter University and work as a bilingual secretary for a charity organisation won’t even qualify you as a waitress these days.

Still, a year of typewriting practice later, Rowling realised she had written Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Rejected by twelve publishing houses, Bloomsbury gave Rowling the go-ahead, on the demand of its eight-year-old reviewer. No joke.

Still, the kid was onto something. Rowling was, nevertheless, told she ought to find herself a day job, as children’s lit didn’t pay. Rowling smiled slyly, nodded and answered “Sure. Whatever you say”, before scampering back to choose gilt fireplaces and Wedgwood vases (we think). Three years later, Warner Bros had purchased film rights for the first two Potter books for a seven-figure amount.

Rowling scores one on Dahl, as in June 1999, the Queen of England made her an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. That said, she has yet to publish anything outside of the Potter phenomenon, although her scary revelation of a “political fairy story” in the making may excite previously mentioned pretentious English students. To date, Rowling should be most satisfied with the asteroid recently named in her honour, and the newly discovered dinosaur, Dracorex hogwartsra, similarly named. Oh, and the modern phenomenon, tosh or not, that has got kids and grownups alike reading

J1’s, backpacking trips, internships all looming. Roll on June.

Issues.

We enjoy: global warming, carbon footprints and abortion. Discussing them, that is.

Back-packs: chiefly for Scholpreparation book carrying

SU election posters: full colour. Now we get to see the standard of minger we’re voting in.

Sub-standard, overpriced smoothies.

Save it for the summer months.

SU shop prices. Remember when it was cheap?

Noticeboard ing of Oxfam Show ld o G ck Bla &A Q nd a tro In 1 lX withBel Feb7pm Tuesday27th eatre Ed Burke Th

Auditions: Trinity Fashion Show Tues 20thFeb, Buttery @7:30pm Be fabulous.

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Facebook news feed. A circus ground for the social fauxpas.

Blackberry fever reaches Trinity – who do you think you are?

NOT