The time lapse since All Blacks captain Richie McCaw lifted the William Webb Ellis trophy has offered the chance to give a realistic perspective of the tournament that the initial unrelenting praise aimed at New Zealand did not. An end to the tournament signals many things for different types of fans.

Some see this as a lull after their experience of the sport as of late; a time when the ability to immerse oneself in rugby dissipates as it returns to season structure normality. Teams like France will view it as a fresh start and a chance to begin a new cycle ahead of the next competition in England 2015. It even could be interpreted as the start of another twenty-four year respite between New Zealand winning the competition again.

The All Blacks, however, have treated the week following the final as a chance to duly bask in their glory and celebrate winning the Rugby World Cup with the entire island.

The tense, brand-wielding final lived up to certain expectations and generically fell in line with a lot of the sensible low try-scoring, kick-dominated predictions, and was a closer affair than the tournament form guide suggested. After eighty minutes, the best team of the tournament won, while the most spirited and best team in Eden Park that day went home with silver.

During the aftermath, two parades to flaunt the team’s new gold ware were organised for Auckland and Wellington respectively, while a special procession was gifted to Christchurch. The earthquake-ravaged city had their Rugby World Cup duties revoked due to effects of the seismic activity in 2010. The move, although appropriate, deprived the most rugby-orientated city in the country the chance to showcase the game. However, in a show of good faith, Dan Carter and Richie McCaw brought the Webb Ellis and their team to their hometown to give the stricken city something to celebrate.

Yet when the parades ceased and the confetti angels made by Israel Dagg and Cory Jane on the Eden Park turf were cleaned up, the twenty-four year countdown began and the country fronted up as a nation suffering. This win has brought New Zealand a lot of joy, but off the coast of Tauranga the worst shipping disaster to ever strike New Zealand is still affecting the North-East coast, Christchurch is an area continually in anguish and the true value of hosting the tournament has become apparent.

The euphoria that New Zealand have enjoyed from winning the tournament has become somewhat similar to that of a father on his daughter’s wedding day. While relishing the notion of offering the bride the best day of her life, he still has to pay the bill; much like the New Zealand taxpayer, who will be forced to account for some of the costs that the IRB have accumulated.

However, focusing more on the collective impact of the tournament, the disappointments seem easier to list off. As a fan sitting in the stadium for all of Ireland’s games and a number of high profile games including Australia vs South Africa and Wales vs

France, I personally found the tournament wholly unexciting. For nearly two months we watched teams so scared of losing that it drastically affected their ability to dazzle.

This predominant fear was eminent in Quade-Cooper, who like many others, failed to reproduce his form for the Queensland Reds with the Wallabies. Although players like Jerome Kaino, Jamie Roberts and Sean O’Brien performed consistently, we were deprived of a standout star of the tournament.

Then there were the heinous scandals which hit the World Cup. Even if there was any life in the tournament, Mike Tindall treating the tournament as an extension of his stag party detracted from the game itself and performances on the field. Shenanigans like these only meant that you had to look a bit harder to find the true meaning of the tournament.

It has been cited before in this sexually and promiscuously named column, but the vibe added to games by fans from the Pacific Islands lifted the mood of the tournament.

Tongans, Samoans and Fijians lined the streets leading to the stadia and celebrated non–stop, despite some desperately disappointing results.

The atmosphere also received a gentle boost due to the presence of a youthful generation of Irish émigrés following the team from game to game. Although some literal Irish bandwagoners (in campervans) skipped lower profile games and only attended the big events, a core contingent of fans supported the team throughout and were relentless in drinking New Plymouth and Dunedin dry.

And finally, breaching the minimal continuity this column ever had, I’ll launch into my favourite part of the Rugby World Cup. Throughout the tournament, there were over

230,400 seconds of action and my highlight hinges on a brief moment during one of these seconds: Felipe Contepomi’s one-handed, mid-air pass that only required a flick of the wrist to be guided into the hands of his supporting teammate, during the attack that led to their try in the quarter-final against New Zealand. It was breathtaking and a final showcase of the stalwart’s everlasting genius.

It wasn’t the best tournament, but it wasn’t the worst. To coin a kiwi phrase that generally reflects a ‘no worries’ shoulder shrug, it was “sweet as”.

The robustness of a sport must be established and maintained by its governing body. FIFA has been consistently subjected to criticism for mismanagement and failing to govern football, and suffers from a tarnished reputation for its shortcomings. Unfortunately rugby is falling into a similar pattern whereby its governing body, the International Rugby Board (IRB), is instigating disrepute in the game.

Dealing with the administrative requirements of a sport is comparable to the gentle, but firm, grip needed to handle baby chicks. Hold too tight and it will be crushed, but too loosely and the chicks will slip out of your control. At the moment, the IRB are effectively strangling the sport and stunting its progression through a series of decisions that sees them stuck in a feud with the teams and players they are meant to represent.

Rugby is usually held up as a wholesome alternative to many sports due to the broadminded nature of its approach towards respect for referees and gamesmanship exhibited by the majority of players. However, considering the confusion surrounding fundamental aspects of the game, such as its laws and governing authority, it is hard not to feel that the game is tainted, with the antagonising agent being the IRB itself.

Fundamentally it is the application of their attention to detail that is the main cause of the heightened disputes with players and nations. Too much attention is being fixated on miniscule aspects of the game, such as reprimanding players for breaching advertising procedures, and not enough on clearing the perplexity surrounding the laws, particularly involving the breakdown.

The All Blacks captain Richie McCaw shouldn’t be troubled by questions in the lead up to a World Cup quarter-final about how Northern Hemisphere referee Nigel Owens is going to interpret the laws of the breakdown and fringes of the ruck. This is an unnecessary concern for any rugby player. Yet at the moment we are continually preoccupied pre-match about the possible side effects a contest will endure due to referees having their own exclusive understanding of fundamental laws of the game.

Laws in sport should be outright and definitively leave no argument from any party as to their implementation. Yet through the laws committee, the IRB have managed to cause unmitigated confusion which results in referees managing crucial aspects of the game, such as the ruck, in their own unique way.

There should be abrupt measures taken to clear this misunderstanding, but instead the IRB’s first priority as of late focuses on managing seemingly frivolous facets of the game. At first it sounded like a believable joke, but England centre Manu Tuilagi and Samoan winger Alesana Tuilagi being reprimanded, and fined $10,000, for wearing unapproved mouth guards that breach tournament advertising regulations typifies how the IRB’s intentions are skewed.

The IRB’s priorities are equally questionable regarding key decisions made in structuring the fixture schedule of the tournament. Blatant prejudiced tendencies against tier two and three nations have been distinctly evident. This preferential treatment of the tier one teams has resulted in teams like Tonga, Canada, Samoa, Fiji, Japan, Romania, Georgia, Namibia, Russia and the USA having to endure quick turnarounds between games.

Canada, Samoa and Georgia, for example, were forced to play only four days after their first pool games on the 14^th of September. This short recovery time had huge consequences on the three teams and their ability to consistently field their strongest starting XV throughout the tournament.

It also granted their opponents an unfair advantage. France, Wales and England had eight days of preparation, four days more than their opponents. The IRB are entrusted to facilitate fair play in the game, however, they openly afforded tier one teams greater recovery times at the expense of tier two and three countries.

Admittedly, the IRB were in a difficult position, and were under time constraints that restricted the length that could be allocated for the pool stages. However, pandering and favouritism to tier one nations is not the way any sport progresses, and rugby will never develop into a popular worldwide brand if such unequivocal bias exists.

The process required to resolve the matter at hand must begin with the IRB itself. As an entity, it must treat all members as equals and promote healthy competition in the sport through a fairly structured competition and judicial process.

The problem is that the IRB see no issue with merely warning England officials for switching match day balls between Jonny Wilkinson’s kicks. They recklessly allow a Welsh referee to officiate the South Africa vs Samoa game, a match that had huge repercussions on Welsh progression in the tournament. They allow a situation to arise where Samoan players have to fund their own flights home from the Rugby World Cup. They are clueless.

The Rugby World Cup has brought out the best in New Zealand’s shameless, but clever, advertisers who pander to their audience at every opportunity. As a run of the mill customer I like being appealed to, especially when the products involve Weet-Bix and All Black lingerie (50% off). The Weet-Bix advert however, creates more food for thought than the notion of scantily clad women (bear with me, this is going somewhere).

Five children play rugby in the park and fantasise about playing like the All Blacks. Using masking tape to roughly sketch numbers on the back of their XXL jerseys, they are transformed into the players they idolise.

The child wearing No.7 is immortalised as Richie McCaw, No.5 Sam Whitelock, no.8 Liam Messam and the youngster donning No.12 morphs into Sonny Bill Williams. Another child arrives as Williams as well, but is forced to amend his 12 to a 13 because he is meant to be Conrad Smith. And as everyone knows, there is only one Sonny Bill Williams.

Aside from the irony that Williams rarely starts at inside centre, mainly being utilised as an impact substitute at No.22, and the fact that Liam Messam didn’t make the All Blacks squad, the sequence epitomises certain aspects of rugby in New Zealand.

The advertisers want viewers to believe that if you eat Weet-Bix you’ll become an All Black, however, the thirty-second commercial really exemplifies the grass roots element of the game in New Zealand that drives the country’s unremitting passion for rugby. They eat rugby for breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper, and even drink from jersey-emblazoned All Blacks water bottles.

When fans watch the All Blacks emphatically dispose of teams like France and bemoan that their team cannot mimic such comprehensive performances, the grass roots is what should come to mind. This is the starting point for developing such spirit, such passion.

Like the favelas in Brazil, where kids play soccer on dirt and gravel, rugby is played in the street in New Zealand. As you go to pick up a loaf of bread and milk from the shop, half a dozen kids will be playing tip rugby using the width of the path and imaginary try lines. Their passion for rugby is inherited from previous generations and embraced due to the All Blacks representing idols that the children aspire to imitate. This loyalty, learnt at such a young age, cannot be forgotten and stays with them for life.

However a caveat to this unquestionable appetite for rugby must be affirmed. New Zealand only supports aspects of rugby that include the best interests of the All Blacks and the progression of their own team. This is typified by their willingness to abstain from the next Rugby World Cup in 2015 due to the tournament causing significant loss of revenue because of their ban on team specific sponsorship.

They are apathetic about the worldwide development of the sport, so much so that their media questions the decision to award the 2019 World Cup to Japan. And their brazen, bordering on disrespectful, attitudes about other teams is blatant when their anchors cannot fathom the name of an Irish back other than Brian O’Driscoll.

Adding context to the situation shouldn’t alter our view of their enviable situation. They have a perfect environment to continue their domination as one of the best rugby nations due to the social class of the country that love rugby. The middle-class in New Zealand want to play rugby and translate that desire into playing for their local clubs.

Ultimately that is why the natural athletes of New Zealand like Sonny Bill Williams won’t be lost to a different sport. The pinnacle of sport in this country is rugby, so that is where the best talent flocks. Not because they eat Weet-Bix, but possibly because Mammy Bill Williams wore sexy All Black lingerie 26 years and roughly eleven months ago.

On a completely unrelated, yet somewhat more substantial note, I don’t believe in courageous or brave acts from players on the pitch. Some commentators commend the bravery of players for big hitting tackles, try saving interventions and putting their body on the line. This is part of the sport and should accompany their commitment to the team.

True courage and bravery, however, is present at the Rugby World Cup in the form of openly gay referee Nigel Owens. The Welshman commands respect from players on the pitch through his comprehensive no-nonsense approach to refereeing and piercing tone that wields confidence in every split second call he makes.

If the International Rugby Board are intent on preventing any further confusion regarding the diverse interpretations of the laws that are meant to aid the flow of the game, then Nigel Owens must play a significant role in the tournament beyond the pool stages.

Owens has had a rough journey to the peak of rugby refereeing, which involved an intense battle with depression and a struggle to believe he could be accepted for who he truly is. Since overcoming those challenges he has became one of Wales’s first three professional referees and has taken charge of two back-to-back Heineken Cup finals. Who knows? Eden Park, 23^rd of October may yet be his summit.

At the start of April there was huge doubt the event would take place following an apparent refusal by UCD authorities to adhere to stipulated requirements in the Planning and Development (licensing of outdoor events) regulations 2001. The event license requires all roads on UCD campus to be closed for the duration of the event, a stipulation UCD authorities refused to commit to.

Following a determined Save Our Ball campaign, led by UCD Students’ Union, hoping to overturn the University’s decision not to adhere to stipulated agreements necessary for the UCD Ball to take place, a conclusion was reached between both parties for the end of year festivity to be held on Saturday 23rd of April.

Criticism has continued to be aimed at the Students’ Union even in the aftermath of the new agreement with UCD authorities and the revised date for the UCD Ball, as students lamented the decision to hold UCD Ball on Easter Saturday.

The protracted discussions with UCD authorities has curtailed the time available to Entertainments Officer, Jonny Cosgrove, to reorganise UCD Ball and resulted in the announcement of the full line up being so close to the event itself.

Those set to take to the two stage set up at the running track include O-two columnists Fight Like Apes, 5ive, Sub Focus and Sister Blues (Faithless), with headliners of the event being Annie Mac, Katy B and The Rubberbandits.

Tickets for the event are still available for €39.99 from the Students’ Union Library shop and UCDEnts.com.

A full lineup for the UCD Ball can be found here

There is one thing that takes a good movie and makes it great. Well, two things. Sideboob is the greatest thing ever invented by man or God, and I will fight anyone who disagrees. Below are just some of the fine examples of the art of sideboob.

SLUH!

1)    Who Framed Roger Rabbit – Jessica Rabbit – Oh sure. Some you might scoff, but those animators spent many a lonely, lonely evening making that sideboob bounce like two basketballs with only a passing connection with a human body.

2)    Wedding Crashers – Kitty Kat – Sure, Kitty Kat may be as old as sideboob itself, but she does provide one of the finest sideboob shots of any Vince Vaughn movie. Motorboat those sons of bitches.

3)    Harry Potter and the Chamber of Sideboob – Hermione Granger – We’ve all waited so long, but the new movie gave us some sweet sweet Watson side-B. Sure, she was a smoky apparition, but Ron still ‘would’.

4)    Titanic – Rose ‘Breasts’ Dewitt – Kate Winslet, long the undisputed queen of sideboob, finally bares all, thereby destroying the glorious purpose of sideboob in the first place.

5)    Atonement – Keira Knightley – Atonement is a classy film that shoehorns in sideboob at every possible opportunity.  Some accuse Keira Knightley of being somewhat lacking in the sideboob department, but we in O-two appreciate the subtlety of an understated du sein côté.

6)    Dear John - Amanda Seyfried as Savannah – Terrible film, great side boob. Almost worth it.

7)    The Little Mermaid – Ariel – For a children’s cartoon, she’s spilling out of those seashells, the nautical trollop. She does, however, settle that old debate once and for all – fishy top of fishy bottom?

8)    Tomb Raider; The Legend of Lara’s Breasts – Lara Croft – Angelina Jolie goes out to fulfil the fantasies of every boy who grew up in the 90s. Very rarely does a film open with a shower scene.

9)    Sin City – Nancy – It was extremely difficult to pick just one classic Jessica Alba sideboob moment, but in the end, we went for the one where she’s a cowgirl. Also see; Machete, Into the Blue, Valentines Day, and anything else she’s ever done.

10) Star Wars; Return of the Jedi – Princess Leia – The list of influences in a young boy’s life reads something like this; Parents, Teachers, Princess Leia’s Gold Bikini, Everything Else. This is a scene that informed the minds of generations of young boys. It’s important we all remember and cherish the greatest moment in all of our collective young lives.

1974 – The UCD Clique Society is formed. Students sign up in great numbers to the society in the tent during Freshers’ Week for £2. With their membership comes a free condom, a tyre puncture repair kit and £2 concession card to d|two on Thursdays.

1975 – Genuinely stuck for anything to do with their time as the Clique Society, the group of hacks reform their mandate and change the society into a Union that aims to represent students, while also providing a stepping-stone into politics.

1981 – Six years after the formation of the Students’ Union, re-sit fees have increased ten fold and library hours have been reduced by a collective 9,000 hours over three years.

1995 – RON pulls out of the UCDSU elections with the intention of focusing on her degree.

2005 – The most successful SU President takes office after commanding a significant proportion of the mandate. James Carroll follows up his successful election campaign by being the first elected member of the SU to have his own Wikipedia page [disambiguation required].

2007 – Accommodation, Employment, Research and Development Officer position created.

2008 – Accommodation, Employment, Research and Development Officer position abolished and Louise of Fade Street fame becomes a member of UCDSU.

2008 to present – World War Fee is in full swing. The extremity of the matter is demonstrated by 2,200,000 students [Citation needed] mobilising themselves on the streets of Dublin to protest.

2014 – On the green space outside the O’Reilly Hall, Fees and UCDSU fight out their final battle in a “winner takes all reg fees” bout. You’ll just have to wait until then to see what happens.

- Killian Woods

With the Students’ Union (SU) election hype building, Killian Woods gives the fools a rundown of the SU elections

Manifestos/Posters

Before you heard the candidates, and definitely before you saw them desperately trying to get attention at the bottom of your lecture hall, the first sight you probably caught of them was on a poster or when you found a lecture hall plastered in their manifestos.

The manifestos are merely a condensed form of the views, opinions and achievements of your potential representatives. Crammed in from cover to cover have to be certain bare necessities. On the cover is an essential mug shot that must beam confidence, with a hint of smugness so the candidate can maintain their ‘I’m better than you’ aura.

Inside the cover, all those bright ideas come to life in brightly coloured boxes with words in them, coupled with a shot of the candidate leaning against an imaginary wall or on their hunkers beside a lake. The candidates list their aims that they seem to feel are feasible and represent students’ needs in the simplest (and most grammatically inept) English possible. Whether it’s ensuring a water fountain gets installed in <insert generic building here> or ordering the library staff to work longer hours, in the end they are really powerless to turn those words into a successful mandate.

The back page of the manifestos can be somewhat of a quirky addition, but usually end up being a monstrosity. Contents usually include achievements such as “10/11: Helped out on SHAG week and thus failed my continuous assessment Plant Biotechnology exam” and “09/10: Attended a lecture and got one per cent of my final grade”. However, no doubt the most cringeworthy aspect of manifestos are the personal biographies which try to be funny, but really fail miserably. Below is an O-two sample.

“O-two is a native of the UCD Student Centre. They have been a class rep for the past five years in a row for 2nd year Commerce. Like most people, they are huge Star Wars fans and like eating donuts from Nine One One. It was once rumoured that O-two defeated Chuck Norris and kicked the homophobia out of him with our famed rainbow kick. After contracting the clap at Class Rep training, O-two has carried the disease with pride and emblazoned it on many others since. Remember, we do have a vote and we’ll vote for YOU!”

Facebook

Battles for election are no longer won and lost on the grounds of UCD campus. It’s simply not enough to out roar the other sabbatical candidates at the bottom of lecture theatres and hope to sway votes anymore.

Nowadays, the typical voter in the UCDSU elections will be 76 per cent more likely to be swayed by a colourful and enticing Facebook page than any sort of charismatic leadership skills displayed by the candidate.

Voting

Just like your sexual preference, you have the right to choose which smiley-eyed candidate you want to vote for. Albeit the choice on offer will make you weigh up in your head the pros and cons of democracy, but at least you get to pick.

Tick the box, put numbers down or rip the ballot paper up. In the end, your voice will be heard and processed into some sort of future county councillor earning a mandate to represent your rights in the upcoming academic year.

O-two can’t recommend who you should vote for, but we can advise. Naturally if your chosen candidate wins, you’ll have to look at them on more posters for the next year at least, so why not vote for the good-looking candidate at the very least.

Don’t get too used to the current voting system however. Reforms to the UCD Students’ Union constitution soon will change the face of voting in SU elections forever. The old paper and pen trick will become obsolete very soon as the whole system is about to go online. In the not-too-distant future, you will ‘Like’ your sabbatical officers into power through Facebook. Simply straddle your way to the respective candidates page and like them.

This is the future of politics and you can even buy the t-shirt and say “I was online when UCD Students liked <blank> into the SU”.

In her first ever exclusive interview, Killian Woods talks to RON about her political career and the smell of transparency

RON has been an ever-present in Students’ Union elections since the inauguration of the very first sabbatical team. Like her or loathe her, she is a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.

The controversial and under-represented candidate approached O-two seeking a clique-free forum to air her views. With the agenda and questions set by the candidate, O-two’s chief election reporter, Killian Woods, quizzed the electorate’s favourite non-runner.

What’s your favourite colour?

A tough question to start off with that could land me in a libellous situation. I would have to say my favourite colour is transparency. Everything in the world should be painted transparent. It is a glowing colour that radiates confidence in a political system.

Describe your persona and character in as few words as possible

I am a very forgiving and generous person. My natural mandate, which is at the centre of my existence, is to promote more candidates to enter UCDSU elections. Even if I win, I instinctively pass up on the electorate’s call for me to take office and allow for nominations to reopen. I’m like the opposite of Michael Lowry.

Do you A.) Drink B.) Smoke C.) Take drugs?

A.) Only when I’m on drugs. B.) Only when I’m smoking. C.) Only when I’m drinking.

How do you spell sabbatical?

Sabbitticcal.

What’s your opinion on re-sit fees?

Pass your exams. That’s my opinion.

What race are you most confident of winning?

I feel I have a good grip on the Irish white Caucasian vote. They tend to vote in hordes and I’ve always maintained that if you can sway the vote of the white Irish students, then you’ll command a significant percentage of the vote.

You are commonly misinterpreted as a male character, why is this?

Well first of all, I am not a character. I am as real as the re-sit fees that every candidate claims they will get abolished. I suppose you could say that it’s all in the name; for better or for worse, my name has been associated with Ron Burgundy and Ron Weasley. Those are two very powerful male role models that have so much testosterone they inhibit any female oestrogen. Without diverging away on a tangent, the answer is sexism.

After 35 years of failure to achieve election to UCDSU, why keep going?

Another tough question. Well there are a number of factors that keep me going. After dropping my degree in 1975, I set aside a 30-year period in my life to run for UCDSU elections. Over those 30 years, I came agonisingly close on a few occasions, but never quite made it.

In 2005 I attempted to keep my promise that I made to myself and return to my Computer Science degree only to find that modularisation had been introduced. The horizons boat had set sail and I was left behind. Some of my buddies in USI also missed the boat and like me, they are stranded in Students’ Union politics, searching for a path out.

Transparency, discuss.

One man’s transparency is another’s humiliation. The word defines my campaign as much as my campaign defines it. My middle name is transparency. I am so transparent that you can’t see me, enough said.

Clique, discuss.

To me, clique means caring. If a by-product of that caring happens to be a career as a county counsellor for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, then so be it. I don’t view the Union as a clique; I view it as a stairway, a stairway to a heaven of filling in potholes and running tidy towns committees.

Sum up your campaign in one sentence.

I love the smell of transparency in the morning.

Oisin O Coigligh from Humor talks to O-two about their love of Pendulum, why they’re not a typical boyband and the salt in the Main Restaurant

Who are your members and what do they play?

Robert McAuley (bass/vocals), David Gallagher (drums/ambient sound), Oisin O Coigligh (guitar/occasional vocals).

Where did you get the inspiration for your name?

The answer to this is more cryptic than ten Da Vinci codes read by Stephen Fry on tape. Robert was walking in the woods one day and had an epiphany, that’s all I was bothered to ask him just there. The real genius behind it is that it’s the American spelling of humour, so we won’t have to worry about making it in the States. Let us not forget that the human eye has an aqueous and a vitreous humour. And only five words rhyme with Humor. The more you think about it, the less you give a shit.

Where do you gig?

Pretty much anywhere that will have us, The Twisted Pepper, Academy 2, Whelan’s or The Pint. Also sheds, birthdays and barbeques. We try not to let the fame go to our heads.

What do you play on your tour bus?

Supermarket sweep with Dale Winton and Castlevania 3D. Lyric FM has some good stuff, we like the classics.  We sometimes slap on Eiffel 65 and ‘Maniac 2000’ to get us ready for a rockin’ gig. We recently decided to scrap the bus in favour of something more environmentally friendly. Like some kind of Dutch solar-powered van that is powered by global warming. It’s on the way, but until then we’ll fumigate Dublin getting to whatever pub we’re playing at.

What’s the best thing about going to UCD?

UCD is like an elephant: big and ugly but lots of fun. The top floor of the science hub is pretty good for a bit of soul searching and lab reports. There can be some pretty class gigs in the Student Bar like the Wolftones and Director, although truthfully I was probably the only person at both. Occasionally we get a cool celebrity in such as Dave McSavage and the ultra-smooth Bill Clinton. Professor Pat Guiry and Dr Tommy Gallagher need a mention as well as two lecturers I would want on my side in a bar fight.

What’s the worst thing about going to UCD?

People constantly telling you to get involved. They forget that college is about going to lectures, and then drinking to forget those lectures. Not to mention negative marking, no plug sockets in the library and nowhere to get food after seven o’clock. Another thing, and I don’t think I’m alone here, the UCD restaurant making you pay for salt when it’s clearly a human right.

Which acts would you choose to headline your dream festival?

Pendulum, Deftones, Reuben. That would be beautiful, although frankly I don’t think there is one quiet song between the three of them.

Where would be your dream place to play?

Personally it’s a tie between Reading festival and Electric Picnic. A submarine would be interesting

How do you differ from other bands in UCD?

We’re not your typical boyband who talks about their feelings and thoughts in songs. We find that when you read enough of the back of DVD boxes, the songs come to you. And we don’t pay more than a tenner for our haircuts, clearly.

In conversation with Killian Woods.

In between obsessively scrolling our way through eyeonspringfield.tumblr.com and throwing darts at SU election posters, we have managed to produce a magazine bursting with interviews, reviews, features and all kinds of other journalistic stuff.

Our features in this penultimate issue include the next big thing in experimental rock – Warpaint chat to our music editor about being an all-girl band, sexism and other sexy stuff like that. We also have interviews with The Low Anthem, Glasser, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and our resident bespectacled hobbit sits down with The Blackout in our one page non-feature interview.

The other music news at Observer HQ has been all about the barely-teen sensation Rebecca Black, the whiny American songstress who has RUINED FRIDAY FOREVER. Despite the irritations and the domineering evil behemoth (Ark Music Factory) that unleashed this monstrosity, George Morahan faces up to the haytahs from his Soapbox. He may defend her right to sing whatever she wants, but we still defend our right to harshly criticise misguided children.

Our fashion expert Donna Doyle leads the way with her exhibit of local Dublin designs, while Mary Cody takes on the cult of Gaga and Joe Murphy shows you poor menfolk how to dress yourselves. We review upcoming movies Limitless, Country Strong and Essential Killing and some old box set favourites, before evaluating one of the most important aspects of cinema: the sideboob.

Finally, we would like to congratulate everyone in who was nominated in the upcoming National Student Media Awards, it’s been a long year and this makes not having a social life almost worth it. Now back to the library!

Yours faithfully,

Emer and Killian