Rewind just over a month or so, and UCD’s newly-formulated Emergency Response Plan is announced to considerable notice on campus. Particular attention is given, not least by this newspaper, to the point that the plan aims to provide a framework for responding to university emergencies up to and including “a hostage situation involving multiple students”.

Quizzical interest over that last contingency perhaps served to miss one very important point. The likelihood of any UCD student meeting a violent death in the near future as the result of a Columbine or Virginia Tech style firearms incident is – gratifyingly – extremely low.

That doesn’t mean, however, that a future sudden, brutal end to some of the lives on this campus is impossible. In actual fact, it’s statistically almost inevitable. The only difference is that the instrument of most of those deaths won’t be anything quite as dramatic as the weapon of an unhinged classmate. Want to see what’s overwhelmingly likely to take the life of at least one of the people that you’ve studied, worked or played beside during your time in UCD? Drop the paper, walk out to the car park and take your pick.

It might be the green hatchback with the furry dice mounted front and centre. The Nissan with the dented flank. Or the Golf with the muddied rims. Better still, in fact, stroll back inside and take a good look at yourself in a bathroom mirror. Forget any television nonsense about the one with the seatbelt doing the damage – in reality it could be just about anyone who closes a car door behind them, seatbelt or not.

Florid stuff so far, isn’t it? Depressingly, though, it’s also quite true. In 2008, 279 people lost their lives on Irish roads. 13.9 per cent of all car passengers who died during that period were in the 18-20 age bracket, with 12.9 per cent aged between 21 and 24. And that’s before we even get to the drivers. 9.7 per cent of driver fatalities in 2008 were aged between 18 and 20; just eclipsed by 11.4 per cent fatality rate recorded for those aged between 21 and 24.

I’m not making this stuff up. In fact, being an unreconstructed non-driver, I didn’t even know much about any of this prior to last week. If you don’t believe me, simply have a look at the relevant section of the Road Safety Authority’s website. Just don’t do it if you’re looking for information to put you in a cheerful mood on a March Tuesday.

Still, I don’t drive, so it won’t be me that ends up skidding across the tarmac of the N11 late some dark night. Won’t it?

And you? I’m sure you’re telling yourself precisely the same thing as you read. Driver or passenger, you know you won’t make the mistakes that some young people make on the roads, because you’re much too together for any of that.

I don’t really buy any of that, though. Enough of us must do the wrong thing on the roads, at the wrong time, or else the statistics wouldn’t be there to prove the lie. I talked to two students who have made precisely those mistakes, to see if there was anything worth learning from their experiences.

Matthew* is a 21 year-old Arts student in UCD – the acquaintance of a mutual friend. Usually in an article like this, we’d call him “Matthew” because that’s the name that had been selected to discreetly disguise his identity. In this case, however, “Matthew” himself has suggested the pseudonym – I really don’t know his actual name. All I have to work on are his outline details and the mobile number passed on to me. As we chat, I begin to understand why exactly preserving that anonymity is just so important to Matthew.

Slightly over a year ago, Matthew, then a young driver who’d just passed his test on the first attempt, got in his car after an evening at a friend’s house, started the engine, and set off down the road towards his home. As it transpired, he only made it just over five hundred metres. What should have been a five minute drive home ended up in an overnight stay in Dun Laoghaire Garda station – only the beginning of the inconvenience to come. Because before getting into his car for that journey home, Matthew had – by his own estimation – downed “… maybe seven or eight cans [of lager]”.

“It was stupid – very, very stupid. I’d been there for most of the evening… [I] had the car because I’d come straight out from work. I wasn’t planning on drinking at all, definitely not.”

But drink he did. Like any drunk driver in the country, Matthew took a very conscious gamble when he walked out to his vehicle later that evening; it simply didn’t work out for him.

“I wasn’t steaming drunk, but I definitely wasn’t myself. I… honestly don’t know why I decided to do it; it wasn’t as if it was a very, very long journey. I think I just reckoned I’d chance it, there and then.”

Less then a minute into his trip, Matthew turned out on to a main road, only to run straight into a Garda checkpoint.

“I admitted it straight away, even before the breathalyser came out or anything like that. My stomach absolutely dropped. I just remember thinking to myself ‘Oh no, you’re joking’.”

The end result for Matthew was a court appearance and a driving ban. He’s unwilling to elaborate on just how long the ban was, but I get the impression that he’s not back behind the wheel just yet.

“The embarrassment is absolutely the worst thing of it, no question. Even now, a fair bit on, I’m still very, very cautious about telling people about it or even really talking about the topic [of drink-driving] too much – I just don’t like to go near it. I do regret it hugely.”

Sean* was readily able to sympathise with that sentiment. Also 21, but not a current UCD student, he has had his own fill of driving difficulties. During his first semester in college, aged 18, he and three friends were involved in a serious car accident. On the surface of it, he was almost a stereotypical young driver.

“We were, I suppose you could say still are, maybe, kind of petrol-heads. Not boy racers, no, but definitely into cars and F1 and that sort of thing.”

In the early hours of an October morning, while travelling at speed down a Dublin road, a freak error saw the vehicle Sean and his friends were travelling in up-ended, before skidding on for nearly twenty metres on its roof. Although one member of the party was taken to hospital for overnight observation, astonishingly, no one was seriously hurt or killed.

“We were very lucky – that was probably what struck us most back then. [The next day], my mate gave me a lift down to where it had happened and you could actually see a trail of broken glass and bits of paint where it [the car] had flipped. We just thought it was amazing, and I suppose, a bit of an amazing story to tell to people.”

As time went on, however, the rose-tinted spectacles began to slip somewhat as Sean reflected on what had happened.

“I started getting panic attacks – very badly. I hadn’t any idea what it was at first, until eventually I went to my GP about it. For a while, it was absolutely dreadful. [I think] a lot of it was realising what could have happened that night, and having it come to the surface. It was very frightening.”

I’m keen to know if either young driver has any regrets having acted in the manner they did behind the wheel. Matthew is instantly contrite.

“Absolutely. I know you hear it an awful lot, but I really would do anything to wipe away what happened that night. I’m so grateful that nobody was hurt, that is what’s most important, but I do really wish that I’d never done it – full stop.”

I feel like I’m twisting the knife, but I still have to ask him. Would he still regret things if he hadn’t been caught?

“That’s fair enough, I suppose. I honestly think I would. Obviously, if I’d gotten home grand and there hadn’t been any bother, it probably wouldn’t be as quick to hit you, but I think I still would [regret it] now. It’s just stupid, that really is it.”

Sean takes more coaxing. When he initially tells me about the accident itself, he’s notably cagey when describing just how fast he was driving. Eventually, he elaborates.

“It was quite a… fast speed, yeah. I suppose you’ll always get a bit of that with young guys, egging each other on and all the rest. It’s a few years on, now, so I can obviously be a little bit more mature about it, so in that sense, my opinions have changed to a big degree. I wish we never had, there’s no two ways about that.”

Amidst the eventual remorse, however, there’s a flash of cold reality.

“I honestly really don’t know if you’ll ever be able to stop it completely. I think you always will have a bit of stupidity with young people our age.”

It might be nice to end things on a positive note. In this case, however, it’s somewhat hard to disagree with Sean’s gloomy assessment. It seems it could be some time yet before stories like those above become exceptions to the driving rule.

*Names changed on request

Good old Nigel Farage. Just when it seemed that the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) couldn’t do much more to polish its reputation as something of a vociferously outspoken, fringe element on the European political scene, along comes the MEP for South East England (and a former leader of the party) to well and truly complete the vaguely loony picture.

It’s February 24, and former Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy is delivering his maiden address to the European Parliament as President of the European Council. In a flash, however, the spotlight is stolen away from the mild-mannered Belgian by the man from Kent, who proceeds to verbally put down what he sees as the threatening new face of EU totalitarianism with sheer venom.

In less than five minutes, the oratorical knife had not only been jabbed into van Rompuy’s chest, but had been firmly twisted. Highlights of Farage’s speech included his description of the European President as having the appearance of “a low grade bank clerk”, and the “charisma of a damp rag”. Even Belgium – hitherto one of the most innocuous spots in the world – didn’t escape Farage’s wrath, with the Briton dismissing it as a “non-country”.

Phew! How lovely of him. But for all the column inches that Farage’s words have provoked, there’s little about last week’s parliamentary explosion that’s substantially new. In fact, Farage, whether unwittingly or otherwise, was merely tapping in to a rich political tradition of blistering put-downs and loaded rebuttals. Below, we take you through some of the best from recent years. The wonders of technology mean that most are available to view online. Enjoy, and don’t forget to strap your helmet tight!

Ian Paisley meets the Pope (1988)

On mature reflection, perhaps this one was always going to end in tears.

Pope John Paul II’s speech to the European Parliament was loudly interrupted by the good Doc 22 years ago; with Paisley holding up a placard denouncing the Pontiff as an ‘ANTICHRIST’. The belligerent Bible-thumper had evidently done youthful time in the Boy Scouts, for – like any good Scout – he prepared multiple posters to circumvent the (high) likelihood of one being immediately seized and torn up.

In a word: Mouth-frothing. http://short.ie/rant1

Danial Hannan kicks Gordon Brown to the kerb – and then boots him in the head for good measure (2009)

Just what is it about the EU? For an institution explicitly designed to promote Continental coexistence, it’s seen no shortage of debating jousts.

Last year, Conservative MEP Danial Hannan mercilessly put the UK’s beleaguered Prime Minister to the sword during the latter’s visit to the European Parliament. They really don’t teach this kind of elegant wordplay anymore – and look, Ma, no notes!

Maiden’s Debating? Nonsense – just play the youngsters this excerpt on repeat. They’ll be silky L&H sharks in no time.

In a word: Smooth. http://short.ie/rant2

“Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” (1988)

October, 1988: the US Vice-Presidential debate is being contested live on air by Democratic candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Republican Senator Dan Quayle, when the latter rather unwisely compares his own political experience with that of John F. Kennedy. Immediately, Bentsen sweeps in to rhetorically cut his opponent down to size.

“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Pithy, but straight to the jugular.

In a word: Wincing. http://short.ie/rant3

Khrushchev bangs his shoe (1960)

In October 1960, the 902^nd Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly was treated to a memorable display of Slavic anger by Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev.

As Cold War rhetoric in the debating chamber gets heated, Khrushchev’s temper eventually gets the better of him, leading to one of the most memorable – if not bizarre – moments of the long ideological conflict.

Search Wikipedia for “shoe-banging incident” for one of the most entertainingly long-winded excuses for the incident ever developed – offered, naturally, by Khrushchev’s own daughter. Let’s just say it wouldn’t convince a jury.

In a word: Fiery. http://short.ie/rant4

“F*ck you, Deputy Stagg!”

People don’t normally associate the Green Party with raucous behaviour; the more usual image attached to the serene environmenalists is that of John Gormley naïvely cycling into work in Leinster House on his favourite green Dublin Bike, saving the ozone layer while his ministerial Merc crawls behind him, being obliged to follow him regardless.

Not the case, however, in December of last year, when the Dáil was debating a motion on cutting old age pensions as one of the moves in Brian Lenihan’s savage budget. Green TD Paul Gogarty, trying to reason to the House that it was not the Government’s intent to fleece the elderly, was continually cajoled by Labour colleague Emmet Stagg as the debate became more fraught.

The evening Gogarty’s infamous four-letter tirade was uttered, it had already been adopted as a ringtone and clocked up 10,000 views on YouTube – though the best part of it is how Gogarty’s youthful Dublin twang makes him sound like an aggrieved 13-year-old after the authorities have nicked his skateboard.

In a word: Profane. http://short.ie/rant5

Speaker Out (2008)

The Ukraine hasn’t had the greatest of centuries so far – major riots broke out in 2004 after a Presidential Election in which there were widespread allegations of vote rigging. The resulting Orange Revolution – which saw Viktor Yushchenko overcome a deliberate poisoning attempt – saw the country move away from its Soviet past and strive to form new links with the EU and United States.

Yushchenko’s tenure, naturally, was difficult – and in 2008, a key ally of his, the Speaker of the Parliament, faced a politically motivated vote of no confidence which was narrowly passed.

Let’s just say that many members didn’t take the news too well..

In a word: Biff! http://short.ie/rant6

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting… (2009)

Completing our cavalcade of parliamentary piss-taking is this moment of briliance from South Korea last year.

Opposition members of the South Korean parliament, the gukhoe, tabled a controversial bill proposing to limit the power of the media. The ruling party opposed. Violently.

Proof – if proof was ever needed – that the world is best ruled with fists.

In a word: Abstention. http://short.ie/rant7

Social networking can come in for its fair proportion of criticism. Sometimes, though, it can be right on the money.

Early on Wednesday, 20^th January, one Facebook status update was pithier than most. “FML”, read one student’s succinct summary of that morning’s good news, or lack thereof. The responses were sympathetic – crucially, no-one needed elaboration about just what had commenced the day on a bad note. Exam results had rolled around once again in UCD.

As the day wound on, it wasn’t difficult to read the mood as knots of students gathered around Belfield and swapped news. For some, delight – or at the very least, welcome relief – was evident as celebratory trips to Harcourt Street and beyond were loudly planned.

For others, however, the outcome on a chilly midweek morning had clearly been less than had been hoped for. In the Newman Building, the long queue which had built up by mid-morning outside the Arts Programme Office was telling enough. Most students seemed semi-cheerfully resigned to their fate, with hurried calculations being shared, principally based around multiples of €230 – the current going rate to repeat a module in UCD.

But at least some students were facing a rather more pressing reality that Wednesday morning. For a significant proportion, the news an SIS login brought at breakfast was even graver than the dispiriting prospect of scraping together the cash for one or more repeats. Bad news at the academic polls meant confronting the unpleasant reality that perhaps things definitively weren’t going the way they wished in UCD.

Fast forward nine days, and I’m sitting in the office of Aisling O’Grady, Student Advisor for the College of Arts & Celtic Studies. It’s approaching five o’clock on a Friday evening, and the deadline to formally withdraw from college before incurring a second semester’s fees is imminent.

O’Grady – worldly, but irrepressibly cheerful – admits that I’ve caught her at the tail end of a very, very busy week. Even as we settle down to interview, a knock at her office door reveals a nervous-looking female undergraduate. It’s perilously close to the deadline, but O’Grady doesn’t hesitate to usher her in. I dutifully yield my place on the seat and retire outside.

Even if confidentially didn’t obviously rule it out, I don’t actually need to be inside to grasp the gist of what’s taking place. O’Grady invariably greets newcomers to her Newman Building quarters by quickly reassuring them that she’s been there and done it all before – in every sense of the word, having herself failed First Year as an undergraduate. She tells me later, once our chat has resumed, that helping students wrestling with the issue of dropping out, or simply experiencing academic difficulties, is nothing new to her.

“It’s been the same as every year. It’s mainly First Years who have had difficulty settling in and haven’t managed to get the balance right, and were afraid maybe to ask for help before now. ”

It’s time, perhaps, that I come clean from my end of things. I know the bi-annual routine in O’Grady’s office only too well, and not from the semi-professional, detached Observer side of affairs. At one stage, and not the hazy, distant past, I was the one glumly sitting on the other side of the desk, trying to weigh up my options.

I’m in the final year of my final semester studying History in UCD. The problem is that the figures don’t quite add up: mine is a three-year course, but my student number begins with an 06 prefix. In the black and white scheme of things, I should already have graduated and left Belfield in my wake, striding out into an economic recession with all the prospects that a certified competency in primary source analysis and dissertation drafting can bring. Yet here I am, still toiling away amongst the dusty ranks of the James Joyce Library’s History section. So what happened along the way?

As she speaks from lengthy student experience, O’Grady – without intending to – neatly summarises my previous self, circa September 2006. I’m a textbook case of the type of person who was all too ready to embrace the sudden freedom that college offered, but was ill-prepared to shoulder the concurrent responsibility. I have to admit it – she has me bang to rights.

Three years ago, I gleefully ticked almost every negative box it was possible for a callow undergraduate to complete. No sooner had my feet hit Belfield’s concrete that autumn, were they swiftly treading off track.

Before even a full month as a UCD student had elapsed, I’d developed the firm habit of treating my weekly timetable as a firmly à la carte affair. Tutorials, officially mandatory, were (in my reality at least) entirely discretionary. Lectures were almost beyond consideration, unless I happened to be in an unusually industrious mood – or if I had time to kill.

And that was just during the day. By night, I eagerly grasped every opportunity that presented itself to further divorce myself from my academic commitments. The opening of an envelope anywhere in town would have invited my presence, swaying slightly by half-nine and still relishing the fact that I was out – on a Tuesday night!

But even a monumental idiot can’t hold reality at arm’s length forever though, and the payback wasn’t an eternity in catching up with me. That Christmas, my first experience of UCD exams came with predictable consequences, though my results shouldn’t have surprised me as much as they did – especially given that at least one exam had seen me swaggering out of the RDS after only a token half-hour attempt at coherent writing.

Still, at least I learnt my abject lesson and ran a tight ship from there on in. If only.

When summer exams – and the prospect of re-sits – rolled round, I didn’t even deign to attend most; of those I did, I stuck to established personal tradition and failed a majority. And so into the semi-mythical ‘Stage X’ I fell.

This was how September 2007 saw me parked in the very same seat in front of O’Grady that I’m occupying now, with my proverbial tail truly between my legs. At least two sessions of friendly but firm advice stood me in little stead, however, so determined was I to steer my own, erratic course. By the time my second Christmas as a UCD student had rolled around, I had settled upon the answer to my self-inflicted woes – I was dropping out. And by January, that was essentially what I’d done. I still came to campus – nearly every day, in fact – but the only remaining draw was either to meet with friends or to dutifully attend the Observer office. Somehow I saw no particular irony in effectively ceasing my involvement in UCD as a student, but continuing to participate in extra-curricular activities.

Why? Well, why on earth not? My course was too hard. I didn’t actually enjoy studying History at third level (though I loved it at school). There were better ways to go about getting started in my chosen career. A thousand conjured-up excuses, and all of them equally spurious – that is, for me at least.

Eventually – and perhaps inevitably – my Road to Damascus moment arrived, and it dawned on me at last that perhaps, just perhaps, dropping out wasn’t actually what I wanted. So I trudged to the bank to withdraw a hefty loan in order to cover the various repeats I had accumulated, began to knuckle down, and finally began college properly.

So far, so good – and a happy ending for all? Well, no, actually, anything but.

I was lucky – luckier in some ways than I think I still grasp, even now. Lucky because I managed to arrest a downward slide in time; luckier still in that the factors which brought me so close to ending my time in UCD weren’t academic, economic, personal or any of the other myriad of issues that can affect a student’s performance, and can ultimately lead to a decision to abandon a course of study altogether.

The root of my brush with dropping out of university lay firmly with my own hubris, immaturity, and misplaced sense of priority. When I eventually began to treat my college experience in the manner that I should have done from the very beginning, I was able to discover that I actually had at least a modicum of aptitude, and – perhaps much more importantly – a distinct enthusiasm for my course.

Others aren’t so lucky. For some students, external influences – whether stemming from personal problems, reasons of finance or academic capability, or a range of others – can contribute to the unwelcome and affecting academic problems. For more than a few, it can quite simply be the case that their chosen course of study is simply not for them – or, at least, it isn’t at that particular point in time. Like anyone else in UCD, I’ve known examples of all of the above, and the experiences of the interviewees on these pages are utterly typical. My own memory of flirting with dropping out lends me some sense of empathy with their positions, but our experiences certainly aren’t the same – nor, in honesty, would I wish them to be.

O’Grady is the very first person to acknowledge that for some, no matter how difficult the decision to part ways with a course may be, it’s still a step that has to be taken.

“One of the first questions I ask students who come in here who have gone down in modules is ‘Do you really want to be here – do you really want to get a degree?’, because that’s the baseline that you need to work from. Most people actually do want to be here – they want to get their degree – but they’re just a little bit lost in knowing how to go about it. [For some people, however] it may have been last on their CAO form, or it’s not what they wanted to do. If it’s not the right place for you then you need to withdraw.”

With Friday last marking the final day for withdrawal this semester without incurring financial penalty, it seems likely that O’Grady’s schedule will calm down a little bit this week. Realistically, however, the likelihood of the seats in the waiting area outside her office remaining empty for long seems faint.

~~

Shane (20) is a First Year student in Health and Performance Science. In September 2008, immediately after completing his Leaving Certificate, he embarked on a Science degree in Trinity College. Very quickly on, however, he realised that the course simply wasn’t for him.

“Going into physiotherapy had always been my overall goal, so it was just a case of which direction into that area that I took, [but I soon found that] Trinity just wasn’t my thing at all. When it came to the course itself, I just couldn’t handle it. I’d say it was a mixture of the course and the college. I thought about [withdrawing] for a good two weeks, because as soon as I got in there I realised that it just wasn’t my thing.

“There was no hassle at home. I said it to my Mum straight away and she told me that it was the right thing to do if I wasn’t enjoying it; that I should get out of there. She was really supportive about it – that was great.

“I had been working in a newsagent on Saturdays and Sundays and they decided to give me full-time work for the year, so it was very handy. Getting back into the study side of things this year wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I thought it would be harder, but things like Blackboard are a great help. I live in Bray, so it means I can study from home more.

“I love my course at the moment. Christmas exams went great – I passed everything, so I was very happy with myself.

“If I had to give advice to anyone who was in the same position that I was in, I would say that if you really, really don’t like it, get out of there. I never looked back, and I haven’t regretted taking that step since. It’s the best step I’ve ever taken really.”

~

Louise is 21 and in the Second Year of a General Nursing degree. She originally came to UCD to an Economics and Finance in 2007, but realised by Christmas of her first year in the University that her heart wasn’t in the course. Having reapplied to UCD through the CAO, she is now three terms into her new programme of study, but has become steadily disillusioned with her course. At the time of interview last week, Louise was preparing to formally withdraw from the University.

“I initially came to UCD to study Economics and Finance. I’d worked very hard for my Leaving, and was very happy with the results, but I hadn’t actually given the course itself much consideration before starting. I had difficulties… very soon on – I found that I just wasn’t engaging with the course the way I thought I would.

“An older sibling was already studying Nursing in UCD, so I had a very good general knowledge of the course through her, and thought it looked like something I might be very happy doing. At the start [last year] things were great – I made friends very quickly and really enjoyed myself. I enjoyed the theory-based portion of the course hugely – I did very well in my exams.

“It was really the placement in hospital that began to change the way I thought. I found the hours very long, and very challenging, and I started doubting whether or not this was actually something I really wanted to do in the long-term.

“Actually facing up to it was very, very difficult. I was very conscious that I had already changed courses once – my parents had helped me out with paying fees for the first year of new course, so I was very worried that I was letting them down. The money situation at home really isn’t good at the moment, so that really didn’t help things. It was a huge relief to actually come out and say it… two weeks ago.

“UCD have been quite good. Various staff members have talked to me and explained my options, which has been a help. As far as I’m aware, I do have an option – at least for a year or so – of picking up where I left off and resuming my studies. That’s definitely a bit of reassurance.

“Overall, I’m quite frightened, and very worried at the moment. I have a part-time job, but only at weekends – it’s not a nice feeling having nothing to do all of a sudden from Monday to Friday. Not having a place to get up and go in the mornings gets me down. I’m thinking very strongly about looking at other courses and reapplying through the CAO, but even if I do, that still leaves me at a loose end until September. I’m really not sure about anything at the moment.”

Meet Hank Shandley – he’s a Beautiful Person. He must be, because both he and his picture have been accepted on to the eponymous US dating website. The site famously culled thousands of its members during the post-holiday season after they gained a few too many festive pounds. So how would otwo fare on the site with one simple admission policy: if you’re good-looking, you get in.

Shandley, a non-smoking Californian, is in his mid-twenties and is working his way through a Psychology PhD in the University of San Diego. Despite his academic commitments, he still finds the time to help out with orphans on the weekends.

Shandley is also completely, breath-takingly fictitious. Far from being a bronzed West Coast Psych student and all-round nice guy, he’s the creatively lazy creation of a maliciously-minded Features Editor, cooped up for far too long in a dark corner of UCD’s Student Centre.

So, just how long could Shandley survive in the cut-throat (and heart-break) world of online dating? Well it wasn’t too long before his gleaming bio had a bite in the form of Jayne.

***

Jayne wrote:

I’m new. Will you rate me?

Hank Shandley wrote:

Hi Jayne! Sure I’ll rate ya! Where are you at in the ‘States?

Hank x

Jayne wrote:

I’m from southern Ca and yourself?

I hope you rated me well!

Hank Shandley wrote:

I’m from west San Diego – gotta dig that crazy Cali sunshine! Of course I rated you well – a pretty face gets me every time! So what brings you to the site?

Jayne wrote:

it’s been raining so much though! I like rain on occasion, it’s refreshing..honestly, I saw this site in a documentary I watched. It was about America & its shallowness. lol I was just curious to see what people thought of my looks. thanks btw. I think you’re cute yourself! I love SD too

Hank wrote:

Which is why I miss that super SD sunshine! Well I’m loving your looks from here, you’ve got a full two thumbs up from me! I’m kinda in the same boat, heard so many funky stories in the news media so just wanted to check it out, lol. Getting to talk to people like you, though, I’m starting to see that there might be an upside to Beautiful People…

Jayne wrote:

well don’t be a stranger! we are neighbours after all

Hank wrote:

Hey, you’re right, you know! I don’t mean to sound too forward, but how would you feel about maybe going on a date?

Jayne wrote:

hmm that’s a possibility but I think we should get to know each other maybe a little more. Plus, I’ll be out of town the next couple weeks. Here’s something about me, I love travelling. I’m road-tripping it up to Portland & Seattle. Tell me somethings about you! Do you really not have a car? How could anyone live w/o one when you live in cali?! Lol

Hank wrote:

Hey! It’s so great to hear from you! Well, I did drive for a while; but then I got really worried about the Global Warming Economic Downturn so I decided to do my bit and stop. Now, I just jog everywhere – it takes me a lot longer (sometimes days) depending on where I’m going, but I think it’s worth it!

About myself… hmmm, well I’m currently in the middle of my Psychology PhD, so that takes a good amount of time, lol! I still like to help out with the orphans at the weekend though. How about you – how do you like to let your hair down?

Jayne wrote:

haha jog huh? I’m not a jogger but I jazzercise! Ya sounds silly but it’s a workout combo of dance, cardio & strength training to diff songs for an hr. That’s something I do..Phych major? What school do you go to? I’m not sure exactly what I want to major in, if I do major in anything at all that is. I was going to do nursing but right now I fell like college just isn’t for me..in high school I went down to Mexico on missions trips to help out at orphanages. Do you do that w/ a church or is it just something you have a passion for?

Hank wrote:

Jazzercising, huh? That sure sounds like fun – and a great way to keep in shape! I oughta try that myself! All that jogging and digitally assisted right arm toning does me just great for the moment, but I always like new ways to keep fit!

I’m in USD right now at the moment. Yep – Psych has always been my passion: I just feel that this world is such an amazing place, so it thrills me to get to know how all the people in it work! Nursing sure is such a worthwhile thing to do – you should definitely think about it! Take your time about deciding to go to college though, there’s no need to hurry yourself. There sure is a whole lot to be said for maybe taking a year out and trying some volunteer work in Iraq or Afghanistan or something.

The orphan thing I do myself, it just gives me such a warm feeling. I got very put off it about a year ago after Timmy’s accident; but after a while I realised that he probably would have back-flipped out that window any way, even if I hadn’t fallen asleep, lol!!

So, tell me a little bit more about this road-trip of yours, sounds way intriguing!

Jayne wrote:

haha jazzercise is a total girl thing. what is digitally assisted right arm toning?

I’m totally excited about my road trip! Just going w/ a friend and stopping in Sac a night then up to Portland. Have you been to the north west? It’s so beautiful & green. It’ll be my third time to go. There are lots of good places to eat & the culture is so much more laid back then in Cali. There’s lots of art & good music, if you’re into that thing. Night life is fun too. Then Seattle, I was there once but didn’t get to really go around like I wanted to. I want to visit Pike Place Market which is this huge place w/ all different international food & great seafood. Both cities have great live music too.

Can you tell I like food? I also love to cook it. lol people say I’m good at it so I suppose I am. That’s one of my hobbies. I also am into photo & painting. That’s another thing I’m looking forward to on the trip; taking lots of photos!

I don’t know what else..haha do you at least like what you know about me so far?

Hank wrote:

Hey again, you! Digitally assisted right arm toning is a really super way of working on all those muscle groups. I like to crack a few off late most nights (wouldn’t wanna wake anyone up, lol!!).

Gosh, that road trip sure does sound exciting. I’ve never been up that far, but I’d absolutely love to be able to live in a place that’s really green and lush – couldn’t imagine what that’s like! I’m quite a big food person myself, too – I like to eat almost every day.

So you like your art and culture, eh? I really dig that stuff, pictures in books are always so great, lol!! Hobby-wise, I was quite into ornithology when I was younger – me and a few of the guys would go out searching most weekends, and we’d usually manage to tick a few off our lists!

So how soon are you going?

Jayne wrote:

bird watching?..nice, I’ve never done that.

I’m glad you like to eat almost everyday. lol Maybe I could make you something on one of the days you decide to eat!

I am venturing out next week Mon. and be back in a week and a half or so.

Hank wrote:

Gosh, would you actually make me a meal? You’d have to know my favourite dish first, though? x

Jayne wrote:

ok what’s your favorite food?

Hank wrote:

Well, it’s a little bit obscure, but my Grandparents were Irish Poles and there was a really nice regional specialty they used to give me whenever I’d stay with them. Have you ever had a hand-shandy?

Jayne wrote:

have I ever masturbated? yes I have

***

With this, Hank Shandley gave up his quest. Sadly, Jayne disappeared from Beautiful People as otwo went to print.

And they said breaking up was hard to do…

Ali and Leann are both 21 years old, and both are based in UCD’s Health Sciences Building. Alison is in her second year of four studing Midwifery, while Leann is three years into her General Nursing degree.

They also happen to be twin sisters, and absolutely identical ones at that. Or at least, that’s my opening gambit, until I’m laughingly reprimanded by Ali, the younger of the pair by a few hours.

“We’re not actually identical twins, we’re fraternal!”

A quick trip to Google after our interview tells me that a pair of fraternal twins is ‘dizygotic’ (or, for the uninitated, ‘non-identical’). Mind you, the distinction is easier classified than recognised if you’re actually standing in front of this pair. Although pointedly wearing different outfits, and sporting fractionally different hairstyles, these to an outsider would be the only features which set them apart.

As we talk in UCD’s Student Centre, a particular thing happens – not once, twice, but three times during our interview – as students and staff file into the building from Health Sciences to get lunch. Classmates spot the pair and approach, somewhat slowly and cautiously, until close enough to feel confident about making a guess at the identity of the particular twin they know.

While we watch Ali chatting to a friend from her course, cheerfully explaining why exactly it is that she’s being shadowed by a man clutching a digital voice recorder, Leann points out that sometimes the distinction isn’t so easily made by classmates and acquaintances.

“If you’re on your own, then quite often people who might be college friends with Ali, or would know her through class or whatever, just wouldn’t know the difference. So you do tend to get a fair amount of people coming up from and saying hello and asking how you are, which is awful because if you don’t know them, or if you’ve never seen them before, you end up feeling horribily rude.”

Turning back to us, Ali rapidly nods her agreement. “It can happen a huge amount on campus, or on nights out, because you’re almost guranteed to run into each other’s friends. Sometimes it can be easier just to say at the very beginning of a conversation: ‘I’m Ali!’, or whatever!”

Someone who knows that recurring awkward feeling only is too well is Colin, a 21-year-old BMus student. Colin is an official identical twin, with his brother Mark, currently on an Erasmus year in Germany, studying Commerce and German in UCD.

“We both came to UCD at the same time, and had been in the same primary and secondary schools the whole way through – but always in separate classes!”

Colin shares Ali and Leann’s experiences of social awkwardness, offering his own collection of rueful identity mix-ups. “If you were to see Mark walking around campus and you waved to him, he wouldn’t know who you were, so you’d probably end up thinking he was very, very ignorant.”

Relationships, says Colin, pose their own particular range of problems for the discerning twin. “I was walking through town one day with my girlfriend, and this woman I’d never seen before in my life, about 20 years old, started accusing me of cheating on her: ‘Did the last two weeks mean nothing?!’, and all that. I’d been away for a while, so I had no idea what had been going on with Mark’s love life. She didn’t buy the story that I was a twin at all. Eventually, I just had to ring Mark and get him to explain it to her slowly. It was slightly difficult, all right.”

Beneath the surface, just how similar is the average pair? Ali and Leann flash a grin at each, before Leann offers a diplomatic, practised summary.

“I’d say it’s probably safe to say that if you have a twin you have a best friend – but you can also have a worst enemy on occasion. We are very much our own people though, even if it doesn’t always seem that way!”

Colin is quick to agree. “He would be my best man if there was a wedding, that sort of thing – we do get on very well. We are different, though; he’s more business-minded and I’m much more musical. Most of the time, we don’t even fancy the same girls.”

When asked for a parting piece of practical wisdom about being a UCD twin, all three are instantly unanimous. It’s Colin who sums it up best, though, plaintitively pleading: “Just don’t think we’re rude b**tards all the time, please! Most of the time, it really probably isn’t the person you think it is.”

Having trouble getting your mind to focus on the books this afternoon? Here’s a quick one to get the mental cogs turning. What have certain UCD Commerce students and the current captain of the French national football team got in common?

Stumped? The correct answer is a decidedly dubious attitude to fair play. Unless you really have been overdoing it in the library over the past week, then footballing news, and the resultant unlikelihood of Thierry Henry electing to holiday in Ireland anytime soon, shouldn’t require much elaboration. What might require some explanation, however, are developments in the Quinn School of Business.

Within the past fortnight, a continuous assessment examination has been cancelled as a result of students who had already sat the exam photocopying the assessment and distributing to it to classmates who had yet to take the paper. Recriminations were ongoing at the time of The University Observer going to print, with a significant number of affected students vocally opposed to the cancellation and the resulting requirement for an 85 per cent examination at the end of the semester.

The incident has served to highlight a recurring issue of contention for UCD, or any other academic institution for that matter: plagiarism. Intellectual dishonesty, uncited use of external research, heavily influenced conclusions – dress it up however you wish, but the question of academic cheating remains a thorny one. I know I haven’t, and there’s a substantial chance you haven’t, but the odds realistically are that at least someone, somewhere on campus who settles down to read this page has benefited academically from dishonest means at some point during their studies.

So just how difficult is it for the undergraduate of 2009 to utilise dishonesty as a means of getting ahead in grades? I’m a final year History student, and as I write, end-of-semester assignments are rapidly piling up. Like most students, I haven’t the slightest intention of cheating in order to get the job done – even if the ethics of it didn’t bother me, I’d be less than confident about my ability to actually get away with it. But how feasible is cheating in the first place?

As it usually does, Google poses some interesting clues. For a break from an afternoon trawling through journal articles, I decide to enter something much blunter into the search engine: ‘college history essays’.

0.31 seconds later, my options for dishonesty have increased to the tune of around 8,680,000 hits. This is interesting.

I click on the very first suggested page, titled – with a cringing lack of subtleness – www.cheathouse.com. But wait; has my cynicism led me to misjudge things? Is this the intellectual equivalent of the hooker with a heart of gold?

For, as soon as I enter the website, I notice that despite the eye-catching title, cheathouse.com actually appears to be solidly against plagiarism. In fact, as a banner on the its homepage prominently points out, any first time visitors with delicate scruples can be reassured by the patented CheatHouse secret: “When you cite, it isn’t cheating”.

So far so good. From one deft click of the mouse, I appear to have stumbled across an online equivalent to the Arts Café, where I can whittle away the rest of the weekend, happily swapping notes on historiography and dissertation methodology with other students across the world.

Not really though. Just like the happy hooker who’s crossed to the bad side of 50 and should really be considering getting off the streets, push too heavily on the façade of a website like CheatHouse and the make-up starts to smudge. What’s underneath is decidedly less altruistic.

Just beneath the site’s reassuring message is a much larger button marked “Sign up and become a member.” A minor matter of registration, perhaps? Ah, credit card details. I see.

In reality, CheatHouse and its ilk have about as much to do with easily accessible, legitimate forums for academic review as your local drug dealer does with responsible retail practice. The truth of the matter is that getting your foot in the door of a website like this is going to set a student back to the cool tune of $69.95 for a three-month subscription.

Still, there’s nothing like inspecting goods before you buy them. Undeterred by the hefty membership fee, I set about doing a bit of online tyre-kicking, and have a look at the 120-word essay samples available to prospective customers. After all, $70 should be ensuring that what I’m buying into is top-of-the-class stuff… shouldn’t it?

Alas, I’m quickly finding that the reality of essay websites belies their quick and easy promise. I search CheatHouse for “Battle of Waterloo essay” as a sample, and settle in to my chair to read over the first page of results. Should my moral fibre ever crumble sufficiently to lead to me succumbing to the temptation of plagiarism, this should be the stuff that MA admissions are made of. Except it isn’t at all.

The majority of the results that I find appear to be rather leaden high school essays from American teenagers – solid stuff for a 17-year-old in Iowa, but not exactly the kind of material I’d be convinced enough by to stake a substantial chunk of my GPA on. Then I chance upon an A- essay from an American BA course. Perhaps this is what I’m looking for? I type far too soon.

“In a time when regimes came and went with the seasons, Napoleon’s loyalty was always to the country of France never to her newest despot.” Hmmm. Written expression aside; my reading on the period had always suggested that Napoleon rather was France’s “newest despot” from about 1799 onwards. I’m not convinced here.

For argument’s sake, though, let’s assume that it’s the early hours of a Friday morning over the next fortnight or so, and I’m still awake at home, cup of coffee in hand, with a realisation slowly dawning that an impending assignment deadline is just too close. Resolve cracks, and a Visa card is produced. In short order, I have a ready-made essay answer nestled in my inbox, and I’m now on the murky fast track to getting the marks I need to pull me through the Christmas exam period.

Or am I? As an Arts student, with regular essays and assignments the bread and butter of my academic life, submitting physical copies of written work has become a familiar routine. I sign the same form formally declaring that I haven’t plagiarised as any other student, but if I’ve already crossed the ethical line of unaccredited use of other people’s work, one more lie to add to the list is unlikely to deter me that much.

Since September, however, this procedure has changed. The SafeAssign system that the university have rolled out over the past three years has now become the default for History and a range of other subjects. Every single semi-colon that’s emerged from my home printer for academic credit since the beginning of this semester has gone through twin submission – one hard copy handed in as normal; and a second submitted electronically via Blackboard. This causes the plot to thicken.

So now, perhaps I really would be taking a risk. The last time I submitted an assignment, Safe Assign promptly informed me that approximately 17 per cent of my paper was plagiarised. It wasn’t in the slightest – the system had taken exception to the bibliography I’d concluded my essay with – but the warning was unmistakeable. If clearly referencing sources is sufficient to raise a virtual red flag, then what kind of mincemeat would the system make of Bob from Indiana and his disjointed take on the First French Empire?

Student bravado might still prove sufficient to stare down this stumbling block, of course. Anyone desperate enough might well gamble that a stolen piece of work is simply too obscure for a catch-all computer programme to discover; or that an average lecturer might be slow to move with the times, and might prefer to correct hard copies of student work. But it’s a distinct reason to pause and reconsider for the morally wavering.

Bringing something like SafeAssign to the academic table is the equivalent of random Garda road-blocks on a Friday or Saturday night. You might well get away with it, and there’s no absolute certainty of being caught out, but hop in your car with a skin-full and there’s a distinct chance that a checkpoint around the next bend might well spell the beginning of the process of disqualification.

For the moment, I think I’ll fight the good fight and try my level best to keep my student pennies from the dubious brains behind a site like CheatHouse.com… at least until December, anyway.

The panic didn’t set in at all until Sunday afternoon. It was just after 3 o’clock, and I was walking through the entrance of the Main Hall in the RDS.

Being here in any capacity other than as an exam attendee is unusual enough for a UCD student. Normally towards the end of the year, a visit to the RDS means a dog-eared history text book under arm and a jumbo plastic bottle of water in hand; ready for last minute paragraph scanning and the usual scrum at the seat number board. Not today, though.

As I make my way inside, it suddenly starts to dawn on me how utterly out of place I am here. From left to right as far as I can see, the hall is filled with lithe, frighteningly fit-looking people. Intense looking stretches and warm-ups are being carried out against the pillars and walls of the hall; the snatches of conversation I can hear as I move through the throng fail to fill me with any sense of confidence.

“I made three hours alright, but I’m hoping to crack it this year…”

“Yah, so doing New York as well next week really seemed like a natural progression…”

Were that not enough, everyone – and I really mean everyone – is dressed from head to toe in combinations of running gear, leggings, and sweatbands. This is only registration, the day before the race, and everybody is girded for battle already.

I glance down guiltily at the telltale bulge of a cigarette packet beneath the distinctly non-sporty pair of faded jeans I’m wearing, and swallow nervously. This is definitely not my bag.

I join the queue winding its way up to the balcony of the hall, where I go to a desk to receive my race bib, complete with electronic timing chip. As I move by another desk, a sensor bleeps and my name and race number flash up on a display screen. This is assembly line athleticism.

Far more importantly, it means I’m properly committed to this now. No turning back.

I move back downstairs to receive my complimentary goodie bag from one of the female volunteers manning yet another row of desks.

“Good luck for tomorrow,” she smiles, handing me a plastic bag full of giveaway boxes of cereal and travel-sized deodorant. I don’t think either of us knows just how much I’m going to need it.

***

Bank Holiday Monday begins with the painful realisation that my little Features project will imminently be becoming brutally real. Just after 7:30 in the morning, I’m pacing in a cloud of tobacco smoke in the back garden, desperately trying to remember why on earth I’m doing this.

Like many stories with unhappy endings; this one began with what seemed like a tremendously good idea. It was the end of August, and planning for Volume XVI of The University Observer was well underway when our incoming Deputy Editor had a brainwave for one of our Semester one issues.

“How about,” he said, looking at me over his desk, “we register you to run the Dublin Marathon in October?”

I had to hand it to him – it wasn’t a bad suggestion. I effortlessly make the shortlist for one of the least athletic and competitive people in the Observer office. The outcome of tasking me with an activity that required a significant amount of stamina and commitment couldn’t fail to be interesting. Besides, the last Monday in October seemed a lifetime away on a sunny summer day with the leaves still on the trees. What could I say but yes?

Now, however, things were about to get unpleasant, fast. By 8:30am, I’ve slunk in to the very rear of the race formation on Fitzwilliam Street, surreptitiously glancing at the competition ranked around me.

The intervening evening hasn’t made things look any better.

The steps of the Georgian facades lining the start of the route are cracking under knots of spandex and lycra-clad runners stretching, twitching and breathing in and out in preparation for the off. Here and there, the mass of the crowd temporarily parts to allow some sweat-banded zealot to go through one last warm-up, bouncing through the throng like a bad mime artist.

Judging by the array of expensive looking running shoes and singlets on display, the collective stock of Dublin’s sporting goods emporiums must have shot up in the last week. I’m not quite looking the part here. I’ve adorned myself with a faded yellow hoodie and a pair of equally sorry-looking tracksuit bottoms; accessorised by a scuffed pair of Dunnes trainers which I’m depressingly confident won’t be up to par when it comes to arch support. My race number is clumsily sellotaped across my chest. There really is nothing like dressing for the occasion.

Ah, well. At least I have my training to fall back on.

And I have been training hard. Walking all the way from the Newman Building to the Student Centre. From the Student Centre back to the James Joyce Library. Once or twice, I’ve even hoofed it the entire distance from the Belfield flyover to the Arts Café. This is just going to be a slightly lengthier version of the above… isn’t it?

I try to ignore the strains of the Garda Band practising for playing the race off, and attempt to concentrate on getting ready to go. I’ve long since settled on my own particular marathon strategy: it’ll be walking, from start to finish. As recently as a day or so ago, I’d flirted with the idea of running the first mile or so, purely for appearance’s sake. The aghast responses I’ve been receiving from friends and family have persuaded me to face facts and acknowledge that even that is probably beyond me. Even a chancer has to recognise reality occasionally.

Eventually, after a lifetime of anxiously checking and re-checking the time on my phone. and deliberating on whether or not one last smoke will result in me being summarily lynched by the human whippets around me, we’re off.

I’m slightly disappointed. I was expecting something dramatic here, like a race marshal striding in to the middle of the road and ceremoniously firing a starting pistol toward the grey October sky. Instead, the mass just begins to surge forward as one solid body.

By Nassau Street, things are going well. I’m striding along, not much faster than if I was out for a spot of early Christmas shopping. The MP3 player I’d filched from my sister’s bedroom is blaring a pungent mixture of Abba and Rihanna in to my ears. This is actually quite alright.

Famous last words.

As part of the only modicum of research or preparation I’d bothered with prior to the event, I’d chuckled over and over again to myself at the YouTube video of Paula Radcliffe getting caught short during the London Marathon in 2005. How quickly the smug do fall.

The fractional amount of practical information I’d managed to soak up had left me with a fear of becoming dehydrated during the event. What’s the solution for an enterprising young writer? Why, simply knock back enough mineral water to fill a camel’s hump prior to starting. Job done.

Except it isn’t. It’s anything but. As my straggling portion of the procession winds its way past the neon-lit front of the Sinn Féin bookshop on Parnell Square, I’m starting to feel it. By the time we’re passing down the North Circular Road, things are becoming dire. I start to shoot glances at inviting looking front gardens and alleys as I chug past. Solving things a la Radcliffe is beginning to look more and more appealing.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see the squat plastic frame of a portable toilet in my life. Suitably refreshed, I slump to the pavement and fish into my tracksuit pocket for my sweat-stained pack of cigarettes. This is tough stuff, and this first water station only represents the three mile mark.

I clamber back to my feet and keep on going through the wrought-iron gates of the Phoenix Park.

Something highly unexpected starts to happen as I continue on over the side roads and avenues of the park. Despite my best efforts at weary cynicism, I’m actually beginning to get in to the spirit of the thing. My phone is shrilling every half mile or so with calls from girlfriend and friends.

At first, the inquiries are solidly anxious and curious. “You actually got up? You really are doing it?”

As the miles count off, pain-stakingly slowly, the contact takes a more encouraging tone.

“Well done – keep going.”

From nowhere, the hazy idea I originally had of giving it my best shot for a couple of miles or so and then bowing out is being replaced by a desire to grit my teeth and actually finish the thing. Determination? Drive? This is new and very much unexplored territory.

As I lope out of the Phoenix Park and on to the Chapelizod Road, I take the opportunity of another water stop to halt myself for a moment and lean against a stone wall to light a cigarette. I’m exhaling and mentally weighing up the mere twenty or so miles still left when an unmistakeable American accent hails me from behind.

“Blow it all over me!”

My mind is still frantically working on all the different comic directions this can be taken in when the chirpy, pink tracksuited owner of the voice appears at my shoulder.

“I’m a smoker,” she explains, nodding her head at the smouldering coffin nail between my fingers. “I need my fix.”

I decide to prevent the situation becoming any more bizarre by simply proffering a Lucky Strike and my lighter.

As she takes a grateful first drag, my interlocutor introduces herself as Kim O’Connor, an insurance worker from Kansas. O’Connor – and another half-dozen or so members of her family – are in Ireland for an extended break. The previous few days have seen them tick off tourist staples like the Guinness Storehouse and the Book of Kells; now they’re running a marathon to conclude their time in the capital.

I’m tempted to ask where the urge to spoil an otherwise delightful holiday came from, but I decide to keep my mouth shut. Shuffling along beside O’Connor as our wheezy portion of the cavalcade clears Chapelizod and moves along toward Crumlin, she elaborates on what has her out pounding Dublin pavements on a brisk October Monday. She’s there to raise as much money as possible for leukaemia research, “and have a good time here while I’m at it.”

Admirable stuff. I’m not quite sure my moral fibre is quite so Kevlar-like, though. For all my newfound sense of spirit, I’m beginning to feel it now.

The halfway point arrives mid-phone call update to the same Deputy Editor that started all this in the first place. It’s after half-twelve, and he’s just out of bed. I can’t resist a slight tone of weary smugness, though in his defence he’s been awake until four that morning putting the final touches to that fortnight’s issue.

I progress on past Crumlin Children’s Hospital, doing an Oscar-worthy impression of a particularly lethargic pensioner. That’s a rather futile metaphor, though, because here and there along the route I’ve actually seen several pensioners, and they’re not doing half bad. In fact, some of them are out-pacing me.

My feet are sorer and sorer now. I haven’t dared look at any of the water station pitstops, but beneath the protective covering of St Bernard’s best rubber and the double layer of socks on each, I’m beginning to get the distinct idea that I may be doing a considerable amount of damage to them.

A refrain starts repeating itself over and over again in my head. “I’m not even paid for this. I’m not even paid for this. I’m not even paid…”

The stretch from Terenure to Milltown melds into a bizarre blur of the gates of fee-paying secondary schools. I mark my progress by limping painfully past the entrance to Terenure College, Rathdown, Alexandra College, and on again. It’s well past two in the afternoon now, and I can’t resist mocking myself with the certain knowledge that the winner of the marathon is most likely at home with their feet up by this stage.

I try to distract myself from the thoughts of my own athletic inadequacy by craning my neck to assess the company I’m keeping here at the tail end – not that that offers much to soothe my strained ego.

I seem to be the notable exception in a group of middle-aged women marching along in determined lockstep. Here and there, intriguing snippets of pre-menopausal conversation prick my nosy ears.

“She seems to be studying each night, and the exams do seem to be going OK for her. But, you know, you just can’t force them to study, they have to do it for themselves.”

I’d almost struggle forward to concur with Fidelma’s sage advice, if I wasn’t so tired.

As we hit Clonskeagh, another subtle change in proceedings asserts itself. This is home ground now, and it cheers me up somewhat. The first sight of the grammatically-trying “University College Dublin Dublin” crest on a gate is a curious source of inspiration. I begin to straighten my back a little bit and square my shoulders on the approach to the N11.

This, at last, is the home stretch, but as it progresses, it’s also proving one of the hardest yet. I’ve long since lost count of the number of complimentary 250ml bottles of water I’ve choked down as I go, and my face is a glistening, scarlet patchwork of perspiration.

Eventually, I find myself moving with painful slowness past the front of the RDS. Queuing for registration almost exactly a day ago seems only the vaguest of memories now.

When the finish line on Merrion Square arrives, I’m too exhausted to even muster a grin. I mutter a greeting to the Observer photographer who’s trekked out on his Monday evening to cover my moment of triumph; and then slouch forward to the finishing official, handing back my race bib and barely even registering the medal that’s pressed into my hand. I struggle to collect my thoughts. I’m not sure, but it almost appears that I’ve completed a marathon. In a mere seven hours and forty-one minutes.

For the moment, all I can properly focus on is the last cigarette that I’ve been saving and savouring for past three miles, and the hot meal that I can only hope is waiting at home for me.

It’s only later, when I’m sprawled in bed well before nine o’clock, post-dinner and lengthy shower, that I can give it some proper consideration. I’m flicking through the souvenir programme that I received as part of my registration pack that long day ago. It’s full of page after page of glossy platitudes about “the world’s friendliest marathon”, and glowing endorsements of the tremendous sense of self-worth that can seemingly only be gained by hauling yourself through forty-two kilometres of marathon course.

Yesterday, I would have dismissed it all with a dubious snort. Now, though, it doesn’t seem quite so foreign. I don’t think I’ll be in any particular hurry to strap my runners on again, but perhaps – just perhaps – the athletic types might have been right on this one.

There’s a long-standing convention in journalism – even at this level – that private jokes shouldn’t make their way to print.

It makes perfect sense. After all, what’s side-splittingly amusing in a newspaper office at half-past eleven on the Friday night of a production weekend might not necessarily translate to the real world when crisp new copies of The University Observer emerge on to campus on a Tuesday morning.

In any case, journalists of any description are usually strange creatures. They might be able to make a cursor bounce across a laptop screen to create something magical week in and week out, but that doesn’t automatically make them the kind of hilarious social animals you’d like to find yourself wedged beside on a long bus journey. More often than not, hacks are best left to scribbling away in darkened news rooms, only sporadically emerging for a gasped cigarette and a cup of plastic-tinged coffee.

Occasionally though, just occasionally, something happens that’s significant enough to merit breaching that unspoken boundary. For me, that something happened this week.

A certain amount of explanation is required here. Two things about the The University Observer have always struck me: one is the sheer amount of tat that can sometimes blag its way past the bouncers at the front door in the guise of free gifts, samples, and products for review in one issue or another. In that respect at least, there’s nothing particularly unique about this newspaper – it happens the world over.

Over the years I’ve spent desperately clinging on to a role within this paper; I’ve had to avoid tripping over everything from piles of unwanted CDs (thanks, otwo), to box after box of blue Doritos (seriously – there’s still enough here to enable us to weather out a small-scale nuclear winter).

The other thing that’s always given me pause for thought is the sheer level of geographical variety our staff roster has always reflected. This may be a student newspaper based in University College Dublin; but the backgrounds of the people that make things happen around here have always been much broader than just the big smoke. Over my time with the paper, I’ve worked with section editors and deputy editors from Meath; contributors from Canada and the US; and others from even further afield.

There’s one group, however, that have always held a particularly prominent role in this organisation – those who hail from God’s own county: Donegal. The north-west has contributed more than its fair share of talent to The University Observer over the years, from editors to deputy editors and more again. This year has been no exception to that.

In fact, a decent argument could at times be made that the small, L-shaped office in the Student Centre, from where all of this filler originates each fortnight, is in fact simply an annexed back lot of Stranorlar or Killybegs (or, depending on your perspective, an eerie echo of the Leaving Cert Irish aural tape).

It begins to have an effect. The only experience I’ve ever had of that little portion of Ireland has been a rainy week in June here and there spent skidding on a racing bike around the back roads of Glenties on school trips. I don’t have any O’Donnells or McDaids hidden away anywhere in the family tree; and I’ve never nipped across to Derry to do a spot of discount Saturday morning shopping.

For all of that, though, I’ve developed a funny attraction to the place. I don’t actually think I’m from Donegal, and I’m not about to amble over to the Belfield Bowl to watch Finn Harps on a windy Friday night any time soon. But it’s growing on me.

They’re lovely people, they really are. But just like any group, they have their own quirks and funny points. As a Dublin student through and through, nothing has ever seemed funnier – or more intriguing – than the latest addition to the stock of the Centre Club: a concoction called Football Special.

At this point, if you are a reader who hails from Donegal, you’ll be excitedly rubbing your palms together and getting ready to group-text your friends to tell them that you’ve just read about it in the student newspaper. Elaboration will be required for anyone else, however.

Football Special – according to those raised on the stuff since just after their mother’s milk – is something that defies easy categorisation. It’s a refreshing mineral. It’s a sports drink. It’s a hangover cure to beat all others. It just… is. And most intriguingly, until recently, you couldn’t buy the stuff anywhere south of Bundoran.

Now, anyone who’s ever even considered a career in journalism is nosy. It comes with the territory. Express a desire to squint into the windows of houses with a long-lens camera in hand, or hack into someone’s e-mail account to snoop through their messages in any other context, and you have issues. Do it with a notebook in your back pocket and a quaint fedora hat with a small card saying “Press” wedged in the brim and you’re merely displaying a keen sense of dedication to your chosen profession.

I’m no exception – I’m a nosy, nosy man, burdened with a pressing desire, once something piques my curiosity, to find out as much as I possibly can about it. Football Special had distinctly ticked that box. After months of listening to colleagues from the north-west sincerely extolling the virtues of the drink, I knew I had to have some. The opportunity just never seemed to arise.

That was, at least, until our Editor made the annual pilgrimage home the weekend before last. She knew of my interest. Anyone who’s ever been foolish enough to admit to coming from Donegal within earshot of me has quickly been made aware of that insatiable puzzlement.

“Would you like me to just get you some?” she asked on Friday night.

I couldn’t believe it. I nodded mutely, and held it together just long enough to make the bus journey home. The weekend passed in a blur – nothing came close to the anticipation of having some of that mythical Donegal elixir in my paws at the start of the coming week. (Sadly it turns out she actually meant a bottle of Football Special, rather than getting me Some.)

So – what’s it like? It’s a revelation, that’s what it’s like. I gingerly cracked open the office door on Monday morning to find not one, but six plastic bottles of the stuff standing to attention on my desk.

At a glance, it fits every joking reference I’d ever made about it. It’s made – and save your gasps of surprise – by McDaid’s; a subsidiary, presumably, of McDaid & McDaid.

The 500ml bottles display a stuck on print label excitedly singing the praises of the drink using only the subtlest of Capital Letters and multiple exclamation marks!!! That’s because (according to the makers at least), Football Special is the distilled result of a “Quest for the Very Best in soft drinks”.

Should the wavering shopper remain sitting on the fence, the Ramelton bottlers have cunningly upped the ante on the blurb at the front of the label: Football Special is “Made with Donegal Water”. I know I’m impressed, and I dropped Science after the Junior Cert, so I couldn’t even begin to guess at what the fluoride benefits might be here.

Holding a bottle in my hands just doesn’t seem real, or right. It’s like glimpsing Shergar trotting around a paddock in the background as you enjoy a gin on the veranda with Elvis and Lord Lucan. Eventually though, it has to be done.

I pluck up my courage and unscrew the cap. It’s… well, very, very nice. I’m not sure what exactly I expected, but Football Special fits the bill nicely. It tastes somewhat like a jazzed-up Ribena, with the added kick that can only be given by Donegal Water, naturally. Well, hopefully the stuff is natural.

Five days on, and I’ve binged on the stuff. The Features desk (there is no features desk Peter, that’s MY desk – Ed) is surrounded by crushed and empty plastic bottles of ‘Special, casualties of my failing efforts to discipline myself and leave some for Donegal colleagues who might actually appreciate that little touch of home more than me.

A monster has been let out of the bag with this one. And no, McDaid’s haven’t paid me in crates of syrupy goodness. Although they’re welcome to.

Regional Treats

Some of the lesser known produce from around Ireland that you’re unlikely to find on sale at the campus Centra any time soon…

Prince August Toy Soldiers, Cork

Toy soldiers? In Macroom? Really? It’s true, though. Get yourself down to the Prince August visitor centre and choose from a range of little men ranging from Roman Legionaries to Napoleonic Redcoats. Go on; indulge the child/final year History student inside you. www.princeaugust.ie

Llewellyn’s Orchard Produce, Dublin

Irish wine – surely a misnomer? Not for David Llewellyn. His Lusca Irish wine is grown in Lusk, County Dublin, and is regularly on sale in markets like that at the People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire every Sunday. Chateauneuf de Swords, anyone?

The Alternative Pizza Company, Cork

There must be something entrepreneurial in the tap water down in Munster. Chef Dave Flynn created what has to be one of the only wholly Irish pizza companies in existence in 2004. The Italian staple goes through a distinctively Gaelic overhaul, with flavours like Bacon and Cabbage, or Black Pudding and Provençale Sauce being particularly eye-catching. Available in supermarket outlets nationwide; or visit www.alternativepizza.ie

It was an amusing Thursday evening for anyone sitting in front of a satellite news channel on 15th October. With almost debilitating speed, one particular story began to edge up through the rankings to almost achieve almost continual coverage.

The stage was Fort Collins, Colorado, and the star of this almost instant media attention was the ironically named Falcon Heene. And just how was it that young Master Heene had come to be the focus of global scrutiny? Because he was trapped in a home-made helium balloon. Naturally.

A home-made helium balloon had been released from its moorings and was now drifting as high as 7,000 feet above the grasslands of Colorado, with a helpless Heene on board, presumably clinging on for dear life as the balloon bobbed and weaved at speed through the sky.

So far, so dramatic. The thread began to start unravelling when the balloon eventually made it back down to earth as panicked would-be rescuers quickly ascertained that there was, in fact, nobody in the basket of the device. It transpired that Heene had actually been safe at home throughout the entire episode, oblivious to the sudden drastic changes to news schedules he had been precipitating in television studios across the planet.

A happy ending, then? Well, no – anything but, actually. It’s never appealing to concede defeat to cynicism, but for once, the glass-is-half-empty types amongst news viewers were right on the money.

As journalists began probing further into the incident, arguably unhappy with the rather anodyne ending of the on-screen drama, the story began to unravel faster than the ropes of the loosely tethered balloon.

Falcon’s father, Richard, had form in this sort of thing. A self-described amateur scientist, storm-chaser, and all-round thorough eccentric, the head of the Heene clan had already endeavoured to see the family gain exposure in US reality television shows like Wife Swap. After a series of inopportune post-rescue interviews with both the authorities and the media; it rapidly became clear that the game was up.

Last weekend Falcon’s mother, Mayumi, admitted in court documents that the entire incident had been an elaborately staged hoax, designed to boost the unusual family’s media profile. In a perverse way, the plan had succeeded perfectly.

In less than a fortnight, Falcon and the Heene family have achieved a level of prominence that belies their hitherto reality as a suburban US family; albeit a highly unusual one. “Balloon Boy” has become one of the most popular internet memes of all time, while the term became the number one most searched for phrase on Google within hours of the incident – always a ready gauge of modern celebrity.

But the Colorado family haven’t exactly pioneered this sort of thing. For almost as long as elaborate deception has proved a foolproof way to gain instant notoriety, people have endeavoured to push the hoaxing boat out. Some notable hoaxes have an even lengthier pedigree. Here are some of the best (or should it be worst?) of more recent years.

Derren Brown and “Russian Roulette” (2003)
The ever-so-slightly unsettling English illusionist pulled a master stroke with this inspired stunt. Broadcast live from a remote farmhouse on the island of Jersey, of all places, Brown apparently performed a game of nerve-racking Russian Roulette, using a revolver loaded by a randomly selected volunteer.

Perhaps predictably, the television event didn’t end with flecks of the magician’s goatee spattered all over the studio wall. Brown consistently refused to confirm or deny whether or not the weapon was in fact loaded with a live round, saying only that “it was a terrific piece of television”.

Blanks it is, then.

The Hills (2006 – infinity)
This particular piece slice of reality TV gets an unworthy mention not merely in its own right, but for being emblematic of a host of television shows over the past decade that have managed to stretch a hoax into several seasons worth of advertising revenue. We’re watching you as well, Kardashians… unfortunately.

Robert P. McCulloch and London Bridge (1967)
The world stopped and scratched its head in the 1960s as the Common Council of the City of London decided to put London Bridge on the market as plans went ahead to erect a more modern replacement.

In stepped US oil millionaire Robert P. McCulloch, who parted with a cool $2,460,000 – a mere $16m in today’s money – to purchase the bridge, and ship it piece by painstaking piece for reconstruction in Arizona.

The twist lay in the fact that the unfortunate American entrepreneur was forever afterwards dogged by rumours that he had stumped up the cash in the mistaken belief that he was purchasing the much more famous Tower Bridge a few hundred yards downstream.

A true hoax? Debateable, unless the London aldermen really were laughing all the way to the bank.

De Grote Donorshow (2007)
The Big Donor Show was a particularly inspired piece of television trickery by Dutch channel BNN.

Another show from the Endemol stable, noted as the producers of Big Brother, the concept saw a supposedly terminally ill woman receiving public advice via text message as to which kidney transplant candidate her organs should go to after her death. The fact that the woman in question was, in reality, a perfectly healthy actress was revealed during the course of the programme, with the show’s makers claiming that the entire project was intended to draw attention to the lack of organ donors in the Netherlands.

Altruistic or otherwise, it certainly made for heady, headline-grabbing stuff.

It might differ from person to person, but I’m willing to wager that a substantial proportion of the UCD community, be they students or staff, go about written work in a very similar way.

It probably goes a little something like this: receive assignment. Open Word. Type a header. If you’re in a particularly creative frame of mind, tap your way through an opening sentence. Get up, have a coffee, and stretch the legs. Repeat ad nauseum, and after a day or three of somewhat less than toiling effort, you might be left with something vaguely fit for submission on BlackBoard (or the furtive slide under an office door, if you’ve missed the deadline). All of the above is dependant, of course, on you actually securing the facilities to stare unproductively at a computer screen. The thing is, it’s often easier said than done.

It’s Friday afternoon, and I’ve just emerged blinking into the sunlight after a week of mid-term essays. It’s been about as rough as it ever is.

There’s a certain established etiquette to the art of securing a fully plugged-up seat in the James Joyce library. It took me until Christmas of Second Year to become fully accustomed to the rhythm of that little daily race.

Getting up early is a prerequisite: yielding to the lure of a lie-in is a rookie’s fatal mistake. The seasoned library laptop user is hovering in the lobby outside the main entrance by 8:20am, bag slung over shoulder, half-finished cup of coffee in hand, and determined grimace on face. Oh yes, this is a serious business; make no mistake about it.

As the clock ticks down to the glass doors sliding open, glances are slyly cast. The competition is being weighed up. Eventually, the entrance opens and bags and folders are hastily snatched up as the surge to the turnstiles begins. It’s like some bizarre version of the running of the bulls, but one with hoodied undergraduates instead of riled Iberian cattle.

Once through the entrance, the mob sluices left and right as people dash – or rather walk as furiously fast as dignity will allow them – for their favoured spot. Be quick enough on your toes and victory awaits. At least, that is, if the pressures of college work can warp your horizons sufficiently to render annexing your own little portion of the library on a Monday morning an achievement.

It’s a depressing state of affairs. And I’ve had enough of it. So today, I’m doing something very, very different.

The past five hundred words or so have been written – yes, written. Not typed, tapped, copied-and-pasted or scanned, but written. I have a ball-point pen in my hand, an open A4 pad in front of me, and another sheaf or so of blank pages to populate in my deep, heavy hand-writing.

This is indeed a novelty. I haven’t tried to write anything more elaborate than hurriedly scribbled tutorial or lecture notes since June 20th, 2006. In a possibly related note, I finished my Leaving Certificate on June 21st, 2006.

Since that point, it’s been computer power all the way. I came wide-eyed on to the Belfield campus with little more than a seriously underdeveloped work ethic and a shiny new rectangular lump of metal and plastic, courtesy of Dell.

That September morning was the start of an enduring love affair with the electronic document. Since then, at even a rough estimate, my fingers have moved sluggishly across the keyboard to produce something in the region of forty to fifty essays, take-home exams and in-class presentations.

That’s not to mention the adjuncts. I’m one of those afflicted souls who likes to maintain an almost fascist approach to correct spelling and grammar. In practice, that means I’m anal enough to go to the trouble of typing even e-mails out as a Word document first before copying and pasting them into Hotmail.

The cumulative effect of all of this has meant that my interaction with computers and typing has moved beyond dependence to the frightening depths of addiction. It has been bad. At times, I’m ashamed to admit, I’ve even stooped to the level of one of those desperate characters who see no problem in hauling a laptop from their bags to jot down notes in a crowded lecture hall. But no more.

As I turn the page over to a fresh sheet, I’m reflecting that things are going, well, at least slightly better than anticipated.

But the day hasn’t been without its own learning curve. Put simply, I’m not used to this. Looking back over what I’ve written, I can spot glaring errors. Commas and punctuation marks are lying in places they shouldn’t be.

For once, there’s no glowing red line to highlight the words I’ve mangled and spelt incorrectly. Usually, when I bang a sentence out that’s too jumbled or lengthy, or simply doesn’t read well, the green line appears like a discreet head waiter when a patron’s had too much to drink, politely suggesting that I revise my attitude. Not today, though.

It’s taking me longer to write – and it’s far more effort. My hand is already sore and cramped, and the relatively neat script that commenced the article a page ago has degenerated into a loose, untidy scrawl. It feels almost like I’m crouched over in a draughty hall in the RDS in early December or May, feverishly pontificating about Cromwellian invasions or social change in nineteenth century Ireland; all against the clock.

As I push my chair back and get up to slouch outside for a cigarette, I can’t help but reflect on the crowning irony of all of this. For all my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ideas of literally writing a feature about not using a computer for formal writing; I will, still, have to sit down at the end of all this and transcribe my efforts on to a computer.

That’s the niggling thing, you see. Endeavouring to turn the clock back and go and write something for a change is a bit like deciding to opt out of anything involving electrical current in everyday life. It’s an awful lot more easily said than done.

Even the most benign student newspaper editor in the country is unlikely to accept a clutch of scribbled pages as a finished article. And our esteemed publication accepts nothing less than pristine word documents. Things don’t work like that anymore. Emails and attachments are the currency of professional life these days, not coffee-stained manuscripts.

By exactly the same token, there isn’t a school in UCD that will, in 2009, accept hand-written documents for academic assessments. No, typed and double-spaced is the name of the game on campus.

So, am I fundamentally wasting my time here? Perhaps not. If nothing else, setting out to do my best with pen and paper alone has reminded me of exactly why I usually have a preference for Microsoft’s greatest hits.

It’s time-consuming, and not infrequently frustrating. The mistakes and rough drafts along the way can’t be corrected with a just a deft slide of the mouse and a few strategic taps of the delete button. True, they will be corrected when it comes to typing everything up, but then why bother in the first place?

Somewhere along the line between being written out and appearing in print in front of you, what you’re reading will have changed from a rough draft in pen ink to an immaculate, paragraphed and spaced series of neat columns. Symmetry and regular spacing will take the place of splodges of Tippex and lines scored out in red pen. I don’t think I’ll be retiring my fountain pen just yet, but when all’s said and done, I think I know which format of this piece I’d rather read.