Gavan Reilly's Portfolio writings, ramblings, mumblings

The Tokyo Times

If you’re planning on visiting Asia this summer, you could do worse than spend a few days sampling the unique delights of Tokyo, writes Gavan Reilly [Read more →]

Election Special: Coca-Cola Referendum

Alongside this year’s elections, students will be asked to vote on a referendum regarding the SU’s current position boycotting the sale of Coca-Cola products in SU shops and in the two campus bars. [Read more →]

Election Special: What is RON?

In each of the five sabbatical elections, regardless of the number of candidates running for the position, voters will have the option of choosing ‘RON’, or ‘Re-Open Nominations’. This, in essence, is a ‘none of the above’ option – so if none of the candidates in each election meet with your approval, you can choose to vote for none of them in addition to your right to spoil your vote or to abstain from voting in the first place.

For electoral purposes, the RON option is treated exactly as if it was a human candidate – so under the Single Transferrable Vote system used by the Students’ Union, which is similar to that used in Irish general elections, you can choose to give RON your number 1 preference, or number 2, or so on for the number of candidates in the election. So, for example if you have a genuine choice for who you want to win an election and if you would prefer to have nobody but your candidate get the job, you could give RON your number 2 preference.

If the RON option is ultimately deemed elected, the position remains unfilled, and the SU Returning Office will restart the nomination process for that position, thereby allowing new candidates to enter the election for that position. If any of this week’s elections return a RON result, a second election would most likely take place in the first week of April alongside the SU Executive Elections.

The RON system means that candidates who are uncontested – such as in the Presidential, Welfare and Ents elections this year – must still convince voters to elect them rather than being entitled to take the position by default. The RON option was first introduced in 1998, and won its first election against an uncontested Ents candidate, but has not been chosen since.

SU confirms referendum to overturn Coca-Cola boycott

STUDENTS in UCD will be asked to vote on whether to overturn the boycott on Coca-Cola products in all Students’ Union shops, it was confirmed tonight, Tuesday 16th February.

[Read more →]

47% of students unable to name any SU officer

An exclusive poll carried out by The University Observer has revealed that most students are unable to name any of the five Students’ Union sabbatical officers. [Read more →]

Orient Express

An uneasy Gavan Reilly is bowled over by the food and service at Yamamori on Ormond Quay [Read more →]

New season’s greetings

UCD winger David McMillan speaks to Gavan Reilly about his side’s chances in the new season [Read more →]

Soft-Lee Surrendering

If Ireland’s political system cannot exploit the talents of its parliamentarians like George Lee, writes Gavan Reilly, then the system needs fundamental reform [Read more →]

Film: Invictus

Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon
In cinemas: Now

Morgan Freeman has had a pretty epic selection of roles throughout his cinematic career. In the hierarchy of man he’s played everything from an impoverished driver to a judge, to the Director of the CIA, to the US President. He’s even played God – twice.

The latest addition to Freeman’s cinematic portfolio is one after which he has long sought: that of Nelson Mandela. Set in 1994, Invictus charts Mandela’s first fifteen months in power in South Africa, arriving amid mass civil unrest as the deposed white minority struggle to accept the new ruling black classes, and the difficulty encountered by the new rulers in placating the fears of the whites that their own culture might be destroyed by the long-oppressed blacks.

Mandela identifies the 1995 Rugby World Cup – itself being held in South Africa – as a chance to unite the country behind a common goal, and Invictus follows his campaign to unite the black population (who see the national side, the Springboks, as a symbol of oppression, playing an elitist game and wearing the imperial colours of myrtle green and gold) with the whites. To do this, he calls in the help of the team captain, Francois Pienaar (Damon), who embodies the white population as they learn to respect their new President.

Clint Eastwood understands the unifying power of sport in society; after his exploits in Million Dollar Baby, Invictus represents another shot at showcasing the unique ability sport holds to capture the collective imagination of a nation in a way that few other activities can. Intertwined with this is the showcase of Mandela’s slow but successful emotional integration of two warring factions of his country’s population – a subplot that no doubt deserves any number of films devoted to it.

In attempting to tell a sporting story and a political one, sadly neither is ultimately told as best it could be. What may have been a glorious opportunity to present the world with an overdue Mandela biopic is squandered by including a story based on a sport that few understand. Similarly, what for rugby aficionados could have been truly enthralling, is diluted by the long indulgences in politics. Freeman (as ever) and Damon are superb and compelling, but sport and politics rarely make for easy bedfellows in real life, let alone the silver screen.

In a Nutshell: An adequate sporting story, an interesting political one, but a disappointingly average marriage of both

Gavan Reilly

Webwatch

with Gavan Reilly [Read more →]