Getting the ball rolling

On Tuesday evening in the atrium, the Trinity Ball Committee was setting, well, what else but the ball rolling with the launch of this year's outdoor extravaganza. The main sponsor for the event this year, which takes place on May 14th, is Bovril. Well, what else would any student worth their mobile phone be drinking of an evening while dressed in tux and tulle?

No doubt the posters around the college advertising Bovril's part in the festivities are inspiring many inventive undergraduate brains to compose free verse in which the words beefy and ball make various creative appearances.

Joseph O'Gorman, secretary of the Ball Committee, was surveying the folk assembled in the atrium with a practised eye. "There's a random selection of people round college here, who have their ear to the ground about these things. The usual suspects and liggers."

Mingling with the suspects and liggers was senior dean Frank Boland; Cyril Smyth, the treasurer of the Ball Committee; and Lucy O'Connell, also of the Ball Committee. Among the bands which will be appearing this year are Supergrass; Deadly Avenger; Stereolab; The Pernice Brothers; and The Frames DC. Prize for the band with the most intriguing title goes to The Scratch Perverts.

So is Joseph O'Gorman preparing for the usual gatecrashers, who traditionally use unorthodox methods to gain entrance to the premises on the night? "Oh the legend of breaking into the ball doesn't happen any more. Those days are over," he says confidently. Now they be brave words.