Mark Pollock Lecture

Mark Pollock is an adventure athlete and motivational speaker. Mark is also blind and paralysed from the waist down.

Mark is Northern Irish, was on the National Rowing team and went to Trinity. When he was in his final year at Trinity, aged 22, Mark began losing his sight because of detached retinas, in the space of two weeks he had completely lost his sight. However Mark did not let this slow him down and he threw himself back into sports; he raced across Antartica, did 7 marathons in 7 days and fought his way back onto the National Rowing team. During this time Mark had also become an increasingly popular motivational speaker.

However in 2010, Mark fell from a 3 story building, resulted in paralysis from the waist down. Mark is now trying to walk again through both the use of physiotherapy and robotic legs. Mark's lecture focused on being different, being ambitious and being brave.

In order to support Mark's therapy and various other associated charities, a charity run will be held in several locations on November 14th, 2012. See www.runinthedark.org for details.

www.markpollock.com

'Witness' Review

'Witness' is a film directed by Peter Weir, it was released in 1985 and was well recieved. The film is about an Amish boy who witnesses a corrupt police officer commiting a murder, he is the sole witness. The investigating officer, John Book (Harrison Ford) then uncovers a ring of corrupt officers and attempts to bring them to justice but unknowingly, his boss is the ringleader. Book fears for his life and that of the Amish boy, Samuel so they are forced to go into hiding in their Amish community in Philadelphia. We also discover that Rachel Lapp, Samuel's mother, recently lost her husband and Samuel's father. Throughout the film, a relationship develops between Rachel and John, but once the corrupt officers have been caught, John must return to his own life and so must Rachel. I felt that the story was very well written and thought-out on the most part, however I felt that the ending was disappointing as the relationship between Rachel and John is such a key component of the storyline.

I felt that Harrison Ford's portrayal of John Book was very good and I felt as if he really immersed himself in the character. Also I thought that Lukas Haas performed very well as Samuel Lapp in what was his first major motion picture.

The film really highlights the huge difference between our lifestyle and that of the Amish community's and their life probably hasn't changed since this film was released, whereas our lives have changed dramatically because of advances in science and technology.

I think that this film would be enjoyed by a wide range of people ranging from teenagers to old people.