A Thought Occurs,

Whilst reading Lord Of The Rings in the bath.

Now if you read the papers or watch the news no doubt you've heard that kids nowadays are murdering, thieving lying and decietful. Most media will tell you that the state of the children in this country is the fault of the government and these evil video games that teach children how to strip and clean a Glock 9mm before they learn not to dip their hand into their nappy and recycle their food. The non gaming general public have only the media as a source and therefore generally believe most of what they're told by it. Now if you're one of approximately 85% of these people and you've stumbled across this blog whilst looking for a lawyer to sue the kid down the street because he stole your kids scooter after playing GTA IV consider one thing. The paper you read this information in A) Has tits on page 3, B)Has a letters column that plays like a transcript from the Jeremy Kyle show C) Owns one of the many online bingo sites that are RIGHT NOW teaching your 14 year old daughter that gambling is the key to BIG money and D) ADVERTISES these games EVERYWHERE. There was a full page Ad for COD4 in this particular tabloid rag opposite a story about some poor sod who stepped on a mine in Afghanistan. Thats hardly tactful is it? Anyway lets make this relevant. There is a trend among the non gaming portions of society to have many preconceptions about people who play games more than just casually. The assumption seems to be that we're uncouth, uncultured and unread. Well let's scan my bookshelf shall we? Terry Pratchett OBE, National treasure, and a hardcore World of Warcraft fan I might add. P.G Wodehouse, master of satire. Alexandre Dumas, Dante, Dickens, Plato, Machiavelli, Marx and Engels (actually that one might not do me any favours in this argument) J.R.R Tolkien, Robert E Howard, Edgar Allen Poe and C.S Lewis. Right now look me in the eyes and call me unread. My class and I had The Hobbit read to us by our primary school teacher whilst aged six to seven. We sat and we listened enraptured by the story and how vivdly it leapt from the pages. There was not one person in that class unchanged by it and now at age 24 I can't count the amount of times I've read it and vowed that one day I'll read it to my children. Anyway good stories teach good morals, nowadays kids are stuck with books that are "politically correct" I mean, hell Ladybird Books are gone from our shcools. That's a travesty and it's because kids nowadays are forced to grow up in a stifling society without real beauty that they lose hope. After a hard day at school of not playing conkers in case they get killed by shrapnel and not playing tag or british bulldog in case they lose a limb and the school gets sued, followed by an afternoon of reading the utter drek the national curriculum thrusts upon unsuspecting children everywhere these poor kids go home and their parents use video games as a nanny. OF COURSE young children will copy games, and if they're not taught right from wrong older children will copy games and it only takes one kid to shoot up a school and blame it on Halo and all of a sudden we're back to gamers are evil, gamers are the devil, my daughter was raped by a man who practised on hookers in GTA IV! Do you see where I'm coming from, most four year olds can't read, the school teaches them because their parents won't or can't. I went to school aged 4 with the ability to read and write because back then people took responsibility. To make matters worse kids books nowadays teach children that its fine to be a whiney emotional wreck because somebody somewhere will basically do everything for you. Marriage doesn't matter anymore because mummy and daddy still love you after a divorce, ok they probably do but a child growing up without the idea that being in love matters is more than likely to have a few kids with multiple partners get twisted up in the CSA have no money to support them, neglect them and plant them in front of a second hand PS2 to kill some bad guys and the whole damn thing starts off again. I know this may not seem relevant in a video game blog but it is, because games are not the disease and they aren't the cure, but bloody hell do they make a damn fine scapegoat.