Thursday 11 August 2011

The last few days

Ok, anyone who lives in the UK, and has been taking notice of the news lately, will surely be aware of the riots that have been going on in London of late. But now it’s no longer in London. Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham have also been affected, with scores of thugs and looters coming out to riot like it’s the 1980’s. The low-down is that a chap was shot in a drugs bust, and there was a peaceful protest by members of his family against the shooting. That kicked off, and now present-day London greatly resembles that of the 1940’s. In other words, shit has gone down, hitting the fan, and getting royally fucked in the process. What started as a spat between police and a handful of protestors has turned into an excuse for every anarchist to get together and fuck shit up like there’s no tomorrow. But when I say anarchist, I don’t mean someone defying government to support a common cause. Well, in a way I do, since every ‘oppressed’ teen has taken the shooting of a drugs-dealer as an excuse to rampage through most major cities in Britain and take whatever the damn well want. And these people have been saying repeatedly ‘The police don’t respect us’, ‘They don’t like us because we’re poor’, ‘We wnt 2 b treeted gd, u no?, (Yes, actually talking in text-speak here). Well guys, you’re doing the right thing towards getting that respect. No seriously, well done.

And what do the media blame for this? Do they blame the government spending cuts? Do they blame the lack of a decent system that encourages these people to get off the job-seekers and actually make something for themselves? Do they blame three decades of pussy-footed policing and no intention to tell these people ‘You can’t do these things, you WILL go to jail’? No. No, the media has decided that, in keeping with the tradition of using video games as a scapegoat to blame adolescent violence on, that the games industry is the villain in this. Apparently the Grand Theft Auto series is responsible for the amount of violence going on up and down our country. How the deuce can you come to that conclusion? Do they think that all the rioters were playing away on their Xboxes the previous night and all thought ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be great if this was in real life? Let’s all go out and cause a riot just like in the game, because there’s nothing else that could prompt such an outburst’.
The offending article is here:. Reading through it you can really get an idea of how the media is simply clutching at straws here. The notion that video games corrupt minds is one that has been used so many times in the past, and frankly guys, it’s getting old. Either make a valid argument, with evidence to back it up, or GTFO n00b.

Regards, The Beard.

Saturday 6 August 2011

Life Updates

Hey you guuuuuuuuuys =D

Well lots of shit has been going down lately. I got fired from my supermarket job, BUT managed to get a job in a clothes shop in the same town. It’s less hours, but I’ve been guaranteed overtime in the next few weeks. Also I managed to finish my Black Library novel submission: Three chapters, a synopsis and a chapter-by-chapter walkthrough of the entire novel. Writing it was a bitch, I won’t lie. I suffered really bad writer’s block halfway into the project, and given the nature of the novel I had to do a lot more research than on many of my other stories to date. But most importantly, it gave me an insight into the life of a fulltime writer. It was hard, frustrating, I was unmotivated, dealing with a lot of shit whilst trying to come up with the energy to write. And I loved every minute of it. No seriously, it was a realisation that this is how true writers live, how they work. And the satisfaction of seeing my work finished. Of proof-reading, making the final preparations and then clicking ‘send’. Even if I don’t succeed this time, I know what I can do, where I need to improve, and the importance of a regular supply of tea, coke and sugar at all times.

In other news I also passed my first year at Uni. I didn’t do so well with the English side, but Creative Writing went so much better. The feedback I received was honest and fair, and now I feel more prepped for next year. Now I need to find the monies for the books…shit :c.

Anyway now that that’s done I’ll finally be able to divert some attention to this place. Expect articles, rants and shizzle in due course.

Cheers, Laurence