Games get the blame...again.

Britain has been rocked in the last few days by the scenes of rioting and looting in and around the city of London. Originally sparked by the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, violence has spread through the capital like a cancer, fed by young thugs with seemingly nothing better to do than throw street furniture at the police and set fire to hard working peoples businesses. Young men and women walk the streets in broad daylight, no effort made to hide their identities as they loot Footlocker, Ladbrokes and Sainsbury's.

Unfortunately, certain parts of the media have decided once again, and in the most predictable of moves, to blame Video games for all of this. Yesterdays edition of the Evening Standard printed a story in which they were at great pains to link Video games to the riots, even quoting an unnamed police officer who laid the blame for all of these events firmly at the feet of Rockstar Games.

"These are bad people who did this. Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves."

There's no doubt in my mind that these are bad people that are doing this, and even less doubt in my mind that some of them have played GTA, but to claim that it is a major contributing factor to the riots that initially started in Tottenham is a massive stretch.

Unsurprisingly the Evening standard has since changed the content of the story so that a passage that read "Children as young as ten, inspired by video game, among the looters." is nowhere to be seen. Sensationalism from a newspaper to sell copy? probably. A complete lack of understanding as to how Video games actually affect people? Certainly.

Let's not forget that twenty odd years ago the Video Nasty controversy was in full effect, Films like Childsplay were blamed for many violent crimes much in the same way that Video games are today. Just take a second to think about this though, have any of the Saw movies been blamed for violent crimes or murders in the last decade? I don't think so.

Video games are the big bad bogeyman that parents like to blame for their children's' bad behaviour, just like VHS tapes of bad horror films were the scapegoats all those years ago. Video games can definitely give people ideas. Games can emotionally affect people in good or bad ways, Shadow of the Colossus is a great example of that, But if you want to blame GTA for little Timmy turning into a baseball bat wielding hoody, you're just plain wrong.

Little Timmy turned into that horrible little man because of his surroundings, his peers, his parents, and because he's more than a little bit screwed up in his head. If someone wants to go out and take part in the riots they'll do it no matter if they played GTA or not, they'll do it because their head is wired wrong.

We talked about shoddy games journalism on this weeks show, it seems to me that journalism in general is in a state at the moment...

If music be the food of love, i'm smitten.

A few years ago i was watching a random music channel when a song called "Everybody's gone to war" started to play. It's a song written and performed by a Jersey born singer songwriter by the name of Nerina Pallot. I was so taken by the song that i bought the album "Fires" the next day. A few days later later i bought her debut album, Dear Frustrated Superstar. These were two of my favourite albums of that or any other year, and in fact are still regularly to be heard on my iPod.

Pallot has a talent for meaningful lyrics, the previously mentioned song "Everybody's Gone To War" was for me at least the soundtrack to the Lebanese-Israeli conflict of 2006. The idea behind the song, that war really is a pointless thing and that the only sure result is the death of the people you know, really stood out to me. When i used some lyrics from the song in a forum signature a friend of mine, who has a lot of family in Lebanon and whose father is himself Lebanese remarked that it was extremely fitting at the time.

The reason I'm writing about this is that last Friday i found out that Nerina had in fact released a third album in October of last year entitled "The Graduate". I was ashamed that i didn't find this out until a good 6 months had passed. I bought it as soon as i could find a copy, listened to it constantly over the weekend that followed and finally came to this conclusion. Nerina Pallot is now easily one of my favourite artists of all time.

The album gets off to a storming start. "Everything's Illuminated" and "Real Late Starter" are anthemic pop songs with a definite rock music flavour running through them. The rock momentum continues with "The Right Side" which sets out it's intentions from the get go. Guitars are front and center on this track, but Pallot's voice is never overpowered and is the driving force behind this, and every other song for that matter. "Human" allows for a little respite from the energetic pop/rock that has come before it, it's a laid back song with strings, acoustic guitar and drum beat the only instruments of any note. Again it allows Nerina to make full use of her voice to push the story forward.

The fifth track on "The Graduate" is probably my favourite on the whole album, the main reason being it is unashamedly fun. Trumpets herald the start of the song along with a piano and plenty of... yep guitars. "I Don't Want To Go Out" is the sort of song that could put a smile on the most miserable of faces, mine included.

"Coming Home" and "It Starts" are two more laid back songs that help balance this album out, but don't let that put you off. The lyrics in "Coming Home" in particular are truly affecting when listened to closely. Another stand out song on this album is undoubtedly "When Did I Become Such A Bitch?". It's upbeat, fun, and Nerina's selected use of a posh English accent and pauses in the score really helps make it unique.

The last two songs help wind the album down. "Cigarette" is another one to employ acoustic guitars and strings to showcase Pallot's beautiful lyrical performance while "It Was Me" is a fitting closure to any body of work. It's tinged with sadness and sentimentality but feels exactly right. It's rare, at least in my music collection, that a album can be so happy go lucky one minute and then so sad the next. It's a great credit to Nerina that she is able to write and perform such varied work, and even more so that she is able to make them all fit together so well on one album.

Nerina Pallot, has, in three albums, managed to create a diverse body of work in which anyone can find something to like. Her music can make you feel like jumping up and down like a little kid, or question the events taking place in distant countries. This third album, is in my belief, her best yet. It best displays her diversity as both a writer and performer and shows that great tunes married with intelligent lyrics are a dynamite combination that she can get right.

You can listen to some of her work on YouTube by visiting the official Nerina Pallot TV channel which i will link to below. Remember, if you like what you hear please buy her albums. Hard work and talent like this needs to be rewarded.

Robinho

http://www.youtube.com/user/nerinapallottv