good from bad

Good often comes from bad – or so they say anyway. Sometimes, however, you have to look really carefully to spot a tiny blossom of positivity in the face of overwhelming devastation. At times like these I find it’s probably best not to mention the positive side of things for fear of attracting incredulous stares of disgust at your gross insensitivity.

For instance – and this is probably a good example of stretching things a little – Northern Ireland can boost some of the best surgeons in the world. We are especially known for our experts in the field of reconstructive surgery – they are in demand throughout the world. It’s something of which we can be justifiably proud.

The price for this success? Thirty years of punishment beatings, kneecappings, bombs, arson attacks, abductions, hijackings, executions and general acts of terrorism. Our surgeons spent so long patching people up after explosions and fires that they became pretty good at it. Something a little bit good came out of something very very bad.

So I’m hoping that something positive can come out of the violence we experienced this weekend – but I want more than just some well practised surgeons in return for the lives of the police and soldiers shot this weekend.

The class I was covering a few minutes ago don’t remember ‘the troubles.’ The last time a policeman was murdered by terrorists here they were crawling around – some of them weren’t even on solid food. They don’t know what it was like back then. But even they know that nothing can be achieved through this kind of violence.
This view is shared by the thousands of people meeting around the country for vigils right now. Politicians, church leaders, all kinds of people sharing a time of silence that will hopefully say more than a thousand speeches.

I’m hoping that somehow the way all sides of the community - unionists, nationalists, protestants, catholics, old, young, rich, poor, blonde, brunette – have united in revulsion and condemnation of these murders… well I’m hoping that it sends out the message that we have no appetite for a return to the violent old days. I’m hoping that support for the ‘real IRA’ and the ‘continuity IRA’ melts away when they see how it flies in face of public opinion.

Wouldn’t it be a beautiful irony if these attacks actually strengthened the peace process they were designed to disrupt? Wouldn’t it be glorious if sectarian violence led to us stamping bigotry out of this troubled little country? If that happened then it would be one positive from a negative of which we could be truly proud.

games affect concentration and... where was I again?

Where was I? Oh yeah; I’ve been thinking a lot about attention span recently. I’m convinced that kids today have a shorter attention span than we did when we were at school. I put it down to TV and Video games but that’s only because I tend to state the obvious (sometimes twice)

A couple of weeks ago the Simon Mayo radio show was brought from some big computer game expo thing. I didn’t catch all of it as I was supposed to be doing work or something. I do, however, remember listening to various people discussing the relative merits or otherwise of modern computer games. They looked at educational value, hand eye coordination – they even made some comment about how they were preparing young people for what was becoming an increasingly fast paced world.

I’ve played the Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto series, I’ve enjoyed them, great for letting off steam – however I really don’t want to be in the kind of world they’re preparing me for.

Another piece of recently published research linked computer games and TV to childhood obesity. They weren’t stating the obvious ‘if kids stopped starring at a screen long enough for them to get off their fat butts and go for a walk they might not be so fat.’ No they were making things just a little more confusing. They suggest that watching TV and playing games before going to bed affects sleep patterns which consequently affects eating patterns which consequently makes kids fat.

Personally I would add to that hypothesis slightly. I believe that watching TV and playing games before going to bed affects sleep patterns which consequently affects eating patterns which consequently affects concentration levels which consequently draws kids to the no-concentration-required world of TV and games which consequently affects sleep patterns… I, of course, have a solution – the Jamie Oliver computer game. No, don’t thank me now, I do it for the good of the kids.

One thing I didn’t pick up on during what little of the radio show I heard was the old nugget about how computer games can affect our behaviour. How some child plays Grand Theft Auto and then has an unquenchable thirst for violence – an urge to go out into the street and beat up a prostitute. Sometimes I think that the media over-hype this kind of story. I really do believe that behaviour can be affected by the games kids play – but when serial killings and group beatings are blamed on some gameboy title it all becomes a little ridiculous. I’ve seen kids in the playground practising some move they saw on playstation the night before. Luckily it was from Pro Evolution Soccer, not Manhunt. And at the end of the day that’s how it will happen – kids behaviour will only be affected by games in the same way it will be affected by TV, movies and even books. I’m a little worried about how all those Harry Potter fans will turn out.

I leave you with some words of wisdom passed on to me by a wonderful Canadian/Swiss/Croatian artist. “They say children are affected by the games they play – if that was true those of us who grew up in the eighties would all be moving manically round, listening to electronic music and swallowing pills … ... oh”