Mad Dogs and Englishmen

I think the reason so many people (especially in other countries and including me) keep lookign for some explanation for these riots instead of it being just people out for grabs, is because we don't like to thinks that something so destructive could happen with no driving reason beyond simple greed. It could happen anywhere, at any time, for any reason. Saying that it's a protest or insurrection of any kind is false, it's just people out to grab stuff.

There are a lot of underlying reasons, the materialist culture is the main one; we've been taught that our worth depends directly on how much money you have or what cool stuff you own, rather than what you actually do, so yeah, it's not surprising that a lot of people (especially impressionable kids) decided to cut out the middle man and just take.

The other cause I think is poverty. This is the only way those kids are going to get flatscreen tvs, and while that's no excuse, when you combine that with materialism they feel like they've been cheated of something. You walk past all these billboard, all these tv ads, all showing things that you will never have, and telling you that your self-worth depends on having it... Schools in these deprived areas tend to be pretty bad, and even if they were great, these kids could never afford to go to university what with the new fees, and in a market so saturated with degree holders you need one to get a job above minimum wage.

So yeah, not surprising, and still inexcusable since all they're doing is making the situation worse.

I was tiding my room the other day, and came across an old diary I had kept when I was 17-18. I had a read through it and thought:
1 - Heh, I'm trying really too hard to be cool  and awesome and unusual. I've mellowed a lot.
2 - I love myself for writing down the insanely bizarre dreams I had. Look at this gold:

"I had the weirdest dreams last night. In one mum, and bunch of people and I were hiking in a rainforest, I suddenly remembered I had no water with me and was wearing trainers. I went back to the scouting hut and met loads of old people and a white goblin that brought bad luck.
When I got back on the hike we went into a sodden and rotting field like those in Wales, I saw seven thin cows and one fat one  - lean times ahead.
We got out of the field and into a London house my brother appeared outside and changed first into a giant worm like the one in 'Flight of Dragons'. I went running inside to find weapons, I found matches and needles, then my mum appeared and opened a trapdoor in the cieling above our front door and took down a flamethrower and a chainsaw.She took the flamethrower and I took the saw. When we got out Axel (my brother) had turned into a troll. We killed him but then mum started to turn into a troll and I had to load game (?). The second time I tried I did it myself with the flamethrower. I killed Axel and woke up, the chainsaw noise had been the council trimming the trees."

I need to start keeping a dream diary, this is comedy gold.
3 - I will never, ever, ever forgive my school for having us study Gladstone and Disraeli for final year history, when every other school was doing German history 1933-45. Never. Ever. At all. I can't even let myself think of it for too long or I'd kill something. It would have been the one glowing light in a sea of very dark places, would have introduced me to my favourite subject 3 years early and would have meant I didn't fail history so spectacularly.
4- Wow, my life sucked. I mean sucked. Not simply emo 'I hate my life I'm gonna cut myself', but when I thought at the time I was okay and then I look at it now, read between the lines and realise how utterly miserable I was. Wow. It's just... Fuck man, no wonder it took less than a day with my aunt before having a nervous breakdown -- and that was five years later, when things had sort of improved. Jesus fuck. if I met teenage me again I'd grab her and fucking run until we were as far from that place as physically possible. It's hard to describe, but it was fucking poison.
I have a blow-by-blow account of the night my mum tried to off herself, and the next day when the police came around. Quite chilling, and some of the best writing in the book. It's heartbreaking where I mention that i can't understand why anyone would want to do commit suicide, as I love life.
Love life.
Me, with such a fucking shitting existance I still have trouble believing it. Loved life. Couldn't imagine anyone trying to kill themselves.
I need a hug.
What a poisonous shithole that was.