Noel Gallagher blames tv and videogames for London riots

Remember Noel Gallagher? He wrote those two songs that ended up in a bunch of episodes of Troubled White Teenager Television Show. If memory serves, one was about a wall, and the other had something to do with champagne and astronomy. Anyway, Noel's feeling a little put out about the recent London riots, since his brother Liam's shop, Pretty Green, was one of the stores looted during the spree, which set him back about 270,000 pounds. So he lashed out at what he perceives as the cause of the London riots: television and videogames.

"I don't care what other people say: brutal TV and brutal video games are a reason for this pointless violence as well. The people are immune to violence; they are used to it."

Bit of an outdated argument, but sure. Why not blame South Park while you're at it? But he continued, elaborating his position on the riots a bit:

"The people who are at these riots aren't poor. These are kids with fucking mobile phones and all sorts of shit. The police and government have to take drastic measures. These idiots destroy their own communities. In six weeks, when everything is forgotten, they will look stupid and realize that the houses are still destroyed, burned down or whatever. These people aren't demanding anything, they have no goals. They just destroy their own shit. How stupid can you be?"

Well, on that point I agree with him, I suppose. The riot mentality of lashing out at your own environment has never made sense to me, although I did listen to "April 26, 1992" by Sublime quite a lot in high school, so I suppose I understand the looting aspect a little bit more than the burning and destroying of my own neighborhood.