If they think this Raoul Moat thing is bad, wait until they see Sickipedia.

Hey,

Excuse me for the lateness of my blog on this subject, but this Raoul Moat thing got a wee bit out of hand didn't it? From the seeds of a "tribute" page on Facebook grew a monster; evidence being the response of David Cameron during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Question Time on Thursday and The Sun's campaign to find who started the group by Friday.

They clearly don't go online that often do they, these politician folk. Raoul Moat is not the hero of the poor, white, lower classes as George Galloway described on Question Time  this week. He is just the latest in a line of evil people who have been the latest thing to joke about. And besides, how can we take the situation seriously if Paul Gascoigne is involved?

I don't know whether to be worried or excited about the day they discover Sickipedia or TrueLad. Stuff like this Facebook page have been going about for ages - when previously you got those awful jokes from someone at work or school on your phone, you now get with ease from these sites. Actually, there is an entire database of jokes that you would never find on TV (bar Frankie Boyle or, God forbid, Jim Davidson) for you to enjoy, for want of a better word. To see a group about Moat wasn't unusual for me, it was the latest punchline.

I may be desensitised, because I was brought up with all this stuff, but this all seemed an overreaction. Stalin once said that,

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic."

Now I'm not one to agree with Stalin. But this blunt assessment can be used to explain why some people outside of Northumberland failed to take this manhunt seriously. I have only been on this planet for nineteen years, but during that time I've experienced (indirectly, I might add, or else I'd be mentally buggered ) 9/11, July 7th bombings, Haiti, Columbine, Fritzl, Derrick Bird, two continuing wars and the Middle East in general, to name but a few. Nobody is denying that what happened was horrible, but when these things become decreasingly rare, it fails to have the same impact. Imagine if you had turkey for dinner every day and not just Christmas? It wouldn't be the same. Combine this with TV shows such as Family Guy  and South Park - hardly the pinnacles of international diplomacy - and what you get is a generation which sees the events of recent days as an episode of 24 rather than something that could seriously harm them.

This I think is somewhat refreshing; in his book "The Hell of It All", Charlie Brooker notes how the vast majority of us will lead fairly dull lives, where these big disasters will not affect most of us. So the quicker we realise that we are not constantly at risk (thanks, Daily Mail et al) the better. So relax Mr Cameron, please.

DC
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