Maybe you'd like to read this.

I read something many years ago that iirc stated that football violence is normally started by fans of the winning team. Obviously there will be exceptions, but I've had a search and can't seem to find the article.

Then why in the past were England fans involved?

But that is the point. It has always been argued that way, but the 'evidence' (however weak or circumstantial) doesn't seem to point to that.....

Does this mean that Frogger helped children to cross the road more safely.

This was a symptom of a very odd society which was on the verge of collapse. Roman society was pretty violent and unpleasant anyway, despite all the talk about civilisation.

We are seeing more disturbing forms of brutal entertainment in the name of sport. I recall an interesting spot on QI where the question was "what does boxing gloves ,ake it easier to do?". After the usual onanistic euphemisms, it turned out the the answer was killing. Before the padded glove, boxers would fight bare fisted, and would resort to body blows because hitting the head hurt and could cause serious hand damage. The padded glove meant that it was possible to land fatal blows on the opponent's head without causing injury to the hand. The result is that there are far more fatalities in boxing now than there were in the days of bare knuckle fighting. I would now postulate that cage fighting, and more extreme forms of combat based sports, whilst not necessarily resulting in mortal injury, give the feeling that this is likely to happen, and the image given to this kind of event on TV (Sky and Bravo especially) paint a very aggressive picture. Do people watch these because they like the action, or are they doing what the Roman audiences did: watch because there is the likelihood that there will be a serious injury?

We are heading towards a gladiatorial society; I would say that even Big Brother is a similar form of entertainment - victimisation, bullying and other unpleasant traits seem to be the order of the day - we've all seen in the past what events in the house gain headlines. The battering is emotional, not physical, but it seems that people like to see it.

Art mirrors life. Yes, computer games will reflect us a society, and I agree, it's pixels not reality, but it's what those pixels portray what get so many people in a tizz. I think before we criticise computer games, we need to look at why such games are so popular, and if we don't like what we see, we need to make some fundamental changes to our way of life.

Interesting. It did remind me of a quote from G.K. Chesterton, that is slightly tangential, but interesting nonetheless. 'Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilisation, what there is particularly immortal about yours?'

I have had this feeling about "western civilisation" for a while now. We're on the downward spiral after three or four centuries on the up.

What a depressing thought for a Sunday morning!

So much TV is like that now, if it isn't the 'star' of the show (Cowell, Ramsay etc), it's getting members of the public to (unconsciously?) play up for the camera (Big Brother, Come Dine With Me, Jeremy Kyle, you fcuking name it).

IMO, it's sickening that so many otherwise intelligent people (the viewers) fail to see they're being manipulated...

Well with respect to Simon Cowell he does at least tell people that they are crap and not to give up the day job. You only have to see how the American judges just do not have the heart to tell people the truth. Gordon Ramsey is just rude and arrogant. As for modern bear baiting Jeremy Kyle is a perfect example. If he could give them sword he would.

With Cowell that's just his clever way of staging the entire show IMO (he knows full well the majority of people getting through are crap, he needs them to be), indeed, that's almost certainly how he helped sell the format elsewhere...

Well as half the population are below average intelligence and these programmes deliver to the lowest common denominator its not difficult to see why these programmes are popular and people wish to be in/on them.

Every generation has had that thought.

People seem to forget that we are not a fully evolved species, we're still infants.

We are still, inherently, a violent species so to see violence is not unexpected. Trying to look for external variables to excuse our natural behaviour is missing the point completely and does not help us on the path to evolving beyond that inherently violent nature.

Oh, you can definitely account for the majority of the numbers, but in my case it's disheartening to see a biologist, grouchy ex-cops, Christians, you name it, all fall for that sh1te

Of course half of the population are below average intelligence...