A Cranworth organised event on Friday featured a lecture from Lord Justice Laws entitled Tolerance and Intolerance generally discussing the approach to questions of freedom of speech regarding sensitive issues such as race, religion and sexuality. It is always pleasant to be reminded that at least the judicature tend to be reasonable and principled where the legislature of late seems to be — well, either careless or insane depending on how generous one feels at the time. For me it was not hugely though-provoking since I already agreed with much of what he said, but did provide some coherent arguments to defend the position. He had much to say on a public law basis which I won’t discuss in detail. Broadly, there are conflicting rights to freedom of speech and to protection, but there is no right not to be offended. The harm caused by speech should be prevented through application of other laws rather than a law restricting speech itself. The talk also took on a delightfully British tone as he explained that people now seem to regard good manners merely as icing upon the moral cake rather than part of the cake itself. How true, indeed.
Over the weekend I ended up fuelling my eBay habit once more, picking up a handful of new games in time for the holiday. They actually offer a nice overview of the console’s one year of existence, stretching back to the launch title Perfect Dark Zero. Although I was unimpressed by the demo, it has now dropped to a far more reasonable level where it might be considered a fun romp rather than the nuanced slice of entertainment perfection that its £40 price tag on release suggested. Rare did an admirable job in producing two release titles for the console (Kameo being the other, and I maintain that where PDZ was significantly overrated, Kameo was actually underrated) but it has taken a little while for it to hit its stride in games like Oblivion and GRAW. The funny thing is that this has resulted in games like Splinter Cell and Hitman receiving far lower scores than the launch crop despite being significantly better. It happens every time, of course, but you’d think we’d have learned to tone down our launch euphoria to reflect this by now…
13 March 2007 at 1:24 pm
You forgot Rare’s other admirable job… PINATAS! :d