The sound of music

It is sad to see the demise of HMV. There was a time when most high streets had a selection of stores that sold music in its various forms; and then along came HMV and the others fell by the wayside. The chain is likely to close a number of its outlets in the not too distant future and this means that some towns will no longer have over the counter music available.

The music industry has been in trouble for a while and the blame has been laid on illegal downloads. Why would anyone buy what you can get for free? Companies have tried various measures to combat this type of piracy and because the practice is so widespread, none of their curbing efforts have been effective.

People blame the demise of the record shop on Internet shopping, and of course it is easier and cheaper to buy music that way. I know that I always buy music and movies from Amazon or Play.com from the comfort of my office, not that I would describe myself as significant in the cash flow crisis that is dragging HMV down.

I have always liked music. It is an important part of my life albeit as a receiver. In the old days when I was alive, the music industry was flourishing; singles cost around 35p and each week a vast and varied range of new singles hit the shelves. Top of the pops was highlight of everyone's week and the charts were based on actual sales. Albums would cost One pound 50 and the covers were works of art worthy of hanging on the wall.

I saw the Beatles on stage, it cost 25p for the ticket and later, at college we hired Status Quo, already a known band, for forty pounds - Yes forty pounds for the band, and for that they played all night. I paid 20p to see Cream and the same to see many other bands; even then it wasn't a lot of money. Bands would play small venues and none complained that they were not making a living. Most of them did that for years, learning their trade and selling the occasional record, and yes there were the odd one hit wonders with little or no talent but to stay in the game you had to be a musician. Bands would often pay for the love of it and of course there were many even then that thought they should always do so. The Isle of Wight festival in 1970 saw 600,000 people arrive, many of whom had no tickets and baulked at paying three pounds for the three days. There were riots and the clash between business and ordinary people marked the beginning of the slippery slope.

Then of course big business took over and the stadium concerts began, and with a hike in size came a hike in costs and the spiral of profits soared. I paid 60 pounds to see Genesis along with thousands of others at Twickenham. All of that band are already wealthy - what is that all about?

There is musical talent around today but there is little that shouts out to be purchased. Much of what is on offer these days comes from synthetic kiddie bands whose talents are minimal but sufficient to slake the uneducated thirsts of todays kids. The rise of Hip Hop and Rap provides an anti-music that is fashionable among the politically correct and is anathema to those who like melody or lyrics that are comprehensible.

HMV's biggest problem is not the pirates or the internet, it is a shortage of anything worth selling that has brought them to their knees.

A fresh start?

I don't make new year resolutions as a rule. They are far too easy to forget and rarely do I maintain the enthusiasm for new things.
I am sure though that the number of people in their lycra shorts and new trainers, that I see jellying their way around the morning streets, have decided that this will be the year that they leave the couch and burn off some of the adipose tissue that has accumulated during the previous years. I am sure that the lycra will not wear out and that the spanking new Nikes will get little use after the first few days.
I went for a walk on January the first and my faith in my fellow man took yet another dive as I ploughed my way through streets littered with vomit, beer cans, broken bottles and rejected food containers.The way of life of so many of us has become ugly and utterly self absorbed. LIttle thought is given to others, and the notion of being nice or polite to fellow citizens seems to be a trait that is very rapidly vanishing. We have become obsessed by the present, by the here and now, and by the accumulation of material things that at the end of the day have little or no worth. We all die and no-one counts the black plastic bags that those goods end up in.
Having said all this, I realise that by withdrawing from society is not an answer. By doing so I am abdicating any responsibility for what goes on the world, and that in itself is irresponsible and self destructive. So this year I am determined to reverse my implosive tendencies and try to spend more time with more people - No doubt it will last no longer than the lycra shorts.

The end of a decade

The last day of 2010 and millions of people around the world will be anticipating a night of celebration. For many that will mean dressing up and setting out to get as drunk as they possibly can, ensuring that the start to the new year will be as painful and unpleasant as the last one and the one before that.
David Cameron assures us that 2011 will be a tough year, but that his machinations will see the country slowly recover and get back onto its feet. There speaks one who has never known what it is like to be poor, jobless and helpless. For many of those who voted for him, 2010 has been a year of misery, and the next year promises more of the same. When the energy bills come in after this cold winter, even more will find their wages insufficient to pay the bills.
For me 2010 has been a good year, largely due to the birth of Oscar, and an ability to play a small role in his life. His arrival has changed so many things and has given me a completely new focus. I had no preconceptions about grandparenthood and was rather unprepared for the bonding that took place from the first time that I met him. He has given me a new lease of life, and I view his growing up and development with an enthusiasm that feels rather wonderful. He just had his first christmas, and although he was pretty oblivious to the whole thing, he added a magical ingredient to my least favourite time of year.
I hope that your year has been a good one and that despite the mismanagement of our countries by self seeking politicians, that you can find happiness and optimism in the New Year.

Season's salutations to my reader

Dilemma

For once I feel sorry for our home secretary. She has been placed in a very difficult position regarding the proposed visit of Pastor Jones to to the English Defence League. She can ban him from entry to the country and face accusations of prevention of free speech or allow him in and risk him inciting racist behaviour. Her dilemma does raise some important issues, and I am sure that many people have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Pastor Jones is a loony and he wants to address a bunch of right wing loonies. I can see no reason for preventing that. No-one has to listen and clearly he can be arrested if his words are seen to be inflammatory. What concerns me is that had he been planning an attack on say Atheism or Buddhism, there would be no fuss and even less publicity.
We bend over backwards in order to appease one particular religious group and it seems that we do so because of fear. We are afraid of the consequences of confronting them and their failure to integrate into our society. Fear is dangerous and the situation will not go away, despite successive government's head in the sand approach.

It has begun

It is the season for Nativity plays, when that sickly sweet middle eastern fable gets re-enacted by children and others old enough to know better, all over the world.
Proud parent will watch their toddlers tread the boards - many for the first and only time in their lives, wandering around dressed as peasants or angels or whatever, not remembering what to do or where to go and everyone loves it. Especially the church! How better to get punters in than to engage the children in a bit of a panto and then to make the parents feel guilty for not going to church more often.
Then there is the silly Santa Claus nonsense! Surely even the most intellectually damaged child can see that the high street is full of strange men in red suits wanting them to sit on their laps? How many Santas can there be? And how can he get around everyone in one night?
We tell the children so many lies and when they grow up they find it hard to distinguish truth from reality and that is how the Liberal Democrats got into government.

Not my fault

My blog seems to be attracting some unwelcome attention. Someone ore something, probably a bot, its sending in all sorts of comments that are fundamentally advertisements for various companies and I do not welcome these. Comments yes but random rubbish no! That is my role, and i will not have someone else doing it here.

The internet is a wonderful Earth shrinking phenomenon, but like everything that becomes accessible to all, it has become bloated and corrupt and will no doubt be our undoing in the end. We have a generation of kids who are becoming addicted to games online, we have Wikileaks attempting to destabilise the world through its anarchic approach to secrecy, we have porn virtually everywhere, scam after scam via email, and then of course there is Nigeria.

No-one seems to read anymore, there isn't the time as we spend it glued to google or facebook or whatever quick fix seems to do the trick. We are all becoming absorbed into this beast which seems to have a life of its own, and now it is growing horns and teeth. Sooner or later it will consume us all.

This is the way

I love movies, well some movies anyhow. The other day I watched The Bucket List again. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play the roles of men, my age or thereabouts, dying of cancer. The idea of a bucket list is that they have a list of things to do before they die, and luckily Jack Nicholson has enough money to make most of their wishes happen.
I was lying in bed this morning, contemplating getting up, when I drifted into the half sleep state and was thinking that perhaps I too should have a bucket list. At my age, nothing can be taken for granted and more and more parts are wearing out. To my alarm, and this was a few hours ago and nothing has altered, my list has nothing on it. Obviously I would like to see my Grandson grow up, but other than that all ambition seems to have gone. Most places that I want to see i have seen, and most things that I want to do i have done; those that I haven't done I am no longer capable of doing or were never possible in the first place. What does this mean? Is my life done and dusted already? Am I just wasting space? Or do i have something still to offer? This has been a sobering morning and i feel pretty detached from everything and everybody. Maybe this is the way the world ends - "Not with a bang but a whimper!"

The Big O

The art of con

I was reading an article the other day that described the varieties of tea that are available. For me, tea comes in handy bags, and as long as it is hot and strong, I am not particularly bothered about its history. I know that I should be more selective and should probably seek out tea with a fair trade label, but I don't. We can all be apathetic and cannot possibly care about everything.
What prompted me to comment was reference to a particularly expensive tea that is sold to those who have more money than neurons. I think it is called White Virgin, though I may be wrong, and costs a huge amount of cash. What is special about this tea? one might ask. Allegedly the difference between this tea and others is that it is not touched by human hand, and is harvested by women wearing gloves who cut the leaves with silver scissors! I confess that when I read this I laughed. So ......... what! How does this improve the purity or flavour of the tea?
I was reminded of growing up in a market gardening area in the days when every fruit and vegetable was harvested by hand. Brussels Sprouts were always picked after the first frosts, often is bitterly cold conditions. You can't wear gloves to pick sprouts and hands get very cold. Quite often pickers would pee on their hands to warm them up - a sensible solution to the problem.
We live in a society that seems obsessed by labels; so much so that there is a huge illegal industry out there forging labels so that people can buy them more cheaply, and now everyone can sport the Gucci, Armani, Burberry and all the rest of the must have labels. Now of course, it is hard to tell the fakes from the real and so who cares. It would seem that some people will spend all they have just to be a little different from the crowd, and yet by so doing they are just joining a different crowd.
I still love Brussels sprouts but always make sure that they are well washed and peeled before cooking.

Happy Chappie

Poverty

I am not poor, but neither am I wealthy and never expected to be. Of course poverty is a relative term and as such it is likely that a significant proportion of our UK population will soon be slipping into that category. The cuts that the Condems intend to impose will result in mass unemployment with no jobs being created to absorb the waves that are certain to come. Unless those who are about to join the unemployed have made provision for that day they will be in serious trouble.

As a child I never thought of myself as being poor, but compared to most people today, we were very poor indeed and had no access to the so called essentials that people expect today. In those days, if you couldn't afford it, you just didn't have it, and we had no choice but to live within our means. We lived in a small council house with no double glazing or even roof insulation. When it snowed, as it often did, the snow was often blown through the roof tiles and into the loft where it had to be shovelled out before it melted. We had no heating, other than a single coal fire in the living room, and no hot water, other than that boiled in a kettle or in an old copper boiler. Our WC was outside across the yard and the bathroom was supplied with a cold tap only. We had no TV, no car, no computers or video games and few changes of clothing. Food was scarce and so we ate what we were given by and large; and if kids wanted money they worked for it. Everyone that I knew was more or less in the same boat though and so the way we lived seemed quite normal and we were not particularly unhappy, nor did we feel deprived.

From that position of course the only way to go was upwards, and life did steadily improve as the years went by. The standardof living that I enjoy now has been a long time coming and it would be hard to go back downhill again. For many that will soon become a reality, though i doubt that many will go back to the state that we lived in in the 50s. I hope not.

Throwaway

Toxic waste is never far from the news, and in an ever expanding technological era, the disposal of it continues to be a problem.

Landfill sites are becoming harder to find, waste treatment facilities are few and far between, while the stockpiles of poisons get ever larger. Some companies are shipping the stuff abroad, paying others to take on the problem of disposal, and vast heaps of our garbage is inflicting harm on the poor of those nations, whilst those in charge reap the benefits.

The Chinese have the right idea. They export theirs by the container ship load, and we, like many other western countries, pay them for it. It is November so pretty soon the shops will be full of it, all ready for that unmentionable one day in midwinter.

I think that he likes my cooking.

a money saving idea

I have come to the conclusion that the world does not need health and safety inspectors. Just let loose a toddler in any situation and they will gravitate uncannily to whatever is not safe for them. This is instinctive and there is no training required. Admittedly they will need supervision but even so the saving worldwide could be enormous.

Wittering on

As I write, my grandson and his mum are on their way here. Emma needs a holiday and I am looking forward to spending some time with them both. The house has been cleaned and tidied and as much as possible has been made baby safe. As he is crawling now, that is not entirely possible and no doubt he will zoom in on and identify the items that I have forgotten about. Kids have an uncanny knack of finding the things that they are not supposed to touch and he is no different to anyone else.
So for the next week I will find my time taken up by a very demanding but very loveable little chap, and if past experience is anything to go by, I'll be pretty exhausted at the end of it.

I am aware that I have written little in this blog for a while. I guess that on some level i need an audience and often i feel that I am writing to myself and that gets a little dull. Then of course I have had little to write about. Retirement is not always wonderful, and I can go days without talking to anyone. My forays into the outside world are becoming fewer and further between and my tolerance of people in general seems to be wearing very thin. It is almost as if I am unconsciously withdrawing into my own tiny space little by little and I may eventually fear the prospect of leaving it. Rather like a dying star there may come a time when I implode.

An ex colleague imploded this week. He had been ill for a while and so his demise wasn't surprising. All sorts of people have written tributes on the usual social networks, and none of them seem to have any connection to the man that i knew and detested.
Perhaps it is a good thing that people look back at the positives and forget the hard truth when people's lives come to an end. To speak now of what I, as well as most of his colleagues knew about him would not be appropriate, though I will not join those who wish to see him in such a rosy light. I do feel sorry for his family and close friends, but I will not miss him.

Before long, no doubt, Margaret Thatcher will go the same way and the media will already be preparing for the event. Obituaries will already be primed and ready for release and as is always the case, she will be seen in a glowing light and people will mourn her passing with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I may be in a small minority that will not rue her demise and will probably celebrate the event.

I have no doubt that my own end will be a cause for celebration for some and i hope that they will have the courage of their convictions and do so in style.

The way it is.

There is a rumour going around that the word "Gullibility" is to be removed from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Human beings are programmed to trust other human beings and as a result the vast majority of us are easily misled or conned. Most cons are pretty harmless. The stuff that is reported in the newspapers must have some relation to facts but the pressure to sell forces the publishers to massage and manipulate in order to make stories more interesting or attention grabbing. I pity any scientist who's findings get seized by the tabloid press, only to be sensationalised and misrepresented in order to scare or to raise the hopes of the public.
Commercials, especially those for female maintenance products are truly awful. Outrageous claims backed by pseudoscience, are swallowed whole by desperate women trying hard to stay youthful, whilst others truly believe that a caffeinated soft drink can make you fly.
We laugh at the old westerns where, dubious characters made a living by selling snake oil or the elixir of life and yes these people still exist. Now they sell far more exotic products, at much higher prices to a population that, though supposedly more educated, remain as stupid as ever.
Politicians sell policies that are worth less than the glossy paper that they were presented on, and thrive on the ignorance that they preside over. Religious leaders, (Ok I couldn't resist it.) propagate their own mythologies and lies, and find no shortage of takers. Parents present their kids with Santa Claus and the tooth fairy...... and so it goes on. Lies upon lies are the natural order of the day and people wonder why it is that as we get older we tend to become cynical.
It is worth remembering that the system in which we live is dependent on the fact that many of the people can be fooled ALL of the time.

It ain't fair

There is so much babble in the press about fairness, level playing fields, equality of opportunity and so on. The forthcoming cuts are said to be fair and from the point of view of those about to wield the knives, they will seem to be. Those in charge tend to come from privileged backgrounds where they already have the advantages of wealth, intelligence and social placing. For them it is almost impossible to imagine being without those things, however in touch they might claim to be.
Life is not fair. It is nasty brutish and short and for some it is nastier more brutish and shorter than it is for others. People who crave fairness are disillusioned. The only true fairness lies within the legal system, which, on paper anyway, puts no-one above the law and our courts do make an effort to put that into practice. However, within any system there is corruption, and the wealthy, or well placed may find ways to bend any system in their favour.
We are the products of our genes, and they provide a biological lottery, with unpredictable outcomes. We have to play with what we are dealt and make the most of what we have.
Children need to be made aware that fairness is a rarity and that the best they can hope for is a bit of luck or a tremendous amount of skill in playing the game.

Teeth

Beginning the food adventure