NWB - Community Blog

I'm not sure pop music is a bastian of free thought, I think that it's quite the opposite now - take a look at how awful the charts have been for the past few years. It's soul destroyingly poor music, totally bereft of innovation.

I think part of the problem is that the revenue model of the music industry has been so turned on its head since the arrival of the Internet, it can't keep up. Albums are insignifcant now and labels can't afford to invest in acts anymore and nuture them. Think about artists like Pink Floyd, would they get the time they were given in the late 60s/early 70s? I doubt it, nowadays EMI would've probably said "Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother are bobbins, you're sacked!"

The interesting thing about consumerism and the retail trade is that if it wasn't enjoyable, nobody would do it. I do think there is far too much consumerism in our society. When I see the Market Street in Manchester flooded each Saturday, even if it's a beautiful day and the tailback for the Trafford Centre on the M60 I do despair at times. Though I guess if you're not creative, looking at bright shiny things is probably about all you can do with yourself, apart from get drunk.

Talking of business models being fucked up:

I was talking to a singer/songwriter friend last night who'd just come off touring as support for some band. We were discussing how artists/bands get on to support (more) established acts nowadays.....her blasé reply was:

"support acts don't get paid, just a percentage of any physical sales at the shows...CD's & t-shirts....yeah most support acts now have to pay the management of the headlining band to get the slot!"

All about the money and not about the 'creativity'
Fucking wrong!!

Don't get me started on the original music gig scene in city centres, it's quite depressing. I'd be glad not to get paid to perform if it was for the chance to play a huge gig but the whole scene is sewn up and divided up by a group of individuals who don't care two shits if you're good or not, the important thing is how many fans, friends and family you can bring to their gigs. Some venues even make you buy a few hundred pounds worth of tickets up front and then moan if you don't bring x number of people. Plus in an effort to maximise their revenues promoters often give each band only half an hour's worth of set and cram in as many bands on the bill as physically possible, making the whole evening needlessly stressful and fiddly.

I view gigs acquired through promoters/parasites as a necessary evil. They have all the great venues in their pockets so sometimes you just have to grin and bear it and hope some new fans are acquired from the crowds brought by the other bands.

@ Tubthumper
I like the video, the crux of it is ‘the only chains that exist are in your minds’ and it applies to music just the same as everything else. There are examples everywhere that people like something because they’re told to like it and they obey.

@ Mike “I'm not sure pop music is a bastion of free thought, I think that it's quite the opposite now” it always has been the opposite but it’s been cleverly disguised as freedom of expression and rebellion. “I do think there is far too much consumerism” tell me about it…try getting off ASDA car park on a Sunday.

@ Sugar Bullets "support acts don't get paid, just a percentage of any physical sales at the shows...CD's & t-shirts....yeah most support acts now have to pay the management of the headlining band to get the slot!" That’s nothing new, it’s always been the case. “All about the money and not about the 'creativity' Fucking wrong!! “ Ditto…you seem surprised!

Rock and roll will never die…at least not until Iggy Pop does a car insurance commercial and Johnny Rotten sells Country Life…hang on a sec.
MN

Mick you raise some very interesting points!

In terms of consumerism, I'm almost willing to forgo the inevitable weekend carnage at the super market as that's food shopping - people need food to live - although I'm convinced they design super markets for maximum annoyance to the customers on purpose. The Trafford Centre, which is consistently rammed at weekends, sells nothing but luxuries - things we can do without. I do quite like the conscious design decision to make it a "temple of consumerism" - particularly as it looks so cheap and nasty and fake. My idea of hell is shopping without purpose and just endlessly mooching around pointless, bland shops. Maybe that's just me.

It's interesting to see whether people can be told to like something or not. I think that products and pop-culture are so tuned in to what joe-public will like it's literally a science. The thing is that although we deride the X-Factor, "shopping malls" and fast food outlets they all do brilliant jobs. They're not designed to be liked by everyone, they're designed for a particular target demographic of the UK, which happens to the largest one. If you don't like them, it's not for you. Just as if you invited a McDonalds loving, Trafford Centre-shopping X-Factor fan round for a meal and insisted on treating them to a Lebanese meal accompanied by Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, followed by a Tarkovsky filmm, they'd probably pull a right face!

The thing is that there is amazing stuff out there from food to shops to music to films, things for every niche. As these are niche things the advertising clout and money isn't there to promote them to a fraction of the extent of the popularist things so you have to work a bit harder to find them. There is great stuff out there still in every field it's just in my experience I find it is deviating further and further from the mainstream.

Great vid, but im sure we'd all like to grab one of those megaphones and spout our opinions in a town centre.
These people usually turn out to be religious bigots.Brothers and sisters, Bluegrass and Wagontown will save the world,,err no i'll not bother....T.

@ Mike
Ok the weekend carnage is food shopping I agree but for generations we didn’t have Sunday trading (although I’m not against it per se) and everyone managed. It could be argued that people have busier lives these days but if that’s the case is it to fund over-active consumerism? If so, how have we got from one state of affairs to the other? I make no excuses for the fact that I use supermarkets but I find them soul destroying places, full of screaming kids (as if they know something we’ve forgotten) and groaning shopping trolleys.
Re; ‘The Trafford Centre, which is consistently rammed at weekends, sells nothing but luxuries - things we can do without. I do quite like the conscious design decision to make it a "temple of consumerism" - particularly as it looks so cheap and nasty and fake. My idea of hell is shopping without purpose and just endlessly mooching around pointless, bland shops.’ It’s not just you, I couldn’t agree more, and it’s the same on weekdays, right up to nine in the evening (ten o clock in the run-up to ‘Consumermas’) how did we ever manage without it?
Re; It's interesting to see whether people can be told to like something or not. (they most definitely can) I think that products and pop-culture are so tuned in to what joe-public will like (I think it’s the other way ‘round) it's literally a science (absof’kinglutely). ‘they're designed for a particular target demographic’ I think they designed a target demographic.
As for the gimmick-obsessive, tear-strewn warble-fest that is X factor, don’t get me started.
I’m all for enterprise and financial success, I’m not a commie, but I think we’ve been guided down the wrong path and someone’s getting rich at our expense.
MN

When a country likes to be refered to as 'the land of the free' everyone should hear alarm bells.

@ Nic
'I prefer to hark back to the times of Radio Caroline, The Beatles on top of the Apple HQ getting shut down by the police for noise nuisance, Frankie Goes to Hollywood videos all being banned by the BBC Elvis being filmed from the waist up as he defied orders not to wiggle his hips.'...all contrived I think!.

'...the cynic in me is inclined to believe even that was a canny marketing ploy to secure an audience to generate corporate interest and secure a conventional record deal.'.. my advice is 'listen to your inner cynic'
MN

its getting a bit deep this.Tubthumper, err, about the farting in public,me and you could make sweet music...T

To be honest, Sunday trading is incredibly handy for me. It's rare that I get home from work before the shops close, apart from the 24 hour supermarket and the last thing I want to do after a day in work is mooch round there. Times have changed, we are working longer hours than a generation ago and also more importantly both partners in a relationship tend to work these days, the housewife is as obsolete as the packhorse now. Wifey can't go to the bank and the shops anymore as it'd be practically impossible to live off one income, unless you're a footballer, banker or politician.

I think in many respects the ultimate end of free market economics is essentially the same as the extreme forms of communism only we won't be getting our rations of food and goods off the state in return for our labour, we spend our money at one of the big four supermarkets or give it to the energy companies. Our society is caught in a trap where our main purpose in life is to make the rich even richer.

Interesting point re the Beatles and Elvis. How long did it take them to get the money they were entitled to having being cynically manipulated by a collection of marketing geezers and corporates. The Beatles set up Apple to "stick it to the man", how long did the mess created by appointing "the man" to run the company take to sort out. Have times really changed? Only difference I can see is the continuing growth of globalisation which offers the chance to exploit cheaper workforces - what industries does the UK have? - to make cheaper goods which can then be flogged for maximum acceptable (read different price brackets but essentially the same product to get to all social strata") mark-up in the more "wealthy" nation-markets. Helping all this along is technology - the new opiate of the people ;-)


Whoops...

@ Nic
Sorry if I'm depressing you, would you feel better if you knew that I fart on stage all the time...it's my way of giving something back to an un-appreciative crowd.
@ Mike
Sunday trading is incredibly handy for me too, 'we are working longer hours than a generation ago and also more importantly both partners in a relationship tend to work these days' I rest my case (It could be argued that people have busier lives these days but if that’s the case is it to fund over-active consumerism?)
@ Egbert
You mean...The Beatles and Elvis were cynically manipulated by a collection of marketing geezers and corporates...surely not...now I'm depressed!
MN

Mick, got an email this morning offering me cheap prozac from Russia, should I pass it on ;-)

@egbert - globalisation as it stands at the moment does seem to be soley to take advantage of the poverty of others. It is not a fair system. Goods are cheaper now because people in third world countries and the far east will gladly work for next to nothing in conditions that would've made our cotton mills look like paradise. I feel that western companies deliberately set up camp in certain nations at the same time so as to hold back the others. Eventually standards of living improve in industrialised nations, just as they did in our country after the war and a process in which China is going through nowadays. Then when the price of labour has increased to a decent level (e.g. UK labour or Japanese labour) a new country suddenly becomes the world's workhouse - it'll probably be an African nation next. The grim reality is that they could make TVs, iPods and all the gadgets we love over here but would you want to pay the premium for it? Paying everyone involved in making a TV a decent wage and in decent conditions and with concern for the environment in how you dump the nasty chemicals involved would probably put the price of a 32" TV or iPod up about threefold.

@mick - I think if you analysed the monthly expenditure even the most ardent fan of stupendous shopping trips, the biggest costs would be travel/fuel, bills and rent/mortgage. That's the depressing thing, our disposible incomes are on the wane big style. I also think the worst is still to come.

@ Mike
I know, and I sympathize, personally I won't start the car unless I have to because fuel is so outrageously overpriced. I only use the car for gigs really, not because I don't like driving...I love it, and not because I'm stingy, I'm not, but because I'm aware that every time I start the engine it I'm pandering to 'the system' and putting money in the pockets those who have already helped themselves to our pensions and will keep on squeezing 'til the pips squeak.
I'm aware of my food miles, I deliberately chose to live in a location where I'd be able to walk everywhere I needed to if push came to shove. If I gave up gigging for a living and had to get a day job (it's happened before and it could happen again) I'd have to work within walking distance of home because the car would have to go. I resent every penny I put into the corrupt system which exists and I find it all infuriating rather than depressing that the 'man' has got us all by the balls and always will have...don't let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise.
I know that other countries have it worse than us but that doesn’t mean we’re not getting fisted up the arse.
MN
PS there may be worse to come, I wouldn't be surprised after all, they've had so much out of us already, why not go for a bit more?

Hang on...... Music isn't made just for artistic concerns????

Even Mozart wrote music on commission..... ;-)

It is a depressing thought that our wonderful "system" keeps the masses poor and the vast minority in opulence. I read a fact on Facebook ( It was there so it MUST be true) that to feed the worlds starving for a year would cost roughly 200 Billion dollars..........The same amount that ALL the nations of the world spends on weapons and defence budgets in a week........... WTF and where are we going wrong?????

More to the point how on EARTH do we change it...Without getting out of our comfy armchairs of course ;-)

Best wishes

John

@John The problem is its a self-perpetuating system as millions of russians discovered - and was predicted by opponents of Marx during the original Internationals - there is always going to be a "man" as sadly the alpha-male instinct is primal not just for humanity but across the animal kingdom.

People are kept quiet by mod cons (intentional pun) which themselves encourage indifference. Whenever I see the why are pubs closing debate what springs to mind, and I admit I don't contribute but blogs like this one where there are genuine threads of engagement are few and far between, is not the price of beer or anything else its the age old opposition and fear of "authority" when considering an "organised mass". There are two simple rules: keep them apart as much as possible and give them little things to bicker about so they never get round to debating the root causes of their unrest. Sadly authority is not the politicians we see, they are simply "middle managers" in a small number of global interests. Authority is a little old fella sat in his ranch style house - I forget the name of the privately owned company that "owns" 60% of the developed worlds food production but believe me there is one, begins with C is all I can drag from memory! - who doesn't want to rule you but to milk you...

And on that note I better sign off afore we start to mix music and politics too much :-)

I don't have a problem with music 'on commission', as I said earlier "I’m all for enterprise and financial success". At the top of this blog was a video meant to make people aware that we don’t benefit from the rampant consumerism that exists in our part of the world "where are we going wrong?" as long as our countries are run by corrupt governments there's no 'right'. It doesn't matter how you cast your vote, they're all the same, don't trust any of them. "how on EARTH do we change it...Without getting out of our comfy armchairs of course?" Nothing can be done collectively, the system has inbuilt defenses, it's up to the individual to vote with their feet and separate what they want from what suits the governments…if they want to!

There is enough in the world for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. - Frank Buchman.

MN

@ Mick

Totally agree with everything you say matey. Sad but true :-(

Best wishes

John

The generation that grew up in the shadows of the world wars and the generation that followed, the baby boomers grew up in a very different world than we have today. The whole world was a mess but there was a tangible sense that it could be rebuilt and rebuilt better. Lets not forget that they had a very different outlook to us, I think if anything they were far more radical than and political than we are today - they were the ones who voted for true socialist governments and crushed Oswald Mosley's blackshirts. Would the welfare state, readily available state housing, the national health service and nationalised industries have been created today? Not a chance!

Look at what happens whenever anyone has a protest or a strike these days, there's the inevitable chorus of "they should be grateful they have a job" or "ooh, they could do with a wash". The thing is, like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen sketch, it's a race to the bottom. When solidarity is broken the only people who win are the rich.

Cameron demands we work until we're 70 but then gladly lets Arcadia Group, Vodafone and Tesco off without paying billions upon billions of pounds in tax. Now, the owner of your little greengrocer or mobile phone shop wouldn't get away with that - they'd go to prison probably, on a longer sentence than a rapist too. I've heard an argument that Tesco and the like create loads of jobs but that is a fundamentally flawed belief. Even if Tesco was forced into paying the tax they owe us and it made them go bust (very unlikely), they sell consumables that everyone needs so other companies would expand to fill their void. Also at a time when education, care homes and local councils are being forced to make huge cutbacks Dr Fox (as the news is so fond of calling him) still has an open cheque-book running into the hundreds of billions for a new nuclear weapons system. The other worrying thing about the retire at 70 argument that we are living longer is an utter fabrication. By 2030, the government claim 50% of Brits will be obese - that surely means a significant number of Brits won't be getting a telegram off the Queen!

The biggest problem with the Internet is that the boundary between misinformation and information is far too heavily blurred. I think it is a very powerful tool but I also think that it'll eventually become increasinly homogenised and corporate.

I have no quarms with the commercialisation of music, pop music is a business at the end of the day. I think the problem is the disdain songwriters and labels have for their customers these days. It is so much style over substance it's untrue. Songs have been reduced to meaningless babble about parties and failed love lives without a hint of irony. Melodies are as bland as a Jackson Pollock painting done entirely in magnolia.

"Bit of politics" as Ben Elton would have said!

Think it's all been said in here already in various soundbites. I think I'm from the last generation of real parents who actually saw their kids grow up and I could honestly say I've seen a massive social change in my lifetime. I was born late sixties and most families I grew up with had a bread winner - the father, and a housewife, who looked after the house and kids. I'm not saying for one second it was utopia but I think it was a damn site better than today. We had a colour telly and a family car (we ended up a 2 car family when my dead went "off the tools" and into the office and got a company car). We didn't change them though every year for the new version - 2 incomes were not a necessity, just a luxury.
Nowadays people want everything - stick the kids in with a child minder and then we can earn some money. The fact that we have now a generation of disrespectful feral kids doesn't seem to matter, at long as you've got a giant flat screen telly etc. The other thing I can never understand either - technology is cheaper now; tellys cost a fortune (to buy, hence radio rentals etc) -yet large families still got by on one income. I'd love to hear an explanation?

;0)

@ John
Yes, sad but true

@ Mike
I think I've asked you this before but are you a journo? You write an articulate rant. I'm of the generation that followed the generation that grew up in the shadows of the world war 2 and I'm glad but I worry for the youth of today and despair for future generations.

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were
> >kids
> >in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's probably shouldn't have survived.
> >
> >Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which
> >was promptly chewed and licked.
> >
> >We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or
> >cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
> >
> >When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and
> >fluorescent
> >clackers' on our wheels.
> >
> >As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
> >Riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
> >
> >We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the
> >same.
> >
> >We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop
> >with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always
> >outside playing.
> >
> >We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one
> >actually
> >died from this.
> >
> >We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top
> >speed down
> >the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into
> >stinging
> >nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
> >
> >We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were
> >back before
> >it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
> >
> >We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99
> >channels on TV,
> >no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal
> >computers,
> >no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.
> >
> >We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really
> >hurt.
> >
> >We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were
> >no
> >lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.
> >We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we
> >learned
> >to get over it.
> >
> >We walked to friend's homes.
> >
> >We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and
> >although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes
> >out,
> >nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
> >
> >
> >We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
> >
> >Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a
> >parent
> >bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided
> >with
> >the law. Imagine that!
> >
> >This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem
> >solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of
> >innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and
> >responsibility,
> >and we learned to deal with it all.
> >
> >And you're one of them.
> >
> >Congratulations!

why did you mention dripping sandwiches - I'm salivating now!!

I'll raise you - the cream on top of milk!!!

:0)

@Mike "Songs have been reduced to meaningless babble about parties and failed love lives without a hint of irony."

Although I want to agree with you wholeheartedly I wonder if you're suffering a little from the grass *was* greener syndrome when thinking about music in particular. If you look at the history of "popular" music you'll find that aside from the odd bubble or niche period/scene "popular" songs have changed little before or since the days of greensleeves (no, not the UK reggae/dub imprint excellent though it was/is). Even the bubble/niche soon became commercialised once it was seen to be saleable - Guthrie through to Dylan, the Pistols through to Plastic Bertrand are obvious examples from very different times.

@ Nic
Did it? Have they? Did we really?
OK, the jury's out, previous generations have to take some responsibility for the current shit-storm in which we find ourselves, if only for lack of foresight.
MN

Tripe,spam fritters,one Tv,radio,phone...................................you were lucky

"eating live stuff" ?????

You mean worms?

@Mick - I'm not a journalist, I'm actually a computer programmer. I'd prefer to be a journalist though! I think your nostalgia post hits the nail on the head. I wonder if I was of the last generation of children who had proper freedom? I think it's sad how kids don't have any freedom these days, there is so much fear of abduction and worse Parents seem to chaffeur their kids everywhere these days. It's no wonder there's so many chubby kids these days. I was going to say "in my day", but that really would be a sign of getting old, so instead I'll say I rode my BMX everywhere with my mates and played out constantly when it wasn't raining - I was often demanded to go an play out rather than sit playing on my C64 with my mates! A tea without pastry or chips was as rare as a day without corn dog or a load of biscuits - the kind of thing that'd have a modern TV diet doctor on the cusp of a corinary. Modern media would dictate I should've looked like Chunk from the Goonies and had artieries like Sooty's arsehole but I was actually under weight as a kid!

@Tonythumper - I think you've made a very good point about the over-availability of music. I think it ruins part of the magic. In some respects it's good that literally everything is one internet search away but in other respets it's quite bad. I quite liked how the music shop and TOTP/The Chart Show/The Tube were the only outlets for music you had. Those shops and programmes were manned by genuine music lovers. They filled their obligation of promoting the popular stuff but also gave a window to new and interesting music too, exposing it to a new audience.

I think the mechanism has broken now. The music shop is on borrowed time as iTunes has killed it off. Niche music shops will continue to survive a lot long but then the average music fan entering their quest to discover new bands and deviate from the really popular stuff will probably find an alternative independent music shop a little daunting - they're for when you get further down the road.

In terms of the media, there's that many TV channels out there that if there was TOTP now and a new and exciting band came on that didn't appeal to fans of Chipmunk or LMFAO, they'd just switch over to MTV. Back in the day, you either had pop music (albiet a weird song that wasn't exactly Wham) or the choice of Emmerdale Farm, Channel 4 News or a boring documentary on BBC2.

Question for you all....

Do we actually have too MUCH choice these days?

TV, music, foodstuff, the works.

I say this because in the dim and distant past I remember when getting a new album was an EVENT. You had to save up for it. If you bought a dud ( Deep Purple: Last Concert In Japan leaps to mind here) it COST you.

I have a music player ( old Arcos 504) with about 80 gig on there. It is about half full with most of my CD collection. The thing is I cannot for the life of me decide what to listen to on it.....

Its the same with TV. I have Sky ( yes I know I shouldn't be lining old Rupert's pockets but there you go) and spend most of my time when I am sat in front of the square God box flicking from channel to channel in s desperate attempt to find something worth while to watch...

Some really good points raised here by all.

Best wishes

John

I definately think we have too much choice. I've not got Sky but even Freeview struggles to entertain me with it's 20-odd channels of choice. Half the time all the good stuff is on together as channels are competing against each other. I'd much rather have four channels of guaranteed good stuff than a few hours of good stuff at once on loads of channels.

The MP3 player is definately bad in some respects, the chance to skip or play on shuffle is too tempting! Think back to vinyl and tape, it was more effort to get up and move the tonearm/fast forward and not miss the next song so you had to deal with it! That being said they are bloody great when you've got a long journey on the cards. Now as an owner of a few thousand records on vinyl/cd, it's a lot harder to decide which one to listen to than when I was 15 and had about 30 tops!

The one thing I'd say about choice of food is that in supermarkets, it's that locked into loyality card purchase patterns and electronic stocking that if you don't fit into the common pattern of consumption for your town you can often be disappointed with stock shortages. The super markets near me never run out of pies but it's quite common to find the fruit and veg isle looking a little barren come Sunday.

Am I the only person who looks at the "near it's sell by date" counter and bases his meal / cooking choices on that?

As I cook in my household I often do this.

Best wishes

John

I'm late to this I know, but rather than do one of my overblown rants, can I just put out there the two things that sum up our entire money orientated nanny state for me?

'Cherished' numberplates because we would rather waste money than give it to charity.

Yoghurt drinks for your stomach (Yakult) because we are now so sterilised we need to eat some dirt.

:-(

AYP

@John Choice is one of those words that has been adapted by politicians to offer a duality of meaning to their various audiences. On the face of it it means more options as to where you source products - even a choice of products. To the corporate community it means competition allowing the strong to consume the weak, strip out the "bad bits" whilst adding to their market share. We look at the products we wish to consume (be it food, music, TV etc.) and we see a dazzling array of options, sadly tracing these up the ownership tree shows a very small minority of interests which aim to "dictate" taste and establishing "brand loyalty" as a means of driving us toward their wider portfolio. True choice would see, for example, more sustainable community or niche channels/programming (music amongst them) on sky/freeview/radio capable of surviving the dog eat dog scenario. Problem is typcially niche brings with it a higher cost of production and people often cannot afford to consume what they really want and so settle for imitation thus true choice becomes a luxury item ;-) This is not a new phenonomen, its just that the world is shrinking - or rather the global market is coalescing - and so its impact becomes more widely felt.

Using that definition I would say we have a lot of options but far too little choice!

@alyerpal - Those yoghurt drinks are utter BS! How the hell do they think the bacteria gets there in the first place? It's everywhere around us on everything we eat. How did we survive without them since life on earth evolved otherwise?!!! You're bang on about personalised number plates - they scream more money than sense to me - especially as they're often really pants like "M1 KES"!

@Egbert - it's the nature of free market economics that the big fish eat the smaller fish. For a microcosm of that in action, look at what happened with the deregulation of buses. Now three companies own our transport system. They still get the same subsidies the state run buses got but we as customers pay more. They deliberately don't compete against each other and have divided up routes and pitches between themselves. Many of the little independent companies are actually subsiduaries of the "big three". The same thing has happened with our shops too, the competition is miles off being anywhere near the "big four" in terms of market share.

@ Mike Having read this through again a coupla times I must admit I'm a little confused in that you prefix comments with @Egbert as though offering a response but then go on to re-hash the general point I made using different but very specific examples. Are you responding to my comments, enlightening me or supporting them? btw A better example to have used would be railways not buses where 3 of our national rail franchises are operated by foreign (French and German) state railway companies so that profit from consumer and subsidy arguably underwrites the undeniably cheaper services in those countries.

@egbert - I was agreeing with you and and explaining why your point is such from the political-economic reasons that the west has chosen to put blind faith into, which is free market economics. It is a fundamentally flawed idea. The privatisation of the railways was foolish from day one, totally unregulated and our infrastructure was left to rot to absolute ruin with disasterous results - hence Network Rail who maintain it are a public sector organisation. The government also pays out more in subsidies than it did to run British Rail.