Art Thieme laments that technology changes can leave us "needing to re-buy our music collections yet another time". The vinyl still works pretty well for me, and I've got a lot more of it than CDs. And the audio-cassettes still OK. I grant you when I had to replace my music system ealier this year I had to hunt around a bit to find a turntable, but not that long.

Just because something new comes along we don't have to ditch the good stuff we've already got. That's what folk music is all about when you get down to it.

It's a waste of time lamenting the system that's built round money worship. It'll die when the time is ripe, and I don't think that'll be all that long. The thing to do is turn your mind to doing what you like doing and what needs doing, and not getting sucked into a system in terminal decline.

There's probably more good music being played and good songs being written and sung today than there have been for a long time.The mass media ignores it, the spotlight of publicity shines on other stuff. There's a frenzied search for novelty, and a race to be the first to discard it and move onto the next new thing.

But all that doesn't really matter. The interesting stuff is still there all the time. And the people who make it are finding a way to scrabble around and survive.

I don't want to make a killing,
I just want to make a living.
I want enough to live on
and to earn my pay.