I can't see any allusion anywhere to a credo which says that new necessarily equals better either. Nor would I ever suggest replacing something old with something new for its own sake - let new and old exist side by side and take your pick. What I never want to do is to refuse to listen to the new on principle - simply because, if I do so, I may actually be losing out on something worthwhile.

Just take a look at 1954, the year in which, not only was the 1954 definition of folk music published, but also the year in which:

* The first public demonstration of a machine translation system was held in New York at the head office of IBM.

* The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States.

* President Dwight Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.

* CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy," produced by Edward R. Murrow.

* Bill Haley and His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock"

* Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.

* World's first nuclear power station opens in Obninsk, near Moscow.

* In Memphis, Tennessee, WHBQ becomes the first radio station to air an Elvis Presley record.

* The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of The Lord of the Rings, is published in the UK.

* The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear reactor powered vessel.

* The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.

* Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio.

* The first human organ transplant, of a kidney, was performed by Doctors Murray and Harrison at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston.

Quite a year! It's interesting to see the simultaneous emergence of the transistor radio, Presley and Bill Haley - signs of things to come. When Elvis and Haley exploded on to the UK scene in early '56, the soundwaves from that reverberated around the nation's youth. The beginnings of conflict in the Far East, the kidney transplant and the rise of nuclear power are also signifiers of things to come. Whether any or all of these new things is good or bad is in the mind of the beholder.