Moths and music
Something is eating our rose bushes... And this morning Connie discovered what. Caterpillars. They are munching away at the leaves. Now, some caterpillars are pests, and some are protected! If this was a pest variety I'd pull out the insecticide.
Turns out, we think it's the caterpillar of the Shoulder Stripe Moth (Anticlea badiata).
This is actually a rather pretty moth, so we figured we'd let them live. After all, the roses will survive with the loss of a few leaves.
On TV this morning there was an advert for a compilation CD of fairly recent music, including a whole slew of tracks that I have been seriously wondering how to get hold of without paying i-Tunes over-inflated prices for down-loading but still get them legally. Connie and I watched this commercial, looked at each other and read each others' minds.
So, this afternoon, while out shopping, we stopped in the music section of the supermarket and looked. Sure enough, there it was, and for £8.99 - the RRP was 9.95!
Now, so far as I can tell, i-Tunes sells tracks for 79p each. That's not too bad considering that a chart single (in the bad old days of vinyl discs) used to cost £1.75, and a chart album with 8 tracks can cost anything upwards of £15.00.
However, I just bought a double CD album with 41 tracks for £8.99. That's under 20p per track!
Now, I ask you, HOW THE FUCK does the music industry justify charging £15 for a chart CD when I can buy the same music - some times only a few months later in the case of one of the tracks, for almost one tenth of the price?
And then they have the absolute GAUL to complain about piracy.
Seriously, the music piracy issue is of the industry's own making. If they didn't charge such ridiculously over-inflated prices for their music, people wouldn't have started pirating it in the first place! (Well, some people would, but it would not now be the problem it is). And yes, it grieves me to think of all those poor rock stars who are loosing money because people are downloading their music illegally... It must be so heart breaking for them to have to sell that second private jet, or not buy their third Ferrari...
Turns out, we think it's the caterpillar of the Shoulder Stripe Moth (Anticlea badiata).
This is actually a rather pretty moth, so we figured we'd let them live. After all, the roses will survive with the loss of a few leaves.
On TV this morning there was an advert for a compilation CD of fairly recent music, including a whole slew of tracks that I have been seriously wondering how to get hold of without paying i-Tunes over-inflated prices for down-loading but still get them legally. Connie and I watched this commercial, looked at each other and read each others' minds.
So, this afternoon, while out shopping, we stopped in the music section of the supermarket and looked. Sure enough, there it was, and for £8.99 - the RRP was 9.95!
Now, so far as I can tell, i-Tunes sells tracks for 79p each. That's not too bad considering that a chart single (in the bad old days of vinyl discs) used to cost £1.75, and a chart album with 8 tracks can cost anything upwards of £15.00.
However, I just bought a double CD album with 41 tracks for £8.99. That's under 20p per track!
Now, I ask you, HOW THE FUCK does the music industry justify charging £15 for a chart CD when I can buy the same music - some times only a few months later in the case of one of the tracks, for almost one tenth of the price?
And then they have the absolute GAUL to complain about piracy.
Seriously, the music piracy issue is of the industry's own making. If they didn't charge such ridiculously over-inflated prices for their music, people wouldn't have started pirating it in the first place! (Well, some people would, but it would not now be the problem it is). And yes, it grieves me to think of all those poor rock stars who are loosing money because people are downloading their music illegally... It must be so heart breaking for them to have to sell that second private jet, or not buy their third Ferrari...