tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46685170788990008222012-01-31T17:39:33.750ZPhilosophy • Relationships • Commentary • Personal • MusicCLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comBlogger3291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-60998044334861547592012-01-15T15:02:00.000Z2012-01-30T21:49:44.069Z

Nationalism is a fantasy. Like religion it can mean whatever you want it to mean and doesn’t have to be encumbered by too much reality. Nationalism is put forward either by political types who are deluded enough to actually believe its promises or by those who use it for purposes of manipulation. As with religious doctrine, it is driven by human impulses both naive and sinister.I dislike the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-57711214724902580342012-01-15T09:39:00.018Z2012-01-24T13:25:50.444Z

Where quoting from Judith Stacey’s book was helpful with aspects of relationship life, a business equivalent would be the essays of Paul Graham. Graham is a software guy whose technology paved the way for making internet purchasing possible. He sold to Yahoo! and now funds start-ups. He also writes insightful pieces on the creative and business trials facing people who are establishing new

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-84234335607207941972011-10-27T09:52:00.003+01:002012-01-15T17:38:09.249Z

I’ve spent much of my adult life going against conformity. Trying to stay clear of the conventions around exclusive relationships has been especially stressful and a constant fight. Thus far I have won battles but they have been costly and perhaps I have ultimately lost the war. I’ve increasingly had to forsake valued things like intimacy, romance and the kind of connection and companionship that

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-23972932748466128322011-09-28T14:04:00.007+01:002012-01-19T07:20:54.461Z

This week Amanda Knox faces the final stage of her appeal against a murder conviction in an Italian court. Having spent four years mired in the machinations of law enforcement it looks now like she and her co-accused, Raffaele Sollecito, are only days away from being released from the long nightmare of a wrongful verdict. It looks that way but it is not foregone. The prosecution is going all out

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-52123895272392943132011-09-13T11:12:00.018+01:002012-01-12T17:42:51.868Z

Yesterday’s post about Protools not being so easy to master leads me to another question: does the apocryphal ease of studio apps suggest a more widespread prejudice against music production generally? It seems something has happened down the years for producer types to have lost credibility. They seem to have been sucked into the trashed reputation of the corporate record business and become

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-9001124449111633112011-09-12T11:35:00.006+01:002012-01-03T22:29:20.178Z

It’s annoying to hear commentators talk about music production software as if using it was a doddle. Like my remarks about Auto-tune recently such comments belie ignorance. It took me forever to command ProTools. It was a while before I didn’t have to stop every five minutes to ask why the damn thing wasn’t complying. Constantly the flow was broken. Many hours were lost sometimes just trying to

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-87725012946238961622011-08-25T15:54:00.002+01:002011-12-21T20:53:31.067Z

Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple yesterday and is everywhere being discussed like he’s dead already. I suppose the obituary style commentary is fair enough given that his standing down is a death of sorts. It’s the death of an iconic man’s career, the career of a rare individual admired by millions. We owe a lot to Jobs. There are few of us who haven’t used his products and been delighted

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-26889506692619084092011-08-21T16:09:00.000+01:002011-12-21T16:13:58.848Z

I wish they would stop saying that using Auto-tune somehow slights your artistry. The idea is uninformed and only shows the ignorance of those who propound it. There are even some who will choose not to like a singer’s work any longer should they learn the despicable tuning software was used on a recording.I hate to bust their bunny-rabbit world but studio people have been fixing the intonation

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-48126485538512576772011-08-01T09:25:00.000+01:002011-12-21T16:27:32.493Z

It’s not the thing to vilify someone just after they’ve passed. But against that grain I’m going to be critical here of Amy Winehouse who died last week. It’s not her music I’m condemning but her demeanour which I think undermined her credibility. She was diminished as an artist in my view because she didn’t hack it. She didn’t have the grit to face down her addictions and really push through

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-70136363712817468522011-07-30T14:56:00.005+01:002012-01-13T12:18:05.805Z

John Lennon gets criticised for Imagine like it’s some trite little ditty. I don’t think so. The message of the song is as grounded as it is utopian. It is bluntly existentialist: there is no heaven! Lennon was asking us to imagine no heaven, no hell, no country, no possessions. For him they were abstractions, part of invented belief systems, often corrupt. Given that people hold their

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-16157623276682371162011-07-18T10:33:00.000+01:002011-12-21T16:36:55.460Z

If you lean leftish and read the Guardian you’re supposed to hate Rupert Murdoch. I can’t say I have particular feelings towards the man one way or another even although my contempt for the conservative capitalism he represents is marked. Otherwise not inhabiting the world he commands Murdoch is not on my radar.What I do hate though, and with a vengeance, is the junk news he has peddled for

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-83033193173442529212011-07-12T11:29:00.000+01:002011-12-21T17:31:50.633Z

I notice there are many who don’t get that they are engaged by others for what they deliver. There will be something you have, something you do, something you are, which others want or need. Everybody needs something and you are there to provide it.It’s not a readily acceptable thought because it goes against the standard mythology. It appears to conflict with the moral norms - that it’s all

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-89658751996942722932011-07-08T08:27:00.003+01:002012-01-28T20:18:38.712Z

I enjoyed the clash between Samantha and Charlotte in Sex & The City over how they talked about sex. Charlotte recoiled, sometimes leaving gaps in her sentences where the dirty words went, whereas Samantha let loose. Neither woman had the right measure hence the comedy. Their bust-up reflected how deficient the English language is when it comes to discussing relationship stuff, particularly the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-12978651738463422762011-06-25T08:16:00.000+01:002011-12-21T20:19:35.165Z

It was the summer of 76 and I had an epiphany. The revelatory moment came amid record-breaking temperatures and, in thrall to sun-worship at a time before that was considered dancing with death, I was happy.For a few weeks over July and August I was living alone for the first time. Until then Kev and I had been sharing. The place had been a hub for hanging out. Parties, spontaneous gatherings,

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-43377219808242754302011-06-24T11:18:00.000+01:002011-12-21T20:19:41.982Z

Milly Dowler’s killer was convicted yesterday. He’s already doing life for the murders of two other young women. A further sentence will make no difference to him. I think that guy would be better gone. His termination would be the best thing for everyone, including him. But instead society has to support his existence for a few more decades probably to the tune of millions.Of course I understand

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-57426280081496393022011-06-01T10:20:00.000+01:002011-12-21T21:05:22.369Z

For about five minutes when I was a kid I fancied being a rock star. The moment passed. Much as I loved music and was determined to make it my life somehow, the rock pose always felt a bit dumb. It seemed to take itself over-seriously, hedonistic appearances aside. Rock people were immature, too big on their own importance, not really the way to be I thought. I left band life behind in my early

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-71898657523696487352011-05-29T09:32:00.006+01:002012-01-21T23:16:19.160Z

I woke to Radio 4 this morning hearing Mark Tully quote Sarah McLachlan. I was half conscious but became fully alert with her words about the idealism in one of her songs: "... it’s sort of about loss of innocence and the feeling that for every generation, with every generation, there is a group of individuals who will go outside of the norm and outside of society. We'll be the outcasts, and

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-67470250210846282082011-05-28T12:01:00.000+01:002011-12-21T21:06:14.396Z

Just another fat lass who can sing was how somebody put it. I don’t much care for disparaging remarks like these but I get the point of that one. Adele is hugely over-rated. I don’t mean I dislike her music. She is perfectly listenable and easy to get just like a ton of other artists. And that’s fine. When I say over-rated I mean by critics and commentators, the ones who create the cultural

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-50623820037117613742011-05-11T13:02:00.000+01:002011-12-21T21:06:31.985Z

There’s a lot of talk about “the deficit”. I wonder how important is that really, that such draconian measures are needed to reduce it. In relation to the overall debt that the government in the UK is carrying, a figure in trillions apparently, the deficit is a drop in the ocean. Going back generations the state was small in comparison to what it is today. Throughout the 20th Century the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-12820568631282015292011-04-29T16:07:00.000+01:002011-12-21T21:08:44.835Z

In bygone days there were a lot of things I was indifferent to, a position I reflect back on as luxurious innocence. As an angry old sod now there are too many issues in the world that make me bristle. Mercifully, royals doing their thing is not one of them. I see them as slaves to tradition, all the privileges gained are balanced by the burdens. I bear them no ill will. Actually there is

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-33471112633305069672011-04-26T15:13:00.002+01:002012-01-19T22:48:07.896Z

Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight boxing champ. His victory over James Jeffries in 1910 sparked race riots and apparently even killings. Famously he is supposed to have said: “I’m black and they never let me forget it. I'm black all right. I'll never let them forget it!” To those of us sympathetic to oppressed minorities Johnson’s words get all round approval. They represent the voice

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-21791923045206936192011-02-21T11:12:00.001Z2012-01-21T23:15:31.072Z

In Scotland there are the dours and the no’dours. The dours are well enough identified. They are decedent of the joyless Presbyterians, the ones who relate to pain before pleasure. The no’dours are a bit more difficult to spot, but spot-able nevertheless, usually by their excessive use of humour. In company they quickly descend into a kind of puerile jokey-ness, usually a little harsh, usually at

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-80238971256553195812011-02-21T08:09:00.000Z2011-12-22T07:11:58.313Z

I look for ever more simple definitions of the term “spiritual”. Yet another perfectly mundane way of defining the word would be to say that the spiritual is all the stuff that’s about keeping spirits up.In a way that is what the religious stories, myths and beliefs were there to do: provide a kind of antidote to the troubles of life made all the more acute by heightened awareness. Simply, to

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-52536919273210828442011-02-19T12:14:00.000Z2011-12-22T07:16:47.776Z

There won’t have been too many philosopher-types I imagine, men of reflection, who were charismatic and attractive as well as having lived dynamic lives in the world’s war-zones. Yonatan Netanyahu and Sergio Vieira de Mello would qualify for that unusual order of merit.YONATAN NETANYAHUYoni was the older brother of the current Israeli prime minister. He was army commander at Entebbe and died that

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-46914718327634532532011-02-19T09:13:00.000Z2011-12-22T07:17:06.910Z

I doubt if Facebook will live to be an old institution. Quite apart from the sense that It doesn’t do enough to have staying power, I still feel that virtual social networks are of dubious value. They are really quite antisocial. They allow you to make connections without actually having to. In so doing they are lacking in the things that make connection important. Exclusivity is one of these

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-73712020078012113332011-01-27T14:20:00.000Z2011-12-22T07:21:46.088Z

In a sense most talk is sophistry. An example would be the widespread use of fact-stating language to express values. This is a great song they say when what they mean is I like this song a lot. The latter is a statement of personal preferences, the former a pseudo-objective statement of fact.When using fact-stating language to express values - words like good and bad, right and wrong - the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-79811512093800630332011-01-04T11:24:00.003Z2012-01-21T23:14:46.112Z

I think that good and bad are not on a continuum. I mean that the good events and the bad events which make up a life do not sum together resulting in a certain level of happiness as a consequence. You may count your blessings on reflection and assess the good to have measured up well against the bad. But I don’t think that is how it works. I suggest that the dynamics of good and bad each work

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-63421039101758488832010-12-12T10:28:00.000Z2011-12-22T10:29:18.126Z

I used to think that an eye for an eye was a morally primitive idea. It lacked evolved understanding. Turning the other cheek seemed more elevated.I’m not so sure now. Someone recently pointed out that an eye for an eye was about limiting retribution so that it was proportionate. It was to be one for one not two for one. In other words, you don’t blow someone’s head off just because they offended

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-81960504753148112602010-12-11T14:29:00.001Z2012-01-21T23:12:45.218Z

When I saw Vashti Bunyan as part of a vocal group on a Nick Drake tribute I thought she must have been Nick’s sister or something - there for the token. Her singing was so unaccomplished. Then I saw her again on The Review Show recently and realised she was a respected artist.Apparently she was part of the London scene in the 60s, first taken up by Andrew Oldham (à la Marianne Faithfull) and

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-86487310443871385412010-12-06T12:30:00.001Z2011-12-23T08:27:59.940Z

If I said to you that there were invisible spiders everywhere in the empty spaces around us, that these spiders were undetectable, not amenable to the senses in the way everything else is, then there’s not much you can say to disprove me. You might only conclude that I had finally flipped into weirdness. You could point out that the burden of proof for an assertion should be on the person who

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-76556715932371329142010-11-28T08:31:00.002Z2011-12-23T19:11:31.286Z

They say it was a walk-over for Hitchens but I didn’t see it that way. That’s the thing about debate: unlike in sport where the result is final, with rhetoric who the winner is can still be a matter of opinion. Blair had the harder job. It’s more difficult to argue for a thing than against. If you’re case involves something unprovable and not amenable to evidence, like faith, then it’s tough to

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-77086170122560855542010-11-26T08:11:00.007Z2012-01-28T15:07:34.203Z

One way of struggling through when your art brings no income is to offer some kind of related service. A singer might teach. A musician might build or fix instruments. A poet might do advertising copy. A painter might decorate. But it’s a risky approach. Because through time you become what you do. One day you are no longer an artist but a provider. I got by providing studio services with my

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-25880841689776164392010-11-13T12:13:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:28:36.361Z

The first time I heard Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations I was awestruck. It felt like one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard.It was the piece of work that set the composer up. A few years later he was knighted and became an establishment figure raised from his lower middle class origins. He seemed to enjoy the elevated status.All art is relative to perspective. Most art, even the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-36668231887618272182010-11-12T09:14:00.002Z2012-01-21T23:08:42.621Z

I listened to a Guardian podcast today with Steve Levine, producer of Culture Club. He was talking about Motown and giving insights while deconstructing some of the musical parts from the big hits. What struck me was Levine’s intelligence and articulacy. He was knowledgeable and well informed. He was also clearly passionate about these great works. The journalist conducting the talk, Alexis

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-51929556204798380962010-11-11T14:16:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:17:07.627Z

BT & Talk Talk have won a judicial review re. the Digital Economy Act which allows for sanctions against copyright infringement. Under the Act, after three warnings the possibility exists that Internet connections will be restricted or even disconnected. The idea is full of kinds of problem issues such as the accuracy of IP addresses being able to prove usage.I think I’m right in saying that a

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-48020119325612827372010-11-09T10:29:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:18:06.383Z

I heard Alisdair Gray talk recently and thought what a weird guy. His manner was so eccentric, his timing so bad, his awkwardness making me feel uncomfortable.I also heard Susan Boyle being interviewed and had to put the thing off after a few minutes. She was excruciating to listen to, inarticulate with one word, single sentence remarks, punctuated with lame attempts at humour. And still

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-82679672249114776182010-11-07T08:18:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:35:05.211Z

I fondly recall the Reading Festival in 1975. It was a huge musical event over three days in August.I read in Andy Beckett’s book “When The Light’s Went Out” about how the same week another festival was happening at Watchfield. It was linked to the free festival movement which the previous year had its concert stopped by the police who waded in aggressively. There was a feeling that too heavy a

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-34465871963195181502010-11-06T11:11:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:21:14.163Z

It’s amazing just how accomplished British jazz was in the 1960s. Tubby Hayes was as good as they come. Yet these guys paled up against the American legends: Armstrong, Davis, Coltrane, Gillespie, Parker, Monk and the rest. It wasn’t that the legends were so much better it’s just that the story of jazz belonged to them, the originals, the ones that blazed the trail. The spotlight moved to Britain

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-5002862094976654602010-11-06T07:06:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:22:30.838Z

The Community of Arran Seabed Trust has been set up to establish Scotland’s first no take zone in Lamlash Bay. The intention is to stop fishing there to preserve stocks.The organisation also wants to protect the maerl beds. Maerl is a coral-like seaweed which provides a habitat for a variety of species which in turn are an important part of the underwater food chain. The maerl beds are apparently

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-63577277681265639592010-11-05T12:22:00.000Z2011-12-23T07:23:17.498Z

It was interesting to learn from a Channel 4 documentary about people who were staunchly against nuclear energy, diehard greens, having come to change their view. They were saying that back in the 1980s nuclear used for bombs and nuclear used for power had become fused in people’s minds and maybe that wasn’t so clever. Influenced by protest many coal plants were built which are more dangerous to

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-65557972139087816692010-10-24T10:12:00.001+01:002011-12-23T08:07:56.025Z

Some recent research into public rudeness said that the usual focus was on wilful antisocial behaviour. It was always associated with young males from poor backgrounds. But closer investigation shows that rudeness is much more widespread among people of all social types. It is to be found in any close environment where people are going in different directions at different speeds - e.g. in the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-78568139425020973192010-10-19T12:09:00.003+01:002011-12-23T08:30:01.381Z

I took part in a blog conversation the other day where someone was making the familiar but tedious remark about how the Internet was making it difficult for musicians to earn from their recordings. In particular this person objected to the “pay what you want” option for music available on the likes of BANDCAMP describing it as a begging bowl option. I don’t agree with that. “Pay what you want”

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-14887122670811689542010-09-17T10:10:00.000+01:002011-12-23T08:10:54.886Z

Music means so many different things to different people. It features in just about every human cause from peace to love to war. There are few contexts that don’t have some appropriate music application.One of the things I’ve enjoyed about my career is having so much involvement in such a wide variety of music types. I learned early on that there were distinct systems of value for each type.

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-22333978611991961302010-08-19T13:11:00.001+01:002011-12-23T08:25:45.290Z

I saw a documentary last night about a 14 year-old British girl who has become big in Japan after getting 12-million hits on YouTube dancing around in her bedroom. I stayed with the film trying to get a sense of Rebecca Flint’s talent before realising she had little of it to speak of. Her attraction seemed to be her pubescence, her nubile teenager-ness if you like. The Japanese aren’t much

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-31899600417410662062010-08-15T12:11:00.001+01:002011-12-23T08:13:46.526Z

Which world was it where musicians were able to make reasonable income from recorded works? I ask the question because after a long career in the recording industry it’s not a world I recognise.To make serious money from recordings you had to be party to a major deal. That deal then had to convert to a hit record which very few ever did. And most musicians were never party to major deals

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-91628884429997862252010-04-25T08:12:00.000+01:002011-12-23T08:20:58.871Z

I’ve been pushing a rock up a hill all my career now. It’s no way to live. For a while, granted, that is what you have to do for anything to get going. But to do it without respite for too long is a killer. Even when I would pause for breath I would still have to hold the damn stone in place to stop it from falling back. If I didn’t it would roll down the hill again rendering the ground gained

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-71920922965461529792010-04-19T12:13:00.000+01:002011-12-23T08:14:23.738Z

In a Guardian article yesterday the writer said this: “In none of the arguments have I come across anyone who has properly explained why illegal file-sharing is OK. And if it's not OK, why should its effect on the market be welcomed with a wink?”The argument be this: that art works are ultimately public goods. Copyright originally granted a short term arrangement whereby a work was protected

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-77905164943918532872010-04-11T08:55:00.002+01:002011-12-23T12:17:19.564Z

Vintage Ear Even after working in the biz my adult life my passion for music still grows. Oldest memories back to childhood (Beatles days) are all seasoned with records down the decades. Hearing the old stuff again it feels only richer with time. Subjectivity Authenticity is no more than a metaphor for expressing something that touches you in a particular way. It's not actual. Music is about

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-36864651139947706532010-03-24T18:17:00.001Z2011-12-23T14:01:10.459Z

Humans are animals. They are eating, sleeping, fucking, pissing, shitting beings. Their animal nature is never fully transcended. It is always present at the base. A good human is more than a base animal however. Humans have a whole bunch of add-ons. They have morality, they have talent and intelligence, they have life-plans and perspective and they make agreements. The problem with the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-41131277564316662752010-02-11T14:18:00.000Z2011-12-23T08:19:38.584Z

It took me a while to realise just how tribal humans are. Having spent much of my time embedded in groups, they were so ubiquitous, like a fish in water, I hardly noticed. I preferred to see people as individuals in relationship to other individuals whatever groups they were party to. I failed to understand that relationship dynamics are very much informed by the tribe.Staying outside the tribe

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-73371530694907119292009-12-18T10:44:00.000Z2011-12-23T13:50:02.858Z

There is a misleading premise in the perennial question: what are musicians to do now that the Internet is destroying the music industry.It is misleading because the Internet is not destroying the music industry. It is the record business that is screwed. The music business is in rude health. So to answer the question what are musicians to do: they are to do what they have always done. If they

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-28994857196629498572009-12-12T08:45:00.000Z2011-12-24T09:27:19.146Z

The major music labels behave like royalty. They stand aloof. They rarely come out and defend themselves convincingly against attacks even when they might make a reasonable case. So in the interests of fairness, and given I often rubbish the record biz for its useless career value, here is a point it could make more often in its own defence.It might argue that a major recording contract was a

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-19390685629778219372009-12-08T15:17:00.001Z2011-12-23T14:00:12.255Z

I think that the importance of popular music will diminish. When an art-form becomes something that many people can do, when the skills and qualities associated with it have been resolutely identified, analysed and perfected, it no longer retains one of its essential qualities: uniqueness. For art to achieve consensus value it has to come across unique. The people who create it need to be doing

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-28429912008940984242009-11-30T09:48:00.000Z2011-12-23T13:49:29.751Z

There is a clear distinction to be made between a recording and a copy of a recording.The pure recording itself is a work of art embodying a set of creative inputs such as composition, arrangement, performance, production, engineering, programming, editing, and mastering. The copy is a copy of the art. The art is the work itself and the processes involved in creating it.Historically the record

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-59573163111718404312009-11-17T10:50:00.002Z2012-01-03T22:40:53.657Z

The arrival of the printing press changed history beyond imagining. At the time most people would not have appreciated the full implications of the changes they were living through. With innovation it is subsequent generations who really ring the changes and reap the rewards. In the twentieth century the printing press equivalent might have been the invention of the transistor and later the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-69459979703638389352009-11-08T15:14:00.001Z2011-12-23T13:59:03.749Z

Apparently there are more people involved in music-making now than ever before. Of those involved, a minority do it as a way of life. Of those who do it as a way of life another minority are contracted to the major league. They are the elite. It is the major-leaguers who are currently most affected by copyright issues and the changes brought about by the new tech. It is not too much of an

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-35942928819174476082009-10-30T08:56:00.002Z2012-01-03T22:41:47.578Z

You hear it said all the time that artists should be paid absolutely. It is a fairly empty statement to make. Anybody who wants to be paid for anything has to make a deal of some kind. You don’t turn up uninvited, start digging somebody’s garden then demand payment. You make an arrangement. Likewise, us musicians can’t expect payment simply because we created the work. We need to do a deal first

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-64195053798838841422009-10-06T08:22:00.002+01:002012-01-03T22:41:27.425Z

What to do about free downloading is such a yawn issue now. Recorded music currently is making a transition to a future where it will not be paid for by the unit. That doesn't mean it will necessarily be free. Nothing is. In the UK health care is free only in that if you have major surgery costing tens of thousands you don't actually get a bill. It's not really free of course it is just paid for

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-39306008789915374072009-10-05T11:54:00.001+01:002011-12-23T13:57:57.907Z

I don't buy the notion that an artist has some kind of shamanistic vision. Artists are not in my experience particularly elevated people and often not very decent. They  are generally self-absorbed, vain and insecure (I include myself). Most of them don’t see beyond themselves. I don't care who artists are or what they say any longer. I don't care if I never see them or know anything about them

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-18166896977573403022009-10-04T10:55:00.000+01:002011-12-23T13:55:40.163Z

My medium is music as recorded work. By that I mean the recorded work as an end in itself outside of music's historical attachment to performance and the old traditions of musicianship.The greater part of my personal experience of music has come through the joy of listening to records. I've seen my fair share of live shows and have indeed spent much of my adult life working venues but these

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-17444382197675019662009-09-24T10:01:00.000+01:002011-12-24T12:40:50.100Z

I was surprised to see Lily Allen complain about file-sharing. I had imagined she might have been cleverer than that. Seems not. And all these others in support of her. What planet are they on? Really, the train has left the station with this argument. Technology has destroyed the old way of doing things in the record business. That is never coming back for good or for bad. These artists should

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-31715008567456167582009-09-02T16:05:00.002+01:002012-01-03T22:42:14.031Z

When considering the future of copyright (if indeed copyright has a future) it should be remembered that its perceived purpose was to allow artists to get paid. Historically it never did that job very well as most people party to a recording or publishing deal will testify. Paying creative individuals for their work makes sense. Society wants their output and creatives want to give it. In order

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-78150508995864666142009-09-01T10:06:00.000+01:002011-12-23T14:07:09.135Z

I like Seth Godin's blog. There is an ethical quality to his remarks which belies a deeper morality. His thinking suggests that good ethics are good for business too. There are many days when I don't believe that. Everywhere people seem to get by well enough showing no ethical concerns beyond those demanded by narrow interests. Lack of imagination feels like the default. But there are other days

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-61518846102476057722009-08-29T11:07:00.002+01:002012-01-03T22:42:32.356Z

I wrote earlier about the music-streaming website Spotify. I resisted the temptation there to comment on the deeper issues of access versus ownership. I'll do that now. I think there are legitimate concerns about relying completely on online servers for everything. If a company like Spotify goes down and you don't have hard-copies of your music collection stored locally then you effectively lose

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-71457464685496483382009-08-28T12:08:00.000+01:002011-12-23T14:11:04.733Z

Apple has just given Spotify the green light for its player application to be available for download at the App Store. Very shortly your iPhone will be able to act like a gigantic iPod. You will have ready access there to a vast library of recorded music. You won't own the music (did you ever?) in the way you owned a CD or a download. But you will have full access to Spotify's music servers. What

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-70199253511726659002009-08-27T09:08:00.000+01:002011-12-23T14:11:34.394Z

I think that context is king in everything. It’s a pretty philosophical statement to make but worth making over and again as it’s not widely understood. It is everywhere as a premise in Gladwell’s books from The Tipping Point to Outliers. It’s not what you do but the environment in which you do it that ultimately determines success. That applies whatever your career or ambition. Context is pretty

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-49331579653512765492009-08-18T10:29:00.027+01:002011-12-22T08:00:49.145Z

Man, I miss Edinburgh. When I lived there I loved it more than life. Apart from being one of the most beautiful cities in the world I loved it for its rich intellectual history. In the 18th century it was the Boston of its day, host to the brightest minds. Men like Hume, Smith and Burns graced the taverns and drawing-rooms there trading thoughts and ideas that over two centuries to follow would

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-68230874387106697802009-08-15T21:11:00.013+01:002011-12-22T08:02:59.900Z

I dragged myself furtively on to Twitter recently. I understood there had to be more to it than the inane drivellings of people with nothing better to do. I wasn’t wrong. It’s been an enlightening experience and I am rather taken by it. To get going I followed a handful of strangers who for one reason or another happened to be on the fore-front of my cultural intake that week. One of them was the

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-22600942920027741812009-08-02T10:39:00.001+01:002011-12-24T09:38:00.432Z

I wrote recently about the new Tesco store in town. I bemoaned the absence of a gathering to celebrate the triumph of plentiful food provision. Interestingly this weekend there actually was a gathering. There were thousands in the park with bands and banners. Why were they there? To demonstrate against the closing of a factory. What kind of factory? A whisky factory.     Now, there may have been

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-87266446694309461032009-07-22T20:40:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:41:37.768Z

If there was a single piece of wisdom I had to impart on the world before leaving it, it would take the form of an imperative. I would say this: feed your relationships.There is nothing but nothing in the human enterprise not defined by relationships. Whether sexual, social, spiritual or whatever else, it is the relationship dynamic that determines the experience. People are generally ignorant

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-59906211695104631762009-07-17T20:41:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:49:08.177Z

At my stage in life it gets to feel like you’ve seen it all. Of course you haven’t. You’ve still only seen the tiniest fragment. The infinite detail of existence remains a stranger to you. What you have seen are the types. There aren’t so many of them. There are probably only about six people in the world and they keep coming back. If you were to reincarnate you would meet them all over

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-25413795921196781222009-07-02T12:42:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:49:30.683Z

I was thinking about how thick I am. Thick in the sense that it takes a while for me to process information. It seeps in slowly. I would say however that I'm porous thick as opposed to opaque thick. The seep does get in there eventually. And once it has it is fairly well processed. The things I understand I understand quite deeply. I have a good feel for what I know.This contrasts your more

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-53662330113280985892009-06-27T11:43:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:49:38.613Z

Apart from the excellent new online radio services like Last FM which take you off on a journey of your choosing, the only radio I listen to now is BBC Radio Four. Music radio is so appallingly bad that not only do I get nothing of value from it, but I get a sharp prod of annoyance from the experience of it. It's not the music itself - I'm good with that, even the chart - it's the utterly inane

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-30948227913970549882009-06-26T13:44:00.001+01:002011-12-23T18:55:35.976Z

I never needed much excuse to listen to Michael Jackson over the past thirty years. He made some of the most sublime pop music ever. It wasn't just the exquisite Quincy records that stood out but likewise the ones he made with his brothers concurrently. They had similar qualities and production styles. And not forgetting two decades later the disregarded Invincible album which has moments on it

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-21366411286969817212009-06-21T22:44:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:49:55.471Z

You can never be too cynical when trying to anticipate the behaviour of others. The problem with being too cynical though is that it inhibits action. You need some measure of faith that is not necessarily supported by reality to get going on anything. Sometimes the truth just doesn't do.

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-78165958505677326742009-06-16T11:45:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:50:04.851Z

I shouldn’t really be discouraging people who come to my studio to make music recordings with a view to commercialising them. Providing services is what we do here. What folks do with their work is their choice. And who the hell am I to advise against having a go at something. Any shot at success in the arts is a long shot. Always was.But I have to say: being an unknown and releasing a music

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-52344458414599567642009-06-15T12:39:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:50:16.765Z

I've just visited the new Tesco which has opened around the corner. It's a big shed with every conceivable foodstuff supplemented by a range of other consumer goods. It is situated on what was once Kilmarnock's industrial heartland which has been increasingly given over to retail outlets in the dash to satisfy the endless appetite for material consumption.This is not to rant about consumerism. In

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-53488806437806320272009-06-10T09:47:00.000+01:002011-12-23T18:50:27.575Z

I used to have ideas. I had them pretty much all the time. They felt fresh and original whether they were or not. Most were unusual in not being part of convention. I was no slouch even trying to implement my ideas but soon realised that implementation was hard. Having an idea was one thing, applying it was another. Putting it into practice was so much more difficult. Having it was sparky and fun

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-11723634163791097742009-05-22T13:48:00.005+01:002012-01-04T10:59:02.766Z

The valentines I never knew / The Friday night charades of youth / Were spent on one more beautiful / At seventeen I learned the truth. 
 In her song “At Seventeen” Janis Ian explores the plight of the troubled teenager. It is a sentiment many will relate to, though it was different for me at that age. Towards the end of school-years I went through a curious kind of spiritual transition that

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-67342264909086942992009-05-22T10:39:00.000+01:002011-12-24T09:45:18.907Z

I think that punishing people is always counter-productive. It may appear to get a result but only ever displaces a problem. It provides no intelligent solution to deviancy and merely creates another issue further down the line. Punishment in whatever form is the act of wilfully causing damage to a person as retribution for their bad behaviour. The intention is to desist them from repeat action

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-88279385738536857772009-05-10T12:41:00.000+01:002011-12-24T09:45:28.933Z

Those who talk of “the end of civilisation” when referring to the banality of contemporary culture are hopefully being alarmist. Humanity has always stooped low and still civilisation maintains. That said, I do wonder if the end of greatness is nigh. In the arts the end of greatness comes when there is so much art to be had that any piece is as valid as any other. It is no big deal as there is

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-57787315627742962822009-03-18T14:43:00.000Z2011-12-24T09:45:45.432Z

The business around recorded music has for the last few years been undergoing the most fundamental change in its history. Since the 19th Century and Edison’s time the music industry has been able to generate wealth by turning performances and compositions into recorded copies that could be sold to the public in one format or another. This pay-per-unit model thrived until recently when it has been

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-11144520332277757672009-03-18T11:42:00.000Z2011-12-24T09:45:37.425Z

I never liked exclusivity in relationships. The idea that you should only be with one person was abhorrent. I was incredulous that you were supposed to find this one person to be partnered with and then stick it out with them for the duration. This could be seventy years!Waiting longer to commit these days and then bailing if it doesn't work out is one way to mitigate this arduous predicament. A

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-24140720629546388012009-03-14T09:44:00.000Z2011-12-24T09:45:51.929Z

Good is a quasi-religious concept. It is a form of Platonism and a throw-back to the history of widespread belief in other-worldly entities like embedded spirits. Like such spirits good doesn’t exist.Take music. You could strip any piece down to every conceivable constituent part. You could look at the instruments, the arrangement, the words; you could break down the entire mechanics of the sound

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-88561936999425773432009-03-01T11:37:00.003Z2012-01-31T17:39:33.757Z

I started a piece way back with “I fucking hate banks”. I targeted my bile toward George Mathewson the then head of RBS. I had seen a picture of him with one of his colleagues looking all smug in an article about RBS’s take-over of NatWest. They were still cooing about it years later and were so pleased with themselves. Mathewson’s equally smug colleague was Fred Goodwin. I extended my hatred to

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-32766497969311230522009-02-25T10:38:00.000Z2011-12-24T13:43:37.158Z

Humans are pretty stupid. It took them tens of thousands of years to learn how to plough a field. They took another ten thousand to come up with democracy. There are the occasional clever ones who contribute a really useful thing. Chief among them would be the Einsteins and the Newtons who see behind appearances and understand that things are not what they seem. They show that reality is

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-12128048154016160912009-02-24T10:38:00.000Z2011-12-24T13:43:43.434Z

Facebook. Bebo. Twitter. They might be called antisocial networks. Antisocial as they are devoid of some of the essential elements that define social life. One of these elements is simply being there. Being there entails engagement of all your sensual faculties. The sitting-in-front-of-a-computer equivalent is an imitation and requires so much less. It is a travesty by comparison.To be fully

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-34748881147354532592009-02-22T13:39:00.000Z2011-12-24T13:43:48.361Z

Being agnostic is not a neither here nor there position. I think it is the truest position of all based on one simple insight: that transcendent realities are unknowable. Coming from the word “gnosis” meaning knowledge, an agnostic is someone who literally does not know.Agnosticism is not without its deficiencies though. There may be more to being a believer than just the comfort of having a myth

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-67995888208675077732009-02-09T15:40:00.000Z2011-12-24T13:43:54.816Z

Further to yesterday’s piece mentioning Foster Wallace's take on selfishness I can fairly say I have found it difficult to adapt to the realisation that human morality is not very well accomplished. I will probably never quite get used to how self-interested people are although I am better able to live with it through time. One gets no shortage of practice from daily experience. Most folks I know

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-68940658820440833672009-02-08T11:29:00.002Z2012-01-04T10:47:01.056Z

As I get older I'm increasingly offended by the language of religion. It seems to me an affront to human intelligence and the knowledge humans are party to. After a few decades of life you eventually recognise that reality is particular. It falls into very identifiable forms of experience. These categories of experience are common to all. Each of us breathes the air and finally dies. Although

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-63233917693798954722009-02-05T11:36:00.000Z2011-12-24T09:45:59.043Z

I used to think that the gap between rich and poor didn’t matter much as long as the poorest were sufficiently well off. What was important was subsistence. Equality was a moral and theoretical concept. What mattered was having a secure roof over your head with basic comforts. Not having those things would always be a direct source of misery of course. But absolute poverty was more crucial than

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-31504089952395234932009-01-10T08:41:00.001Z2011-12-24T16:09:14.657Z

I thrive on intimate connections. I mean that in the broadest sense. It doesn't have to be sexual. intimacy can simply be about conversation and disclosure. My kind of intimacy is at odds with exclusivity. Exclusivity by its nature closes down opportunities for intimacy particularly for men as they tend to equate being intimate with sex. Women have more strings to their bow there with a more

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-71876700902583047992008-12-30T09:57:00.000Z2011-12-24T16:06:08.549Z

I have been forever prone to infatuations. For as long as I can remember. Early on they were sweet, lightweight and trouble-free. Into adult life they became exciting, a source of fascination, intrigue and romance. With sex in the mix they were rocket-fuel. But by then they could have a terrible consequence. The downside could plunge me deep into a pit of despair. In maturity I've been better

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-29054925186480185882008-11-17T13:01:00.000Z2011-12-24T16:06:16.662Z

I never knew a woman who had the right moves. They were either too cool or too keen. Cool as far as it goes is fine but invariably the cool ones aren't so cool. They tend to flip and as if from nowhere become too keen. It then appears that the cool was manipulative, just a guise maybe, a seduction technique. I might feel resentful then as if duped into falling for the cool. Neither too cool nor

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-51398387277663308932008-11-12T11:02:00.002Z2011-12-24T16:28:36.012Z

I got a call at 6am on the 16th September to say Dad had died. My first feeling was to be thankful. It was a compassionate response. The last decade of his life with my mother away had been miserable and the final few months particularly awful as cancer kicked in. His life had been long over and he would have been better gone a while ago. He died alone in a care-home having spent his last years

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-6246581436877366062008-11-06T08:42:00.000Z2011-12-25T07:53:23.998Z

Gladwell had a piece a while back in the New Yorker about Enron, the huge US energy company which went catastrophically bust a few years ago. He raised a partial defence of the company's practices (or malpractices given many of the high-ups are in jail for long periods).His comments shed light on matters of corporate deviancy. He pointed out that the Enron fraudsters were hammered for deceit. It

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-82083117825419759092008-11-05T10:42:00.000Z2011-12-25T07:53:30.969Z

Over ten years ago now when Labour was elected and Tony Blair became prime minister it was something of a euphoric moment in Britain. It was a new dawn with all kinds of hopeful pronouncements for the future being made. The new government wasn’t just condemning the old one to history it was going to transform all our futures into the promise that had been denied for so long.Bullshit of course.

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-6998710145608515962008-10-22T13:43:00.000+01:002011-12-25T07:53:36.095Z

The current financial crisis stems not just from a problem of banking itself. It is a problem of the wider corporate world. The banking failures seem curiously similar to these huge corporate collapses where the financial instruments and special entities set up for particular purposes were so opaque that no one could figure them out.The Enron disaster and the banking crisis exposed the corruption

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-41915286988086699032008-10-08T10:44:00.000+01:002011-12-25T07:53:44.781Z

Throughout the 1990s I resisted the change in banking culture. Then with time I began to wonder about it. I considered that if the new financial whiz-kids could handle their elaborate models then maybe fair enough. Their innovations were effectively widening the credit franchise to include almost anyone who wanted to be part of the consumer gravy-train, whether buying a house, a holiday, a car or

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4668517078899000822.post-7112203317581336552008-09-14T09:45:00.000+01:002011-12-25T07:53:52.172Z

In the past, obscurity meant being unheard of. For anyone famous - talented or not - there might have been thousands of equivalents who were consigned to the long grass of history. Not much in the record would ever be kept about these people. Their lives were little documented beyond births, deaths, marriages and census. Any contributions they made would have been undetectable, barely any

CLARK SORLEYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08907796471944604071noreply@blogger.com