All posts by diana Stone

About diana Stone

Diana Stone is a performing composer and musician playing Piano Violin & Guitar. She currently plays with Orchard and The Sonic Boomers. Previously with Rock/Roots band Elephant Shelf and also the Delta Ladies who mixed roots acoustic music and electronica until the death of Vicky Martin who formed the band which was active for 17 years. Diana composes in a variety of styles from pop to rock to Jazz and and classical music. Diana is also expert in multi-media recording and music production.

Its really not sour grapes honestly

Musings

Sometimes when  you’re standing on the sidelines, watching the next great who ever to stun you with amazing artistry and it turns out to be not quite what you were expecting. You tend to think about all the effort you have put over the years, trying to get off the starting line and still the penny does not drop. How good you are at your particular “Carrière ou compétence” there is always someone that just wins by starting 10 yards from the finishing line.  Well I am about a mile from the finish line still, and I have run this race many times usually being thwarted by  injury or technical misadminer.

Why then don’t I just thrown in the towel, possibly because it’s the only thing I have left? Get rid of that one last glimmer of hope and I don’t know what I would do.  Its a form of self delusion no doubt.

Amazon and the things you find there.

I saw Clockwork Orange when it first came out. We went to see it as part of our English classes in Jan 1972 ish. I must have been about 15 years old.  Curiously at the old Granada (now converted to flats of course) at Clapham Junction.

Very prescient thinking really thinking back. Its another one of those films that was not intended as a motivational booster to proto-violent youth cultures, but it did end up doing that job.

So much so that (and I am citing wikipedia here so it may not be 100% correct):

“The film was withdrawn from British release in 1973 by Warner Brothers at the request of Kubrick. In response to allegations that the film was responsible for copycat violence Kubrick stated: “To try and fasten any responsibility on art as the cause of life seems to me to put the case the wrong way around. Art consists of reshaping life, but it does not create life, nor cause life. Furthermore, to attribute powerful suggestive qualities to a film is at odds with the scientifically accepted view that, even after deep hypnosis in a posthypnotic state, people cannot be made to do things which are at odds with their natures”

I tried watching it again recently but only got through the first 20 minutes, so far but I have decided to watch the whole thing.

The Wendy Carlos sound track still sounds pretty good though.

The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK

Musings, , , , ,

UK Income Inequality

The UK has a very high level of income inequality compared to other developed countries.

Households in the bottom 10% of the population have on average a disposable (or net) income of £9,644 (this includes wages and cash benefits, and is after direct taxes like income tax and council tax, but not indirect taxes like VAT). The top 10% have net incomes almost nine times that (£83,875). As can be seen from the graph, income inequality is much starker at the top of the income scale, with the group with the 9th highest incomes making only 61% of the top 10%’s income.

Inequality is much higher amongst original incomes than disposable incomes with the poorest 10% having on average an original income of £4,436 whilst the top 10% have an original income 24 times larger (£107,937)1.

UK Income Inequality The UK has a very high level of income inequality compared to other developed countries. Households in the bottom 10% of the population have on average a disposable (or net) income of £9,644 (this includes wages and cash benefits, and is after direct taxes like income tax and council tax, but not indirect taxes like VAT). The top 10% have net incomes almost nine times that (£83,875). As can be seen from the graph, income inequality is much starker at the top of the income scale, with the group with the 9th highest incomes making only 61% of the top 10%’s income. Inequality is much higher amongst original incomes than disposable incomes with the poorest 10% having on average an original income of £4,436 whilst the top 10% have an original income 24 times larger (£107,937)1.

Friedrich Engels in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England

“When society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death… its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.”