HOME TAPING IS KILLING MUSIC

...AND IT'S ILLEGAL

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows, 

Do you remember that? The little tape symbol with crossbones under it? You always found it inside albums where they were too cheaparse to give you a proper inner sleeve with lyrics.

1980's ME: You're a big CHEAPARSE Huey Lewis!

And it never stopped us taping anyway. We were always swapping albums and tapes. The only thing that stopped us was the fact that tapes were SHIT and went ssssSSSSSSssssssSSSSss in your ear. 

Or maybe you were posh and had "Dolby Noise Reduction". If you did, you may have found like me that it just gave the sssSSSSSSssssSSSSSss noise a slightly lower tone.

Nevertheless, I loved my mix tapes. I made loads of them back in the day. Mainly for myself so I could enjoy a Synth Mix* or an American Heartbeat** mix. But occasionally I'd give them to actual real girls too. 

I seem to remember one girl got a mix starting with "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister. Needless to say, that didn't go anywhere.

Do you remember those C12 tapes that came free with a stereo? We had a couple of them knocking about, no use to anyone. Or so I thought. They had demonstration songs on them, so you could hear what the Ray Conniff Singers sounded like singing "Michael Row The Boat Ashore" in stereo in the shop.

My sister did that thing where you put sellotape over the record tabs, so she could tape over them. I remember she used them to put on little audio plays, which she just improvised. I loved them, she was really funny (at least she was to eight year old me).

My favourite was one called, "He Who Became Famous" which was mostly a comedy about two kids bunking off from school, but turned into a dark morality tale when one of them became a famous singer and then got battered to death in the playground.

"And so you see," she intoned, "sometimes being famous is not as good as it is meant to be."

She could be deep, our Tups. 

And I bet you anything she still has that tape, even with nothing to play it on.

So that's what this random tape, sitting on the side in the office brought to mind today. All sorts of bizarre crap is lying around the office today. I think it is out because we are moving offices over the Christmas break and people are clearing out desks.

YES! My five minute commute is NO MORE! It will now take me a whole TEN MINUTES to get to work!

UNACCEPTABLE!

So that contributed to a last-day-of-term atmosphere at work today. And anyway it is the last day for a lot of us who can't be arsed going in on Monday. Me and Lemon celebrated with a few drinks after work and we had a good laugh at Smock and her fartybottom.

THEN, when I got home, I found ANOTHER mysterious parcel from The Princess! 

Thank you, thank you Princess. I can feel the love from here and it makes me feel all fuzzy inside. I really miss you. But I love having someone like you to miss. If that makes sense.

Like I said, I've had a few drinks. And the inside of my head is all sssSSSSSSssssSSSSSss.

S.

* Fade To Grey - Visage
The Voice - Ultravox
I Won't Let You Down - PhD.
Love Action - The Human League
And so on.

** Foolish Heart - Steve Perry
Hard To Say I'm Sorry - Chicago
Keep On Loving You - REO Speedwagon
We Belong - Pat Benatar
And so on.