UNHEARD OF
My son is in the music business. He’s just graduated from college, and is full of life and enthusiasm as he works all hours on measly wages for people who don’t seem to be much older than he is. I have learned from him that the music business isn’t what it was. For one thing, a “record label” doesn’t need an address on Madison Avenue or Denmark Street to be taken seriously. Today, a record label might be nothing more than some chancer with a smartphone. It’s just a brand.
It’s like the watch we gave him for his 21st birthday: a beautiful thing, with a renowned name on the dial. But that name is now just one of dozens owned by a huge Swiss corporation whose principal purpose is to shift the quartz movements that it stamps out by the million.
Praise be for boatbuilders. Sure, some areas of the marine trade are as beset by the branding mentality as any other business sector, but buying a boat remains too emotional a decision, and simply too irrational, for real boatbuilding to
