Dr Tulip leaves his hat on - see Dick's Toolbox for more

Mike's Pith & Wind - Perception
Bill and I are going up to Eumundi in a couple of weeks or so to attend the 65th birthday celebrations for Frontier Touring’s ’Old Man’, Phil Jacobsen, who once was Spectrum’s (and Ariel’s) manager, a lifetime ago now it seems. It was Phil who first quoted the ‘perception is everything’ dictum to me, which, while not being quite as original as his ‘at the crossroads of the precipice’ metaphor some years before, is particularly apt for the business interests we share, while seated conspicuously at opposite ends of the table.
I suppose that, although I often opt for the ‘business’ job description, for my part it’s more of a love affair, a love affair that so rarely pays off financially it’s not worth thinking about, and I suppose you could say that’s a fundamental difference between Phil and me.
And yet, like most generalisations, that’s not entirely true either. To assume that managers and agents are entirely unmoved by music, or even Art in general, is to characterise them as, well, as ‘them’ for a start. It’s much more likely that the astute manager/agent actually appreciates music and musicians (for the sake of argument) more than the majority of the great unwashed public, which may be damning them with faint praise, but I know that Phil in his day has become genuinely excited by the prospect of exposing an artist he’s ‘discovered’ to a wider public in an entirely altruistic way – well, at first anyway.
But, back to ‘perception is everything’. I have received numerous bouquets from people who saw the Morning of the Earth live concerts recently. read more

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Dick's Toolbox - The Anatomy
Lesson
According to an expert on shoplifting, 10% of the population never steals, 10% steals all the time, and 80% steals when they think they can get away with it. I was somewhat surprised by the small number of people who suffer from some form of pathological honesty, but more disappointed by the 80% figure, which indicates that there are 16,000,000 people in Australia who cannot be trusted not to walk off with your wheel barrow if you leave it in the drive unattended for five minutes
But the latest chicanery in the financial markets, which has seen large sums of money evaporate like water in the Simpson Desert, would only serve to confirm that, if anything, 80% may be an underestimation. Once again we shall punish the innocent and reward the guilty, in this case by bailing out the people who got us.. read more