:: THICK AS THIEVES - from parishioner Sam:

Do you think you could put a ‘lost’ notice in the Parish newsletter? I’m hoping that one of the goodly parishioners might be able to help:

There was article published around the turn of the millennium. One of the Vicar’s erstwhile colleagues delivered a sermon on the evils of the new-fangled (ah, those were the days...) methods of listening to and purchasing music via the internet. The preacher, who was clearly in favour of the material virtues of the LP, went on to say something like:

'Personally, I never feel that I really own a record until I've been chased by armed policemen through the HMV carpark.'

My first thought was that it might have been the 'angry' column in the back page of Melody Maker, but now not so sure that it wasn't NME or Q or something else...

For some reason, the sermon stayed with me. Recently I brought it up with an acquaintance, a quirky young Harvard philosopher, surely destined for our TV screens. He did also did the odd spot of tea-leafing himself as an adolescent.

He writes me now:

'Did you say that line "one never owns a record if he has not stolen it" was from the NME? You have no idea how many times I have repeated that idea since we talked about it. Just today at lunch pronounced that "theft is the basis of property." Like Marx, someone asked (I think they meant Proudhon). "No, in a different sense! Let me explain..." '

He is convinced this is a crucial philosophical discovery. Can any of the parishioners identify (or claim) its authorship? And if anyone has the full article, well, that'd be just grand. Who knows, they might have to put up a brass plaque outside the Vicarage…

Thanking you kindly,

 - Sam

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