The Van Gogh School of Music

Generally speaking (perhaps universally speaking if one restricts one's sample to the "youth of today") people would rather watch a talkie to a silent movie, and will watch a colour film in preference to one in black and white. When James Cameron releases Avatar, you can pretty much bet that people will flock to it so that they can ooh and aah over the 3D, and perhaps one day we will all resolutely favour films with the illusion of depth over the flat movies of yore.

There is, however, good reason to suppose that just after entertainment technology makes its critical forward leap, some of the best work will be done in the antiquated form of the medium that has just been outdated. City Lights, one of Chaplin's most revered films, was a (more or less) silent film made in 1931: four years after The Jazz Singer had pointed the way to the future.

September 9th sees tranche of wallet-emptying releases by The Beatles and the most impoverishing part of it is The Beatles In Mono: a 13-disc boxed set that will set you back £200 (or about twenty euros at the current rate of exchange). That's right, mono ... what you bought the headphones for.

The argument runs like this. The stereo versions of early Beatles albums were only ever an afterthought designed to generate a little additional revenue from the few trailblazers who had decided to invest in the new flash-in-the-pan audio format with one extra speaker. Most of the studio time was invested in perfecting the mono mix. Moreover, the stereo mixes were not "true" stereo: what they did was basically split the mono instrument tracks between the two channels, so you get separation but no soundstage.

If you want to form an opinion on all this, it will cost you twenty euros, or slightly more if you are relying on our domestic and quantitatively-eased currency.

But here's the thing. The Beatles In Mono doesn't just cost a bit more than The Beatles In Stereo: it costs vastly more. You can't just buy Please Please Me in mono together with its stereo counterpart and give them a listen, because the mono version is only available in the boxed set. So you will need to buy the mono boxed set plus as many of the stereo releases as you will want to hear.

Which is as it should be, because elitism costs, and right here is where you start paying.

If you just want to, y'know, "listen to The Beatles", you will be fine with vanilla stereo. But - assuming that you have all this stuff already - you will likely be buying for a second, third or fourth time to take advantage of the widely-hyped remixes and their improved sound quality.

If that is your motivation, can you really afford not to have the mono mixes? Because I can tell you this right now. Very few of those who shell out for The Beatles In Mono are going to end up holding the opinion that stereo is better.

That's a luxury they really can't afford.

The Old School Ties That Bind

There was much hand-wringing yesterday as the results of a report commissioned by the Prime Minister were published. It seems that far from being a land founded on the guiding principles of liberty, egality and fraternity, Britain is increasingly controlled by a minority that has a hereditary grip on society.

For example, if your parents paid for your education at an independent school while additionally paying tax to support the education of others, you are likely to do the same.

Moreover, if you are born into a household that bears a disproportionate tax burden, then you too are likely to pay higher tax throughout your working life. Conversely, if you are born into a household that is a beneficiary of social welfare schemes, you too are likely to become a beneficiary of such schemes.

It seems like the dynastic poor have the entire system rigged!

The real worry here is not the curse that the middle classes are passing from generation, however, but the way in which this curse is becoming yet more severe. If your parents attended university free of charge, you are disproportionately likely to incur serious personal debt attempting to obtain a similar education.

If you have a public school education, you are also likely to face an elevated risk of suicide as a consequence of your increased likelihood of entering the notoriously self-destructive health professions.

The bad news just keeps coming.

We could, of course, look to the government to alleviate the misery experienced by many middle class households. Perhaps parents could be weaned off their dependency on private education by improving public sector education?

Perhaps, but the resources required to effect such a change make it more likely that the government will opt for an alternative policy of alleviating the burden of professional affluence by a staged programme of economic attrition and increased taxation. While tough choices may be ahead for Britain's politicians (memoirs or directorship? House of lords or television pundit?) they are hard at work ensuring that deciding between two alternative jobs is a worry that no Briton need face in the future.

We cannot hope ever to be as lucky as those who inherited the path of truancy from their fathers and forefathers, but it is not beyond belief that we may one day be able to say that Income Support is available to all, regardless of educational background.

Elitists Do It Without The Rest Of You

People tell me that the problem with independent schools is that they are elitist. Under Conservative policies of the past, that might have been true, but when it did away with the Assisted Places Scheme, the Labour government ensured that these schools would go from being elitist to being plutocratic. I know which one I would prefer.

Our current Labour masters have made an odd priority of education. Whereas the old policy was to make the best in education available to all, they have concentrated their attention on making it available only to the wealthy. If the old Socialist ideal was to provide a ladder and a net, Labour have increased the capacity of the net by lowering the attainment standard for good grades and done away with the ladder completely by ensuring that even a university education is now available only to those with significant private means. Why would you need a ladder when you have a greasy pole?

Conservatives are natural plutocrats, but they had the good grace to disguise this with fig-leaf policies that offered opportunity to all. Labour politicians are plutocrats by accident (they are happy for the rich to govern just as long as they pay generously for the privilege) and are determined to provide a level playing field for social benefits such as education and healthcare, however low the level of that field.

All of which makes it interesting to note that when Gordon Brown wanted a gun for hire, he chose Damian McBride, who is an alumnus of Peterhouse, Cambridge: that university's smallest college and one whose reputation is certainly not for egalitarianism or inclusivity. One may decry the use to which Mr. McBride turned that education, but it seems to have been no barrier to advancement under an administration that seems eager enough to deny elitist trappings to today's children.

It's nice when equal opportunity extends even to those with an Oxbridge education, isn't it?