No Rock And Roll Fun

SAVE THE SUGDENS: The whole Farm Aid thing has started to blow up in everyone's faces - U2 and the Williams moaned at for not taking part, while vegetarians attack Coldplay and Toploader for getting in on Animal Slaughterers in Need. But all of this misses the main point, which is - why is the event happening at all? Admittedly, farmers have had a rough time of it recently (dating probably from about the time they started to feed buckets of ground up sheeps brains to sheep), but then so have a lot of small businesses. A lot of them may have gone out of business, and sure, its a tragedy for the indivduals involved, but one of the things about being self-employed is that you take that risk. Its just the guy who ran the greengrocers round the corner from me didn't get his flaky business propped up by huges influxes of government support. "The supermarkets pay us next to nothing for our meat, and then sell it for huge prices" moan the farmers, as if its our fault they've done deals that are getting them stuffed, like Year 5 pupils running to the dinnerlady because they've realised selling their Dairylea Lunchables to Big Tony for five pence wasn't such a good deal - what makes it more insulting is that that's been the situation for years now, and yet every time the farmers fall for it. Let's face it guys - a semi-essential industry unable to support itself for generations without huge subsidy, hit harder by a mixture of disasters brought on in part by themselves, in part by their colleagues in the industry, and occasionaly by natural events running against them. Sounds familar? You bet, and yet can you imagine anyone seriously suggesting we have charity gigs in aid of the Train Operating Companies?