"I have a theory, which is my theory, which is mine"

A linguist called Dicky Gilbers became news last week. It is always interesting to find out why someone becomes news. Gilbers became news because he accused all songwriters in the yearly Top 2000 from plagiarism – apart from Queen. “Artists think they create their work themselves, but they all sing the same song”, Gilbers is reputed to have said.

I read various reports on his – yes, on his what? His theory? Right, his theory (Monty Python: “I have a theory, which is this theory, which is mine, which is my theory…” et cetera).

Personalised evangelisation?

I show quite some YouTube clips in my lessons on world music. Yesterday I was talking about Arab music (I must confess to adherents of modern education that those lessons consist for a big part of me talking and playing musical examples) and I showed some Arab and Turkish YouTube videoclips. As you know, often those clips have either an advertisement before the clip begins or an advertisement is shown at the bottom of the screen. In the case of my Egyptian, Moroccan and Turkish clips, the same advertisement popped up all the time: our Dutch evangelical broadcast corporation called EO wanted to convince me and my students to listen to their Christian music.