Positive and negative inflation

I'm watching a series called The Shape of Things That Hum, on the history of various synths. After the MiniMoog, Vocoder and Yamaha DX-7, they're doing the Fairlight.

Everyone interviewed - people like Vince Clarke, Rick Wakeman and Nick Rhodes - said they were expensive, but no-one's said just how expensive.

Well, it was over £20,000. In early 1980s money. You could've bought a house in London with that.

Somewhere I've got a copy of a computing magazine from the time, between the first Frankies singles and the first album, where someone from their record company ZTT says that no-one will be able to make good records at home, because no-one except rich people like them can afford a Fairlight.

Now, the cheapest sound card you can get is more powerful. And the house would be worth at least £250k.

Looking for the obit on Ted Heath

I came across these two stories:

Roman Polanski sues for libel in the UK (because the laws are more in favour of the plaintiff) but he's too afraid to enter the country.

And, an odd story to be in the site's top ten most read of the week: English bounty hunter dies: 'The fact that she had relationships with women as well as men was also written out, something that made her particularly angry. "Domino sees it as an insult that the producers are selling it as her life story, when they are completely overlooking what she regards as a pretty basic part of her life," a newspaper diarist quoted a friend as saying this year.'