It's a bore and a nuisance and anther nail in the coffin of the pubs, true enough. The real pain is that it is going to drive more pubs into the hands of companies running chains of pubs, and as well as wrecking the places they are going to hand down to their managers strict rules based on their interpretation of the law.

And that is going to mean that, regardless of what the courts might actually decide, and of anything Kim Howells might say, unless there are firm and unambigious written exemptions for live music, there won't be any live msic in these pubs, except where there are entertainment licences built-in.

And if there are entertainment licences built-in (involving expensive alterations in proper pubs) the companies are going to want it all done on business lines, and that won't mean our kind of music.