Basically, pubs are primarily for drinking and eating and meeting friends. Anything else happening in the pub is incidental. Even iof some olf teh people in tey room have come along mainly because of the icidental stuff, such as darts or telly or the live music, that doens't change things. Maybe a tone-deaf regular propped in the corner might be a useful accessory in any pub, as a reminder of the primary purpose of the place. There normally are a coupel of those anyway.

And the same kind of thing applies in all the other places we hope music might be accepted - people drinking coffee in a coffee bar, people browsing through books in a library or bookshop and so forth, people waiting for trains in a waiting room in a station...

But what is needed to have to have the licencing people confirm that this is how they see it, in a way which wil reassure the publicans etc that the law is on their side in allowing music.

It occurs to me - couldn't we try and sell the idea that making London a more music friendly place would not only appeal to tourists, but might even help get the Olympic games scheduled here? The authorities really care about that...