"..as yet another thread drifts out to sea..."
Because people gotta whine and suck, when they got nothing else...

"trying to play a session in a pub with a TV blaring"
It's a question of what brings in more $ for the pub, unfortunately.... If the music don't sell it, then the music won't last long, and that's a plain and simple fact, unless you have a bar owner who so loves the music that he's willing to run his place at a debt.... Those places tend not to last long.

To people who 'look down' at bar/pub gigs like their skite don't stink, I flip a great big Johnny Cash style bird! Your arrogance is exactly what I'd expect from people so full of themselves (which is to say, 'bullshit')