Useful straws in the wind, and we must hope that the actual guidelines incorporate them.

Firstly it is encouraging to see that the term "spontaneous" here was being used by Howells in what I would say is the correct sense, as meaning something which happens which involves people acting on their accord, and not in the sense a lot of people have pessimistically assumed it should mean - doing something on the spur of the moment without any previous intention. That would indicate that worries that bringing instruments to a session would mean it could not be classed as spontaneous.

Secondly, I was pleased to see the bit where he referred to the fact that "the licensee does not spend money on advertising" as relevant. That would seem to indicate that advertising and publicity organised by musicians and so forth would not stop a session counting as "incidental."

But the man had a bloody nerve talking about "the everyday meaning of a term" in relation to "incidental music", when the only everyday meaning of the term up to now had been the music that gets played in the background in films and so forth.