URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 08:20 AM

One of my paranoid rants

Jon

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 08:13 AM

Dave Bryant,

That has been my thinking for some time on these issues but I thought I was just being paranoid. I'm pleased to see that if I am paraniod, I'm not alone on this one!

Jon Freeman

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 08:11 AM

Incidental music - I like the sound of that. At least we'd get fair warning when something nasty was about to happen - you know, when the music gets all creepy and sinister....... Would we all need to take our own pianists around with us - like the days of the silent movies?

Kris
(soz - couldn't control small flight of fancy there)

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 08:04 AM

As for karaoke, I am not too sure that it exempt, but there a partial (limited) exemption for pre-recoreded music, if it is incidental. However, not one for live music, if it is also incidental.

This from Hamish

Last Friday (15th) Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell made a speech in the Commons in which she explained the rationale for the Licensing Bill: 'It is a major plank in the government's drive in the Queen's Speech to tackle antisocial behaviour.'

Remember this the Bill that makes the provision of any public concert in a church, even a fund-raising carol concert, a criminal offence unless licensed. The Culture Secretary also said:

'Several speeches by Opposition Members reminded me of G K Chesterton's words: "Since Dickens no one in England has cared for the people's pleasure - the Tories hate the people and the Liberals hate pleasure.'

'As he turns in his grave, Chesterton must be saying, "Thank goodness for a new Labour Government"'

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 06:18 AM

Call me paranoid if you will, but I am still sure that there is a hidden agenda behind this bill. Corporate business likes to have complete control of it's markets these days. THEY want to control what YOU buy - not like the old days where THEY responded to YOUR demand. Fashions are created and then killed off to be replaced by another. This is nowhere more apparent than in in the Entertainment Industry. Amateur and semi-pro music is an area that they cannot control and so they would like to see it hamstrung. Why don't you need a PEL for big screen TV, video juke boxes etc ? If they can get a rid of oposition they hope to fill all the vacuum by their own products.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 05:59 AM

Shambles - how can karaoke be exempt?? Surely that counts as a performance? - How is that different from a folkie with a backing track (not that I'd advocate such things)?

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 05:20 AM

Sorry about that. I am sure I read in hard copy that the letter was from NEW York.

Pubs may soon hear sounds of silence

Wednesday November 20, 2002
The Guardian

Dave McGlade's wake-up call (Letters, November 19) only covers part of the story. This proposed pub licencing reform will complete what the Puritans failed to do 350 years ago. It will stop most impromptu performance, whether of music or of anything smacking of drama or other live entertainment. The singsong? RIP. Also, live music at private functions is no longer exempt.
Not content with this, the legislation would not even allow my opera group to give a charity concert in our local church without applying for the costly licence. And, applying for a casual licence for an spontaneous singsong will need 10 days' notice and involve checks by the police, the fire service, the environmental health department and local residents.

This act is madness and the end of pub life as most of us know it. Historically the law has allowed one or two live musicians in a bar. Please read schedule 1 of the act and see for yourselves, and contrast this with the attitudes to live music in Scottish and Irish pubs. By the way, there is to be only limited regulation of recorded music, karaoke and jukeboxes, and no regulation of broadcast entertainment - terrestrial or satellite. Sad, or what?
Bill Evers
York

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 05:17 AM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/0,6957,180522,00.html

For the the letter from Bill Evers in the USA, and How you can also write to the Guardian, please do...

I couldn't find a link to Dave's letter, to which Bill Evers refers.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 05:09 AM

I will try to get out and buy a copy of todays Guardian for the read. Funny really, Pip had been talking about changing from the Telegraph to another paper for other reasons but maybe this issue will decide which other.

Jon

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 05:08 AM

Nicholas Watt, political correspondent
Wednesday November 20, 2002
The Guardian

It is billed as the greatest special relationship on earth; two countries bound together by common bonds stretching back centuries.
But most Americans are so ignorant of their kinsfolk in Britain they believe the UK is a far off country "somewhere" in the Middle East, according to the outspoken tourism minister, Kim Howells.

"Very often people do not understand the title of the country," Dr Howells told MPs of Commons culture select committee yesterday. "In America, people had heard of London, some had heard of England, no one had heard of the United Kingdom - they thought it was somewhere in the Middle East."

A spokesman for the culture department said Dr Howells, who hit the headlines when he dismissed this year's Turner prize shortlisted entries as "conceptual bullshit", was making a light-hearted comment. Americans should not take offence, the department said, because he had been just trying to illustrate the importance of using familiar expressions.

England and Britain are well known brands, they said, but the UK hardly registered. Even high-placed Americans struggle with the title. Foreign Office mandarins had to have a quiet word with American diplomats in 1998 after the CIA world factbox said that 1801 marked the date of the UK's "independence".

Dr Howells' remarks yesterday came as he admitted that UK tourism chiefs had "failed to persuade visitors to venture beyond London. Asked about a multi-million marketing campaign to persuade tourists to visit other parts of Britain, Dr Howells said the tourism boards had "dismally failed".

Meanwhile, the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, rejected a charge by Ian Reynolds, chief executive of the Association of Travel Agents, that ministers were taking a laissez faire attitude to tourism, applying insufficient focus and resources.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 05:01 AM

"...he sees them through his Londonish point of view."

You couldn't get much further from London than the Shambles and still be in England.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:14 AM

There is a letter from Bill Evers responding to my letter in today's edition of the Guardian, fleshing out some of the other areas affected and giving opera as an example (excellent: I don't want this to seen as just a folk music issue.)

I reckon we have maybe a 50-50 chance of a reply from some official, and then replies to that.   We could have another couple of days worth of publicity here.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 03:18 AM

Agreed Gervase.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 03:02 AM

Inconsequential? Maybe if you've got a narrow, parochial view, guest, but the consequences for a heck of a lot of people throughout England and Wales are pretty grave. Keep it up, guys!

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 02:21 AM

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 02:20 AM

PEL threads. Links to all of them

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 10:08 PM

explanation of What is going on?

shambles is a mudcat gadfly, who enjoys anoying authorities about inconsequential laws, that they really should be anoyed about and trying to get americans and irish to right the wrongs as he sees them through his londonish point of view.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 08:52 AM

Ok, everyone, now to explain what is going on. I had this letter published in the UK Guardian today:

"Comment on licencsing reform has concentrated on the effect on pubs, but the music changes are so all-encompassing they will make it technically illegal go go carol-siging, unless licensed (schedule 1, part 1, 2(c))."

Unfortunately this is an edited form of my original letter and omits the crucial 'for profit' caveat. Nevertheless, R4 were interested enough to ring me to discuss it further. For several reasons I though it would be better for The Shambles to pick up the challenge and he may be doing so as I type.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 07:51 AM

Many thanks.

I have contacted DMcG and will keep you informed......

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 07:48 AM

He has now picked up the message. Thanks to all.

Subject: RE: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: sian, west wales
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 07:38 AM

I have his address, but his number is ex-directory!

sian

Subject: URGENT MESSAGE FOR THE SHAMBLES
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 07:06 AM

I've posted The Shambles an urgent message about PELs - Radio 4 want to talk - but I do not know his phone number to alert him. If anyone does, please call him (time now is noon UK time 19th Nov)