*Bob*

That's my take on things, DC. What's your advice?

Anyway, I thought these sorts of threads were the reason people tuned-in, not tuned-out?!

Nobody likes to get ripped-off, but I honestly believe the only way to make a living out of music is to is to accept those certain realities which will never change (not for the better anyway), turn any benefits to your advantage - and try not to get so angry about the unfairness of it all that you end-up not being able to string a guitar without wanting to take a can of kerosene and a match to every man, woman and child who owns an iPod. Which would you prefer: losing 100,000 units to piracy whilst selling 20,000 legitimately - plus achieving some radio play and packing your gigs out? or Losing no units to piracy, selling 200, getting no airplay and playing week-in, week-out to a dwindling selection of friends until your audience consists of just you, your girlfriend and the landlord? An exaggeration clearly, but one to illustrate a valid point.

Might be a good time and place to plug your latest CD though, Kingy - don't let this marketing opportunity slip away.

Piracy has been a tool of music promotion for as long as I can remember.. tolerated (embraced even, sometimes) by the industry when it suits. Hardly anything is so black and white. Complicating the ways in which people (who actually pay for music) get to enjoy the music they've paid for 'in a reasonable manner' is liable to be counter-productive. Just a couple of thoughts on the subject in general.

To quote Les from Cr?me Brulee: "It's a sh1t business"

Well.. there it is. Let us celebrate the 'small victory' here on this thread - fought and won on behalf of someone fulfilling an unskilled role taking no longer than an hour - but perhaps spare a thought for the other schmucks - ten ripples away on the same budgetary pond.

Nothing anywhere near as important as playing woman on park bench - I just write the music. And sometimes I even get to keep half of my own money, which is nice.

That's odd.. I have about six hours of programming on the BBC this week which I worked on, commissioned by the Beeb, transmitted by the Beeb - and about half of which, not only were the elements I provided not paid for (not a penny) but in addition I am required by contract to give half of anything I subsequently earn following transmission back to the company who didn't pay me anything in the first place to do the work. But how can this be so, in the uniformly standardised and uber-fair world of everything pertaining to the BBC? Who knows. I expect the Beeb were so busy having to check that their RADA grad got pointlessly paid the best part of ?200 and fed a Standardised Union Sandwich for the privilege of getting their hair brushed and sitting on a sustainable-forestry bench for a mute two-minute shot that they simply didn't have time to check whether the programme they just commissioned from the company down the road (on account of not being able to afford to make it themselves) wasn't made by ten year-olds working down a coal mine.

Think I can help here. Currently bang-on-trend are puce ceilings paired with magenta walls - and stencilled 'cock and balls' motifs under the picture rail. Lordship Lane carpets - cheap as chips - knocks the vat off if you wink at him twice when asking the price.

It's ok for you - You've only made 120 posts in 2+ years. Try to imagine the feelings self-loathing, despair, boredom and.. urgh, dirty.. that come from having made several thousand in the same amount of time.

These sorts of agreements and the jobsworth attitudes to them helps explain why so much of the BBCs programming isn't actually made by the BBC any more.

Do us a favour and don't come back, ????. Give me some hope.

Ms_Lilith Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Surely one would be under the assumption that this > production has acquired funding before airing They have, but unfortunately sixty pence doesn't go far these days. Indeed, once you've underpaid all the people unfortunate enough to work on the show full time (and drafted in some freelancers to work for diddley on the promise of 'seeing them right' on the next job) - there'e hardly anything left-over to pay somebody to sit on a park bench once for ten seconds. Let alone organised the paperwork.

I'm sure there must be better examples out there of man's inhumanity to man than light scuffles over flat-pack furniture and a seat on the 37.

How many number of people in the queue for Ikea stabbed each other? Was it 'one', by any chance?

But let's face it, most* of them are just locked in the bathroom cracking one off 24/7 *Anne Frank excepted, possibly..

I can't get my head around it. It's like some kind of sick, twisted alternative reality - where you go into a shop to buy prawns and they don't have them. I can only pray that a Waitrose and/or M&S reaches us soon - because if there's one thing you can always rely on them having, it's prawns. Unless they've sold out.

Yeah! Morons! They'll rue the day. By God. No prawns? I mean, really...

If they knew what's good for them, they'd have a HUGE tower of imported, lifeless prawns round the back - vacuum packed for, er, freshness - So that no-one who EVER came in looking for prawns would EVER be disappointed. The fools!

Yes, that's the definitive test of a good fishmonger - to go in expecting something specific to be there - without fail.

I'd like to see a Wankyfoods move in on 'the laaaane'. Wankyfoods have done super-well in places like Battersea, Putney and Fulham. They've cornered the market in selling a bag of chopped-up salad with two haricot beans, four toasted pine nuts and a single basil leaf on top (for ?5) - to super-busy people with super-busy lives who only know how to heat, stir, heat and stand. A Wankyfoods would also be a positive move towards the eventual elimination from SE22 of any household with a joint income of less than 20k - which I'm sure most people would agree would be for the best.

Here's which isn't funny - no, not one little bit

Why would anyone want to go and see someone well-known in a play when they can watch selection of failed television performers from the 1980's ham it up instead? Bloody philistines, thelorrovem.

But surely the best way to grow in confidence as a budding writer is to have your early efforts shot down in flames by vitriolic anonymous posters on your local internet forum?