A Guilty Pleasure

I was changing the CDs in the car the other day, they were the usual mixed bag. A 1970's various artists compilation, Robert Plant's latest offering, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Big Big Train, Pet Shop Boys and...Thompson Twins. The Thompson Twins are pretty much my guilty pleasure, I saw them three times in the 1980's, under varying circumstances. The first time was by accident. I had a ticket to see Peter Gabriel at Crystal Palace football ground and he was being supported by an African group whose name eludes me (if indeed I ever knew it), The Undertones and Thompson Twins. I knew a little of The Undertones but nothing of the Twins, so I bought Quick Step and Side Kick and enjoyed it more than I expected. When Into The Gap was released I bought the album and saw them at the Hammersmith Odeon. To show how eclectic my tastes were (and still are), the next week I was back at Hammersmith to see Marillion.

It's funny how music, like smells, is so evocative. Listen to a song that you haven't heard for a while and you get transported back to the time you most associate with it. Thompson Twins songs like Hold Me Now and Doctor! Doctor! take me back to Friday evenings in the summer when I worked in Barking, going to The Victoria for a beer or several. The whole Close To The Edge album by Yes transports me back to Sixth Form, Hey Jude by The Beatles always evokes memories of Romford FC's old ground at Brooklands and the Housemartins song, Happy Hour reminds me of a pub in Kidderminster on a very rainy canal boat holiday in 1986.

Thompson Twins supported Peter Gabriel at Crystal Palace and at Hammersmith were supported by a band I am convinced were Primal Scream, but who probably weren't, but I have no recollection of who supported them on the third occasion I saw them, at Wembley Arena in 1983. That's the thing about support acts, they are either instantly forgettable or sometimes they linger long in the memory because they are either completely hopeless or totally brilliant. The best support acts I have seen, and here I am talking about bands that were previously unknown to me, were Fischer Z and Londonbeat.

Photo: Chewtonia.com

I saw Fischer Z support Dire Straits at the Rainbow, Finsbury Park. Vocalist John Watts bounced on stage and yelled, "I want to be a lemming in London tonight!" at which point  my spirits sank. What lunacy was this? I wondered. Then the band fired up, launched into their opening song, Lemmings, and I was hooked. As soon as was humanly possible I went out and bought their album, Word Salad and totally splendid it was too; I play it regularly to this day. For those of you unfamiliar with the band, and in a vain attempt to pigeon hole them, I would say that they are a blend of idiosyncratic pop, reggae and punk.

More straightforward to categorise are Londonbeat, a bit poppy, a bit of reggae and a bit of soul, probably best known for their song I've Been Thinking About You which was a Number 1 in the US and reached Number 2 in the UK. I saw them support Brian Ferry at Wembley and frankly they knocked the Roxy Music front man out of the park. Even my then wife June, who dragged me to the gig, admitted that Ferry, who short changed the audience with a short, lack lustre set, had been blown away by them. Again, on the strength of the band's performance I bought their album, In The Blood, at the earliest opportunity and it still gets a regular airing some 25 years later.

At the other extreme are the support acts that I would pay good money to guarantee never having to see again. Supporting the excellent Ian Dury & The Blockheads at the Hammersmith Odeon many years ago were poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, highly respected and critically acclaimed, but frankly not my cup of tea and Root Boy Slim and The Sex Change Band who were, and there is no other word for it, diabolical.[1]

Somewhere, a lifetime ago, I read that music critics are the very definition of pointlessness and there is a school of thought that a critic is "someone who has no discernible talent so tries to make someone else feel as useless as he/she is."[2] It's a point of view I'd be happy to go along with because in my experience most music critics have views on what is good and what is not that are diametrically opposed to my own. The New Musical Express (NME) called Thompson Twins "1984's most instantly kitsch mass program of monosodium glutamation of the brain". Aside from the fact that that sentence is actually just a random selection of words, one of which, glutamation, appears to have been the figment of the writer's imagination, the very fact that NME were criticising the band meant to me that they must be OK; doubtless the NME approved wholeheartedly of Root Boy Slim and his chums.

And that's because music is about opinion and taste. Yes, one can say that Egbert Plonk is a better guitarist than Sebastian de Villeneuve and you can probably quantify that can on the basis of ability and talent, but you cannot say that one band are better than another simply because you prefer them. On the basis that Steven Wilson has more musical talent in his little finger than all of One Direction put together, you could argue that Wilson is "better." Unless you are a teenage girl of course, for whom One Direction will undoubtedly trump Porcupine Tree or Wilson's solo output every day of the week, and why is that opinion any less valid just because I don't share it? It isn't.

There's a lot of po-faced tosh written about music masquerading as serious criticism and I make a point of taking the majority of it with a large pinch of salt. I have bought albums on the basis of great reviews and regretted it immediately the disc has started spinning, but equally I've bought albums that have been pilloried as a waste of vinyl or polycarbonate and aluminium[3] and immediately fallen in love with them. As is so often proven when I switch on the CD player in the car and am greeted with disapproval from Val, music is a matter of taste, so while prog and rock may make up most of my diet, I like my guilty pleasures too.

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[1] Root Boy Slim, aka Foster McKenzie III actually died in 1993, aged just 47, so it might appear tasteless to speak ill of the dead, but frankly the band were really, really bad. Mind you, that's just my opinion.

[2] Urban Dictionary dotcom.

[3] The components of a CD.

The Unreconstructed Man

The Sun is Britain's best selling daily newspaper and has a daily circulation of just under two million but everyone denies reading it. Top Gear has an audience of about six million and in 2013 Guinness World Records proclaimed that the show was the most widely watched factual TV programme... in the world, but at the moment many people would probably claim not to watch it. And the reason is beleaguered presenter Jeremy Clarkson whose controversial remarks and recent 'fracas' with a producer have seen the programme taken off the air. Having upset lorry drivers, the French and the Mexicans with uncomplimentary remarks, he has also been labelled racist after the emergence of the "Eeny, Meeny" video and the comment in the Burma Special programme about 'slopes' (which passed me by completely at the time). For the presenter of a motoring programme it is perhaps ironic that he seems so often to fail to put his brain in gear before opening his mouth, yet I wonder if these remarks are actually calculated to shock in something of the manner of "shock jock" Howard Stern. Certainly it seems that Clarkson likes to push the boundaries and see how far he can go.

Jeremy Clarkson by Ed Perchick - flickr

I don't buy the retrospective horror that issues from the BBC about Clarkson's remarks, there must after all be some editorial control before the shows are broadcast and the powers that be at Broadcasting House must, I assume review the content and can't all be ignorant of the possible offence he may cause. We have to believe therefore that his controversial outpourings have some degree of approval. After all, after the first, second or at least third hullabaloo one would expect some senior executive at the Beeb to decide that a firmer grip is needed on approving scripts and that having put that in place, the remarks that have caused such furore would have been inspected and passed for broadcast. To lay all of the blame at Clarkson's door seems somewhat disingenuous to me. When it comes to lamping a producer however, one can see the Beeb's dilemma. In most organisations assaulting a colleague is normally grounds for instant dismissal, but Top Gear is so successful and generates so much income that, as in many cases, one can see BBC executives wondering if treating Clarkson like any other employee might be an example of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. There are plenty of examples of a star performer being allowed to get away with behaviour that would not be tolerated from a lesser light and the outcome of the Beeb's enquiry into the matter may turn out to be another.

Now I have to admit to more than a passing interest in the outcome of the broadcaster's investigation because having applied unsuccessfully for tickets to see Top Gear being recorded in the past, last week I received an email that began "You have now successfully received tickets to attend the recording of Top Gear 2015 taking place on Wednesday 18th March 2015." My initial delight turned to  indecision as I realised that the recording clashed with a football match, Romford v Wroxham, scheduled for the same day and I quickly realised that I could not go to both. Within a matter of hours, however my uncertainty became academic when Clarkson was suspended and the recording was cancelled. If Clarkson is reinstated, or if the recording is rescheduled with a replacement host, I hope to be able to go whenever it takes place (if indeed it does). Interestingly and hypocritically to my mind, the BBC cancelled the latest, unaired shows on the basis of Clarkson's suspension but continue to show repeats of older shows.

As I said earlier, Top Gear is one of those programmes that some people will watch but probably deny. It is irredeemably silly at times, a bit like Last Of The Summer Wine with cars. A famous comedy double act were once described as consisting of an idiot and another idiot who thinks he is clever and that is pretty much the impression that Messrs Clarkson, May and Hammond have cultivated; each thinks that they are cleverer than the other two, but all three exhibit moments of rank stupidity, and you actually have to be pretty smart to pull that off week after week, which they do.

Left to right, James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond

Having started life as a staid car programme, Top Gear has transmogrified itself into a light entertainment show with some relatively serious car reviews. Knowing the way that shows like this are made it is obvious that some of the stunts, particularly the races between car, boat, bike and public transport are carefully stage managed and are far from as spontaneous as they may appear. Then there are the moments of sheer lunacy like customising police cars or ambulances or converting a combine harvester into a snow plough that are played purely for laughs. It is formulaic, but it generally gives the public what they want, which is three middle aged men acting the fool. As I say, like Last Of The Summer Wine with cars. But never forget that Summer Wine ran its course because there are only so many times you can pull the same stunts, tell the same jokes, and keep the public amused; Top Gear may have gone the same way regardless of Jeremy Clarkson and his contentious remarks.

Left to right: Clegg, Foggy and Compo

It has been suggested that certain events in Jeremy Clarkson's private life have in part been responsible for his increased volatility and involvement in greater controversy and it could equally be that as with others before him in many walks of life he has thought himself bombproof, allowing him to feel that he can push the boundaries further than other people without fear of reprisal. After all he has survived previous controversies, perhaps he will survive this one too, only time will tell. If the Beeb let him return maybe he will be contrite, maybe he will tone things down; we shall see.

If truth be told there have been occasions when I've watched Top Gear and winced at one of Clarkson's insensitive remarks, and admit to a certain amount of uneasiness over the apparently casual way in which he makes them. In some ways he reminds me of the small child that learns a rude word and delights in the discomfort he causes in others each time he trots it out. Sometimes I really don't think that he believes that his remarks cause the offense they do, that they are just a bit of fun and is surprised at the commotion that follows them. Jeremy Clarkson is in many ways the ultimate unreconstructed man, an idea he obviously subscribes to in part, having described himself in his newspaper column as "a dinosaur."

Everyone deserves a second chance, but Jeremy Clarkson has had more than one; this latest episode may be a bridge too far. If he goes Top Gear may demise too rather like the band that cannot really replace the lead singer who leaves to pursue a sole career, but never forget that Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross appear to have been rehabilitated and forgiven for their prank call to Andrew Sachs.  It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that Clarkson will return.

Anyone Want Tickets?

A common sight outside the venue for major sporting events or rock concerts are the touts, those men (it always seems to be men) enquiring if anyone has any spare tickets or, perhaps would like to buy one? There was a time, years ago, when these men were considered parasites but now they are pretty much an endangered species as their role has been largely overtaken by the secondary market websites such as Viagogo,  Get Me In! and StubHub.

The secondary market, the traditional way. Photo: Lincolnshire Echo

Now opinion is divided on these websites. On the one hand they provide an opportunity for fans to get their hands on tickets for sold out events but on the other hand the fact that tickets on these sites go for prices that are often more than double the face value opens them up to much criticism. The fact that Get Me In! are a Ticketmaster company, and Ticketmaster are a primary seller immediately makes them a target for accusations that some tickets never actually make it onto the primary market and go directly to the secondary market. My experience of buying tickets online does not give me mush assurance that that is not the case. Last year I booked tickets for a gig by Architects at The Roundhouse for my daughter. Logging on to Ticketmaster at 9am on the Friday morning, tickets were not yet on sale. After refreshing the page several times, tickets became available to book, but were sold out, but guess what, they were instantly available on Get Me In! at vastly inflated prices. Fortunately I was able to buy tickets at face value from The Roundhouse website, where they had gone on sale slightly later than at Ticketmaster.

The Roundhouse

Now the people who run the secondary market websites claim that most tickets they sell are those bought by genuine punters who subsequently realise that they cannot attend the event, but this does not explain why they appear on their sites so soon after the original sale. No one buys tickets and then realises immediately that they cannot go, so either these tickets are appearing so soon on secondary sites because they bypass the primary market altogether or because buyers are purchasing them with the sole intention of selling them on for profit.

The secondary market providers also make the comparison between tickets and cars or houses, claiming that as the owner of a house or a car has the right to sell their property or vehicle, so should a ticket holder. To my mind it's a spurious analogy. Sure, house prices have tended to rise and sellers make a profit, but most people sell to buy another property. Cars, on the other hand depreciate from the moment that you take ownership, but concert tickets or Cup Final tickets are a totally different market and the secondary market makers know this, bumping up prices accordingly. Look, if I want a second hand Volkswagen Golf there are dozens, even hundreds to choose from, but for tickets to see Paul McCartney in Liverpool (face value between £71 and £135) my choice is distinctly limited, as is my chance of getting one on the primary market, but they are on the Viagogo website for up to £1,400 for the sole purpose of making the seller a thumping great profit.

If tickets are in fact bypassing the primary market and this is deemed legitimate practice then the secondary market sellers should be upfront about this and it should be made clear to the public that this is occurring. If it is happening then I believe it is unfair to the general public and should be outlawed. New rules have been introduced to make sellers on the secondary market declare the original ticket price, factors such as age restrictions and limited view but frankly these rules do not go far enough and in any case things like restricted views apart, most of these facts would be known to buyers anyway from their attempts to buy tickets on the primary market.

Back in 2009 the then CEO of Ticketmaster in the US, Irving Azoff, told the US Senate "I don't believe there should be a secondary  market at all. I believe that scalping and resale should be illegal." Harvey Goldsmith, the producer and promoter of rock concerts, Charity events and television was interviewed on radio last week calling for more control of the secondary market. While acknowledging that there is a need for a secondary market (people will always find themselves with tickets to events they then cannot attend), Goldsmith believes that the price of tickets on the secondary market should be regulated to allow only a nominal mark-up, say 10% and I make him right on that.

Irving Azoff. Photo: Forbes

I have to admit to having used secondary market websites to buy tickets in the past. If they have one use it is in sometimes being able to buy better seats than one can acquire when tickets first go on sale, but I have to confess that I have done so through gritted teeth and had to put the fact that I have paid through the nose to the back of my mind. The fact is that I cannot set aside my feelings that I am lining the pockets of either an intermediary company, who have done little to earn my money, or an opportunist who sees that a quick buck can be made.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are one of a few organisations that frown on the resale of tickets. Their website says plainly that, " The ECB is against ticket touting, and is committed to eradicating it wherever possible. The ECB monitors online auction and ticket re-sale sites, and will cancel tickets in breach of terms and conditions: i.e. tickets that are sold on above face value are in breach of ticket conditions, and may be cancelled – leading to refused entry into the ground." Hats off to the ECB, who authorise an official ticket exchange for fans to sell unwanted tickets to other fans at face value. It would be nice if other organisations followed suit, but I won't hold my breath.

Most tickets one buys online come with the purchaser's name and address printed on them, and some venues check that against photo ID when you turn up for the event. At some venues this is easier to enforce than at others, but it is something I'd be happy to comply with if necessary. An argument put forward by the secondary market providers, that they enable fans to get tickets they otherwise could not have bought, just won't wash. If Viagogo or StubHub or Get Me In! were regulated more stringently, for example only being able to add 10% to the face value, more people would be able to get tickets on the primary market. Oh, and don't get me started on "processing fees," or postages, or the fact that some charge you for the privilege of printing your ticket at home because all of those add insult to the injury done to your bank balance when you buy your precious ticket in the first place.

In an ideal world we would all boycott the secondary market , which would collapse if people were stuck with tickets they couldn't sell, but as long as sell out events exist there will be a market and there will be people prepared to pay silly prices for the privilege of seeing their favourite team or their favourite band. I'm just hoping that someone comes along with some rules that have a bit more bite than those that have just been introduced.

What Price The Licence Fee?

While once upon a time the BBC merely reported the news, they now have an increasing tendency to be making it. Programmes like Question Time regularly court controversy, with allegations of bias regarding the makeup of the panel and news stories relating to Israel invariably provoke criticism - from both sides of the fence, it has to be said, which possibly indicates that they are more even handed than their detractors will admit. The recent adaptation of the JK Rowling novel, The Casual Vacancy has been accused of left wing bias by adding scenes that do not appear in the book. Some say that it is a far cry from the BBC's mission to inform, educate and entertain, but on the other hand we all have the capacity to make up our own minds and we equally have the ability to question what is being reported or otherwise shown and form our own opinions.

The BBC is of course funded by the licence fee and that in itself has again come under recent scrutiny with calls for its reform including decriminalising non-payment. The argument goes that in this day and age the licence fee is an anachronism and should go the way of things like the dog licence (abolished in 1987, except in Northern Ireland) and that the BBC should be funded through subscription. Britain is not the only country to have a licence fee but apart from Denmark, Sweden and Norway, few other countries use the income to fund public service broadcasting. Opponents of the licence fee will argue that it gives the BBC an unfair advantage but on the other hand without the constraints that might be imposed by paymasters like advertisers or broadcast company owners, the BBC does at least have the freedom to indulge in minority or niche broadcasting that might otherwise be swept aside by a unremitting diet of populist programming. Not that the BBC doesn't have its own range of programmes appealing to the lowest common denominator, but as broadcasting evolved from a time when there was the BBC or nothing to the position we now find with a whole plethora of broadcasters, the corporation does at least provide a range of programmes that will appeal to a wide cross section of the population. Let's face it, if you had to chose just one free-to-air broadcaster, you would more likely choose the BBC than anyone else.  

And then there is radio. From a purely personal perspective I much prefer the BBC to any other radio broadcaster, if for no other reason than the absence of commercials, which frankly I find even more tedious on radio than on TV. About £27 of your licence fee of £145 is spent on radio and I believe that represents good value for money. There was a time when I listened to radio a lot; that declined over the years but lately I have found that I listen to the radio more and more, chiefly Radio 4 or Radio 5. There is something soothing about it but also, when it comes to news, radio is not driven by a need prioritise stories that have pictures to go with them and is able to concentrate on different issues and go into greater depth, that television news may avoid. In part my returning enjoyment of radio has been driven by having been to the BBC to watch a number of radio programmes being recorded. One of the key differences between attending a radio recording and watching a TV show being made is that a half-hour radio show tends to get wrapped up in under an hour while a similar TV programme may take three hours or more to get completed. I thoroughly enjoy going to radio recordings and there is an added bonus that they are free (well, included in the licence fee I suppose).

If the licence fee was abolished the alternative methods of funding could be subscription or advertising. The former would involve a good deal of technological change but would, some argue force the BBC to put its money where its mouth is because having argued that it represents such good value for money, a subscription would prove (or disprove) their point; presumably they would expect few people not to subscribe. Allowing advertising would, the argument goes, drive down quality, but then at least the other broadcasters would be competing with the corporation on a level playing field.

The current licence fee works out at 40p a day; this is predicated on income that is predictable and pretty much guaranteed. Income from subscription services might be harder to estimate and would inevitably lead to an increase in the price the viewer pays. The current licence fee is set by government but how would the fee for a subscription service be set? Given that it would make the BBC's ability to fund itself independent from government it is probable that that 40p per day would increase. And what of the BBC's values? Freed from the reliance on compulsory funding but at the mercy of the free market and supply and demand, would the whole ethos of the BBC change? There is no reason to suppose that it would but equally there is no reason that it should not. The BBC currently operates under a Royal Charter that gives the corporation obligations such as serving the public interest, sustaining citizenship and civil society and representing the UK. In exchange for discharging these responsibilities it receives its funding through the licence fee;  remove the licence fee and there is an argument that the charter becomes irrelevant and if not swept aside altogether, could be significantly diluted.

It is sometimes argued that people who do not watch the BBC ought not to have to pay the licence fee, but of course although the licence fee is collected primarily to fund the BBC, merely owning a TV and watching any channel (whether you pay to watch that channel or not) requires a licence. In theory, while if the funding of the BBC from the licence fee were withdrawn the BBC would have to obtain its income from elsewhere, this would not necessarily mean that the licence fee would be abolished. It may be that a fee for owning equipment capable of receiving a TV signal would be collected through local taxes as happens in some other countries, making opting out more difficult even if a household doesn't have a television. That may start life as a nominal charge but as sure as eggs is eggs, it would be likely to creep up and then everyone effectively ends up paying twice by paying a subscription and a licence fee. Proponents of the idea that the fee be abolished may find that the alternative is even less palatable.

BBC director general Tony Hall says that he is "open to a new universal levy on every household in the country – even those that do not own a television set." 

There does appear to be a groundswell of opinion in favour of doing away with the licence fee, even BBC Director General Tony Hall backs plans for its overhaul "to reflect changing times" but whichever way things go I somehow doubt that the BBC will suffer. At the end of the day you'll still pay for the BBC somehow, whether you watch it or not.